It’s about to be a very good day for spaceflight drama. The fifth season of Apple TV’s brilliant For All Mankind begins next month with Russian-centric spinoff Star City due not long after that. It’s a great show and the latest example of one of Alasdair Stuart’s favourite sub-genres: bad things happen to competent people in space.

Here are some of my favourite examples, including some you’ve seen before and, odds are, some you haven’t. We’ve included where to find them, and the year of release.

Capsule (2016)

(Available to buy on stream)

It’s 1959, Guy Taylor is the UK’s first astronaut, and no one knows he’s up there. Filmed almost entirely in the capsule, with Edmund Kingsley turning in an exhausted, terrified performance as Guy, this is a neat little thriller. It plays far more with the Cold War side of things than you might expect but it knows what it is and how to do what it does very well.

 

 

Apollo 18 (2011)

(Available on Blu-ray and streaming)

Apollo 17 was the last mission to fly to the Moon. But what if it was the last mission we were told about?

A cracking little found footage thriller, Apollo 18 is steeped in the sort of space lore that warms the cockles of my heart. This folds so much secret history into its running time and has fun uses for all of it. The guest appearance by the Soviet Moon program is great, the payoff is nicely handled and the whole thing crackles along with the feverish tension of two men sitting in a tin can on the Moon in hard vacuum. You’ll watch it once, but you’ll have a good time doing it.

Apollo 13 (1995)

(Available on Blu-ray and streaming)

Arguably Ron Howard’s finest hour, and definitely one of Tom Hanks’. The story of NASA’s ‘most successful failure’ balances intense competency with real emotion and scale. Hanks has rarely been more determinedly principled and the entire cast, including the much-missed Bill Paxton are all on top form. The scene is stolen by Ed Harris as Gene Kranz, running mission control with a fist tighter than his buzzcut. The moment he sits down, for it seems the first time in days, makes me cry every single time.

Moontrap (1989)

(Second hand for this one, folks)

This will feel like I’m making it up, I promise I’m not. Walter Koenig and Bruce Campbell star as NASA astronauts who recover an object from a mysterious spacecraft orbiting the Earth. That object turns out to be an ancient bio-mechanical weapon that assembles a new body for itself before they take it out. The spaceship came from the Moon. There may be more objects there. Time to dust off the last Apollo…

Cheerfully bonkers, incredibly gooey and grim and with a ridiculously fun pair of leads, Moontrap is the B-movie’s B-movie. It’s so good/bad I’m afraid to watch the sequel from a couple of years ago.

Ad Astra (2019)

In a fracture solar system of the near future, a signal sent from the edge of the solar system wreaks havoc and sends one astronaut on a terrifying quest.

This is gorgeous, often crushingly boring and nonsense. The science works so little it annoys even me, Pitt is a charisma vacuum, the pace is ponderous and self-important. Every frame is beautiful but this could and should have been so much more.

 

 

 

The Martian (2015)

The chirpiest botanist in history has a really terrible day. This is so much fun, one of those movies that just clicks and keeps clicking. Matt Damon’s amiable motormouth nerd is a pleasure to spend time with but the movie is made by how even handed it is.

 

 

 

Red Planet (2000)

(Available on streaming and in a cracking Blu-ray from Arrow)

Earth is dying, Mars is being successfully terraformed and something has gone badly wrong. Then five more things go badly wrong and the crew sent to fix it must race against time, and a killer robot, to solve the mystery and get home.

A strong contender for my favourite modern B-movie of all time. Every single science fiction plot is in here for about ten minutes and they’re all pretty fun. Val Kilmer’s great, Carrie-Ann Moss is better, the killer robot is a great design and there’s a surprisingly poignant Terence Stamp video. Enormous fun.

The Europa Report (2013)

(Available on streaming and disc. Go buy it, it’s the best movie on this list)

The tragic loss of the first crewed flight to Europa is explored in a found footage documentary. This, along with Apollo 13 (and maybe The Martian) is the best example of the realities of crewed spaceflight on this list. A great cast (you’ll recognise all of them) play resolutely non flashy roles as the crew of the mission are hit by disaster after disaster and rise to meet them. Not because they’re heroic, but because it’s their job. It’s a brilliant, tense, honest movie with an ending that’s beautiful, hopeful and earned. If you see nothing else on this list, see this.

The first four seasons of For All Mankind are on Apple TV now

Season 5 begins March 27th

Star City, the spin-off focusing on the alternate history of the Russian space program, begins May 29th.