The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This theme refers to films that take place in and around the Space Race, the Space Mission or concern themselves with realistically grounded attempts to explore the Solar System. These are stories in which we see:-
– the prediction of the Moon Landing and Space Race
– the employment of NASA or the cosmonaut space program, the space shuttle and International Space Station as fictional devices
– where the space program is extrapolated onwards to depict credible attempts to explore the Solar System based on known or probable advances in science and technology.
For a more detailed essay and overview of the topic see Films Depicting NASA and the Space Program.
In the same vein as Gravity and The Martian, this depicts spaceflight with scrupulous scientific regard. Essentially Apocalypse Now in space with Brad Pitt on a mission to Neptune to find his father who has gone rogue
Airplane was a parody of the disaster movie that proved a hit. This was a sequel that expands the action aboard the space shuttle and contains many SF in-jokes but to generally lesser effect
Robert Wise’s standout adaptation of Michael Crichton’s first novel about scientists trying to contain a virus brought back from space. This does a very faithful job of capturing Crichton’s fascination with the science
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Godzilla vs Kong that features a giant-sized chimpanzee and gila monster facing off against one another
Richard Linklater makes a charming animated film about a kid selected for a secret Moon Landing. Most of all a film with a lovely nostalgia for growing up in the era of the Moon mission
Probably the best among Ron Howard’s mostly undistinguished films, a dramatisation of the real-life Apollo 13 space mission disaster. Once the film gets the capsule up into orbit, the drama is gripping
Clever and well made Found Footage film about a NASA crew encountering something alien on The Moon’s surface. Falls somewhere between Alien, Apollo 13 and Paranormal Activity
This comes with the clear influence of The Martian, telling a similar but more low-key story of a lone astronaut having problems on the way to Mars. This is less about science ingenuity that his fracturing mental state
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism
Space movies were big following successes like Gravity and The Martian. At complete contrast, this is a genteel laidback film with Richard Dreyfuss as a senior obsessed with boarding a spaceflight
Kate Mara plays an astronaut returned from a space mission strangely changed. Before you can say The Quatermass Xperiment, ‘something’ mysteriously appears to be entering the house at night
The Polish Brothers are a greatly underrated force in US filmmaking. Here they make a fine film with Billy Bob Thornton as an everyday farmer who decides to build and launch his own space rocket
Gravity presaged a big upsurge about scientifically realistic space films. Coming out only a few months before, this concerns a lone astronaut on a space mission to Europa that goes wrong
Charlize Theron becomes paranoid and suspects her space shuttle astronaut husband Johnny Depp of returning possessed by an alien. Essentially an SF version of Rosemary’s Baby
A highly ambitious film about a mysterious alien portal that appears in Earth orbit and the attempts to explore what is on the other side
An excruciatingly unfunny slapstick comedy with Soupy Sales as the janitor at an space laboratory who is accidentally made weightless
Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly adapts a Richard Matheson story about a couple who are offered a terrible choice by a stranger but delivers a bafflingly incomprehensible film
In the aftermath of Star Wars, the comic-book/serial hero was revived in this heavily Star Wars influenced remake that was released theatrically and then served as the pilot of a tv series
In the 1960s, a number of popular comics made films about the Space Race. This was a vehicle for Norman Wisdom, a minor British comic of the era, and has him enrolled in the Navy and launched into orbit
The one other SF film made by Phil Tucker, the director of Robot Monster. An alien invader effort made to capitalise on the Space Race with aliens trying to sabotage rocket launches
The film that launched a host of conspiracy theories in which NASA decides to fake a Mars mission using tv transmissions. A clever and well written thriller that becomes an elegy to the loss of the ideals of the Space Mission.
Buried in a space capsule. A one-man show that takes place entirely in an orbiting space capsule with the stranded British astronaut alternately seeking aid and about to be shot down by both the US and Soviets
The third of J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield films. This is set on a space station thing and has an alternate timeline plot but seems disinterested in little more than creating a bizarre effect every few minutes
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
A CGI disaster film about a journey to the centre of the Earth to restart the magnetic core. This is a film construed as no more than a series of spectacular self-contained disaster set-pieces, often irrespective of any of them making sense
An early Soviet-made film that does an extraordinary job in depicting the launch of a rocket to The Moon. Fascinating to see in terms of its incredible ambition and the things it gets right
An early Robert Altman film about the planning and launch of a Moon Landing starring then unknown James Caan and Robert Duvall. The most realistic depiction of a space launch up to that point.
An action movie inspired by tv’s The X Files involving space shuttle pilots returned to Earth possessed by aliens. The emphasis is more on action scenes than a coherent plot
Conceptually ridiculous film where a spaceship crew in lunar orbit come across a space shuttle that disappeared through the Bermuda Triangle and contains a parasitic organism that is The Devil
Big serious attempt at creating an asteroid collides with Earth film, this came out the same year as Armageddon. Despite arraying much acting talent and effects artistry, this disappears into a melodramatic blandness
This has an interesting premise of a returning space shuttle that crashes and sinks at sea and the attempts to rescue it. Alas, this has the misfortune of being produced on a minuscule budget and with pitiful effects
A breath of originality in a decade overrun with Mad Max copies, a clever and original little film in which the crew of a space station return to Earth after the nuclear holocaust
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
A thorough embarrassment on Christopher Lee’s resume – an early Charles Band film in which Lee is a stranded alien inhabiting the cloned body of priest in a convent of nuns
One of several Mars movies that came out around 1999-2000, this concerns the first manned expedition and their efforts to survive after being stranded on the Martian surface
A groundedly realistic film about an expedition to search for life on Europa that that emerges as a disappointment coming soon after the similar space-based Gravity
The Fast and the Furious series has escalated from films about illegal street racing to essentially superhero films involving ridiculous stunt work that defies the laws of physics. This takes the characters into orbit
Dino de Laurentiis climbed aboard the Star Wars fad with this remake of the classic serial. Against expectation, the film’s campy tone and eye-popping sets and costumes work and it has become an audience favourite
A film with a bad movie reputation where a NASA android returns to Earth damaged and goes amok where it tackles alien invaders come to Earth to abduct women
An unsold Gene Roddenberry tv pilot that is a fascinating almost-ran. Roddenberry rehashes Star Trek by way of Buck Rogers in a post-holocaust setting. This could have made for a worthwhile series
Directorial debut of Roland Emmerich’s regular screenwriter Dean Devlin who has clearly been given orders to make another Emmerich film. Thus we get all the same effects-driven mass destruction spectacle, absurd science and pro-environmental messages
Comedy where Doris Day is a NASA employee drawn into spy shenanigans. It feels as though Day has been cast in a Jerry Lewis role and the whole film is nothing more than a series of slapstick set-pieces
Underrated 1950s SF film, a murder mystery as the equipment at a space research laboratory tries to kill people. Contains the first ever depiction of a computer virus
Sensational drama with Sandra Bullock as an astronaut trapped in orbit. The film is scrupulous and thorough about portraying being in space scientifically accurately and the dramatic set-pieces are gripping in tension
In the aftermath of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this was made by a company specialising in sensationalistic tabloid documentaries. Spielberg’s light show is dropped in favour of conspiratorial government coverup view of UFOs
A gripping work set aboard the International Space Station where the US and Russian crews are suddenly placed at one another’s throats as war between the two sides breaks out down on Earth
A space film set aboard a NASA space mission as two stranded astronauts debate whether to surrender to mutual attraction. In contrast to realistically grounded efforts such as Gravity, The Martian et al, this is a comedy
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
Sequel to the James Coburn-starring Our Man Flint, one of the James Bond parodies of the 1960s. Unlike its predecessor, this one is less interested in the humour and seems to be taking the silliness seriously
An action film set aboard the International Space Station, which has been converted into a prison to house terrorists, who proceed to hijack it, turning the station into a suicide missile headed towards Earth
Throwback to 1950s films like The Quatermass Xperiment with Alex Rebar as an astronaut infected with a condition that causes his flesh to melt. A B movie boosted by great melting effects from Rick Baker
This could be Christopher Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick was cold and oblique, this is a 2001 with a heart. A pleasure to see a film rooted in credible science and dealing with high concept SF
Tobe Hooper’s remake of the 1950s alien invaders classic for Cannon Films has much better effects and more technical proficient than the original but misses any of its paranoid, alienated mood
The fourth film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Nicole Kidman, this badly miscues many key scenes and is missing all the paranoid mood of the original film
This starts out offering a fine astrophysically credible depiction of Mars only to reach for the playbook of Alien cliches to essentially become Zombies on Mars
This is essentially Alien as a scientifically grounded space film like Gravity where an original alien menace attacking aboard the International Space Station
Tobe Hooper’s space vampires film wildly divides audiences and was a flop for Cannon Films. You have to applaud its ambitious conceptual grasp even if it bites off more wild ideas than it is ever capable of coherently presenting
Melancholy film that does some ambitious things on a low-budget about a lone astronaut stranded aboard the International Space Station after contact with Earth goes dead
A children’s movie that is a shameless and derivative copy of E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial, featuring one of the dopiest looking aliens ever designed for a film
Released three months after the Moon Landing, this was a big-budget film depicting a space mission disaster that leaves three astronauts marooned in orbit
This year’s Gravity. A film that has worked out the science to the nth degree (and made it digestible for mass audiences). Ridley Scott rides the drama like a pro and makes one of his most enjoyable films in some time
Ray Bradbury’s book about the human colonisation of Mars is an SF classic for its wistful, nostalgic poetry. This tv mini-series adaptation is killed by a lumbering director who over-explains Bradbury’s imagery in the most literal ways
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
Film with Ryan Merriman as a teen who rebuilds an old Mercury rocket as a school science project and then has to save a NASA mission
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Moonfall. This plays a ridiculous premise with an ingenious absurdity and proves far more entertaining than its bigger budgeted model
George Clooney starred in Gravity and now directs/stars in his own scientifically grounded space film about the last man trying to communicate with a surviving space mission following a catastrophe event on Earth
Brian De Palma makes a surprisingly good hard science film about a rescue mission send to save the first manned Mars expedition and their encountering alien artifacts on the planet
Solid South Korean attempt to copy Gravity and The Martian with the attempts to rescue an astronaut who becomes stranded on The Moon
Comedy from China about a man abandoned on the Moon, the last person left alive in the aftermath of the destruction of the Earth
Disney comedy starring Tom Tyron as an astronaut caught up in comedic antics with alien visitor Dany Saval
Roland Emmerich returns to mass destruction with a film about The Moon on a collision course with Earth, which heads in some conceptually challenging directions
The eleventh James Bond film and one that sees that series trying to compete with the success of Star Wars and taking Roger Moore into orbit. One of the most spectacular productions of the series, it is also killed by a cartoonish unserious tone
From Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti, a film about a nerd who stows away on a voyage to Mars
Quirky and charming sequel to The Mouse That Roared in which the world’s smallest country decides to launch a mission to the Moon and accidentally end up winning the Space Race
Murder mystery set on a moonbase. Aside from assuming the Soviet Union would exist in the future and the datedness of its technology, this creates a surprisingly credible lunar environment set amid East-West tensions. Brigitte Nielsen even gives something approaching a performance
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
Roland Emmerich’s first film, made while he was still a student, involving intrigue aboard a weather control station
Strange film in which a woman astronaut returns from a Mars mission somehow ‘changed’
This takes the old conspiracy theory about the Moon Landing being faked by tv and rather hilariously is a Found Footage film being shot by two filmmakers who have been tasked with fabricating the Moon Landing
A West German-made film where a space mission to Jupiter returns only for the crew to find the Earth deserted. This captures something of the original Planet of the Apes in its better moments
Pearl White was the original serial heroine in The Perils of Pauline. During the 1960s Batman craze, the serial was revived as this campy comedy
A one-gag animated film that essentially reverses the plot of E.T, and has a human astronaut stranded on a planet of aliens and adopted by one boy. More likeable than it has a right to be.
A popular hit based on a book by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, where Ryan Gosling is a scientist who undergoes a space expedition and makes alien contact in an effort to save the Earth
Another cheap Syfy Channel end of the world film. So cheap that the catastrophe mostly ends up being talked about rather than depicted, while the rest of the show runs by disaster movie cliches
The fourth and final of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stores, which shows the professor as an old man in decaying future Britain trying to deal with an alien force manifest through ancient megaliths. A surprisingly bleak and cynical end to the saga but still with the greatness of Kneale’s writing
One of a spate of scientifically grounded Mars movies that came out in 2000, featuring a space mission crew stranded on the planet
Most of the comics of the 1960s made a film dealing with the Space Race and here it is the turn of Don Knotts. Lots of bumbling slapstick ensues in this hardly inspiring entry
Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book about the astronauts of the Mercury Space Program comes out halfway between admiration of the sheer ballsiness of the astronauts and buying into the flag-waving nationalism the Space Race represented.
McG, one of the more empty-headed of modern mainstream directors, makes a big effects-heavy, Young Adult alien invasion film, a genre that has never enjoyed any success. To no surprise, this did not either
The first adaptation of Philip Jose Farmer’s series of novels where every person who ever lived is resurrected on an alien planet is given an abysmal treatment as a tv movie that ditches and rewrites major aspects of the books
After a decade, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby returned for their sixth and final Road movie. Both they and the knockabout comedy are on great form with the show taking on the influence of the 60s spy movie fad and even sending them to The Moon
Unfunny comedy in which Harland Williams plays a bumbling idiot who is recruited to take part in a NASA Mars landing mission. Slapstick inanity results.
Pilot for a forgotten short-lived tv series starring Andy Griffith as a junk dealer who decides to mount his own expedition to The Moon. Snappily written and pulls its premise off with a reasonable degree of plausibility
Amateur production that seems like a version of the X-Men crossbred with The Amazing Race. Not very good on most counts
Another gonzo killer shark film from The Asylum, makers of Sharknado films, this features the entertaining absurdity of evolved humanoid Soviet sharks living on the Moon
Sharknado was an instant bad movie phenomenon; the first sequel felt a forced attempt to copy that. The good news is that with the third entry, the series gets the balance of tongue in cheek absurdity just right
South Korean tv mini-series about the investigation of a moonbase with illicit experiments and something possibly alien unleashed
Quite a good film about a space expedition where the crew members on a mission to Saturn fall into an increasing paranoia and inability to tell what is real due to the drugs used in the hypersleep process
Following the huge success of films like Gravity and The Martian that portray space travel with scrupulous realism, this can be considered the Young Adult version. It pays surprising attention to getting its science right; on the other hand, that doesn’t excuse the gaping implausibilities elsewhere