The world’s watching as NASA streams live coverage of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), a private spaceflight to the International Space Station. With astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary onboard, it marks the first major government-backed human spaceflights for these nations in over 40 years. India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, who is in the pilot seat, becomes only the second Indian to head to space after Rakesh Sharma’s 1984 mission. NASA’s handling the integrated ops this time.
Missions like Axiom Mission 4 have been imagined and reimagined on the big screen for decades. Here’s a quick binge list of top-rated space films and series that’ve nailed the vibe.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
For years, this Stanley Kubrick directorial has stayed a fan favourite among science buffs for its philosophically dense tone. Released in 1968, the film took inspiration from several short stories and delivered some of the most visually stunning scenes ever made. It explores the themes of human evolution, artificial intelligence (hello, HAL 9000), and extraterrestrial life. With its slow pacing, minimal dialogue, and on-point storytelling, it’s still considered one of the most scientifically accurate depictions of life in space.
Interstellar (2014)
This Christopher Nolan masterpiece remains a hit even a decade after its release. The film has an emotionally loaded theme of humanity’s desperate search for a home beyond Earth, as the current one falls apart. With a stellar cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain, it blends sci-fi concepts, wormholes, black holes, time dilation, with love, sacrifice, and spirit to explore something bigger.
Also read: Axiom-4 Mission: What Shubhanshu Shukla’s trip to ISS means for India’s space program
The Martian (2015)
The Ridley Scott directorial looks at space life from a pretty interesting angle. It tells the story of an astronaut named Mark who’s assumed dead and left behind on Mars. From there, it’s all about survival, pure grit against the odds. The film stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, among others. It was also praised for its scientific accuracy (at least within the frame of its fiction) and is based on the 2011 novel by Andy Weir.
Gravity (2013)
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who also wrote, edited, and produced it, Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in the lead. It follows two astronauts stranded in space after their shuttle gets destroyed. Shot on a $100 million budget, the film raked in over $723 million worldwide. It beautifully portrays the raw beauty and brutal silence of space while drilling into survival, isolation, and just how far humans will go when everything’s falling apart.
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Spaceman (2024)
Adam Sandler’s new space sci-fi on Netflix is adapted from the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. The movie also stars Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin, Isabella Rossellini, and Paul Dano in key roles. If you’re into space theories, this one’s for you. The story follows an astronaut sent on a mission to the far edge of the solar system, where he runs into a strange creature that ends up helping him solve mysteries of the universe, and somehow, his messed-up relationship with his wife.
Also read: Shubhanshu Shukla’s space odyssey: A glimpse into what the future holds for India
For All Mankind (TV Series)
Made by Ronald D. Moore and Matt Wolpert, For All Mankind is available to stream on Apple TV+. The show explores the possibility of an alternate history. “What would have happened if the global space race had never ended?” It imagines a world where space exploration never stopped, especially after the Soviet Union became the first to land a man on the Moon. The series explores how one twist changes everything, from geopolitics to technology, to the world we live in today.
Apollo 13 (1995)
Directed by Ron Howard, it’s an American documentary drama with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, and Gary Sinise in lead roles. The film is based on the true story of Apollo 13 which was on a lunar mission in 1970. It does its best to capture the pressure faced by both the astronauts and the NASA ground crew, working against the clock to bring the damaged spacecraft and it crew safely back home. The film is adapted from the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, and was praised for its historical accuracy.
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Alien (1979)
Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien might be science fiction horror, but there’s no doubt it changed the whole game for the creature genre. The story follows a spacecraft crew that comes across a damaged ship and ends up having a terrifying encounter with a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature. H.R. Giger’s design is still considered one of the most horrifying ever made, and the film itself is praised for its claustrophobic tension. It also gave Sigourney Weaver her breakthrough role.
Captain Nova (2021)
If you are a fan of time travel and space genre, this Dutch film will take you on a wild ride. Set in 2050, Earth is on the brink of collapse, and a catastrophic event is about to end humanity for good. A 37-year-old astronaut time travels 25 years back to fix the problem. But she ends up in her 12-year-old self’s body. With no time to waste, she teams up with a kid named Nas to take down the man behind the mess: the one pushing global warming.
The Expanse (TV Series)
The Expanse was made exclusively for the Syfy network by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The series is based on the novel series by James Corey. Apart from space adventure, the film also explores the complex political landscape, science, and characters that feel like they’ve lived in that world forever. The story is set in the future, where humanity has already taken over the solar system and now runs through three major powers, the United Nations of Earth and Luna, the Martian Congressional Republic, and the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA).
