When it comes to movies involving space travel, Interstellar is a name that will never get too old. This movie has become a timeless classic which is evident by the way theaters ran houseful when it was re-released recently. However, you can’t watch a movie over and over again no matter how good it is. So, here is a list of 10 movies that in one way or another are like Interstellar.
1. Gravity
- Release Date- October 11, 2013
- Cast- Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Orto Ignatiussen, Mark Sanger, Basher Savage, Phaldut Sharma
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 7.7/ 96%
- Director- Alfonso Cuarón
If your love for Interstellar dwells in its cinematic beauty and the constant feeling of uncertainty and impending doom, Gravity is probably the closest you can get to replicating that same essence. Gravity takes us to Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first space mission. She is working under the command of veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky. While on a spacewalk, an accident takes place that kills their entire crew leaving only Stone and Kowalsky alive and stranded in space. With limited oxygen, they have to find a way to get back to Earth but things are not in their favour.
2. Ad Astra
- Release Date- September 20, 2019
- Cast- Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, Kayla Adams, Natasha Lyonne, John Ortiz, Loren Dean
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 8.3/92%
- Director- James Gray
Ad Astra will bring you the same aspect of space travel for the well-being of life on Earth as well as the emotional turmoil one faces while watching Interstellar. This movie takes us to the near future where Earth is threatened by unexplained energy surges emitting from Neptune. Astronaut Roy McBride is called upon to lead an expedition called “Project Ad Astra”.
NASA believes that the surges are coming from a mission that was launched 30 years ago with Roy’s father H. Clifford McBride, as the commander to look for extraterrestrial intelligent life. Roy’s mission is to find his ship, see if he is alive, and make the surges stop. This movie is thrilling as well as an emotional ride which is paired with some really good CGI so if you are looking forward to recreating the Interstellar experience, Ad Astra might be exactly what you’re looking for.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Release Date- May 1, 1968
- Cast- Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Douglas Rain, Margaret Tyzack, Leonard Rossiter, Robert Beatty
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 8.3/92%
- Director- Stanley Kubrick
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most ambitious science fiction movies to have ever been made. This movie reimagines human evolution and takes intelligent alien life into account to enable humans to evolve. According to the movie, a monolith was put on Earth millions of years ago and after its appearance, Humans learned to make tools and kickstarted evolution. Fast forward to the year 2001, when a similar black monolith was discovered on the Moon, and its origin is traced back to Jupiter.
A space expedition is launched to Jupiter with five astronauts, led by mission commander Dr. Dave Bowman. Three of them hibernate while Bowman and Dr. Frank Pool operate the spaceship along with an AI named HAL 9000 that controls all of the craft’s functions. However, both astronauts come to realize that HAL might be malfunctioning leading to better untold revelations.
4. The Martian
- Release Date- October 2, 2015
- Cast- Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Mackenzie Davis, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Jeff Daniels, Aksel Hennie
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 8/91%
- Director- Ridley Scott
The Martian perfectly mirrors the theme of the indomitable human spirit as seen in Interstellar. This Interstellar-like movie revolves around astronaut Mark Watney, one of the astronauts who landed on Mars on an expedition mission. However, they are hit by an unexpected storm the storm hits Mark badly and he is presumed dead forcing his crewmates to leave him behind. As it turns out, the storm just knocked out Mark and he was alive. Now, Mark has to wait for the next Mars mission so that he can go back home.
The problem with that plan is that he is short on supplies. However, since he is a botanist, he finds a way to grow food for himself on Mars and sustain himself with his intelligence and the will to survive while waiting for his crewmates to come and rescue him. This movie is an absolute masterpiece that one should not miss out on if you are thinking to watch movies like Interstellar.
5. Sunshine
- Release Date- April 5, 2007
- Cast- Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Cliff Curtis, Benedict Wong, Mark Strong, Hiroyuki Sanada, Troy Garity, Paloma Baeza, Chipo Chung
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 7.2/76%
- Director- : Danny Boyle
Sunshine is another movie that takes us to a distant future where Earth’s sun is dying and a space mission, Icarus is launched in 2050 to drop a massive explosive in the sun and reignite it. However, Icaris goes MIA and the mission fails. However, after 7 years in 2057, another mission Icarus 2 was launched, and while crossing Mercury, they received a distress signal from Icaris.
A debate breaks out among the crew if they should change their course and look for survivors. In the end, Icarus 2 decides to go look for the lost spaceship in hopes of finding survivors and using the payload armed on the ship to have an even better chance at reigniting the Sun. But, things do not go as planned leading to a fatal end.
6. Moon
- Release Date- July 17, 2009
- Cast- Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Kaya Scodelario, Benedict Wong, Robin Chalk, Matt Berry
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 7.8/90%
- Director- Duncan Jones
Moon takes us to astronaut Sam Bell who is stationed at a facility on the moon all alone. His task is to after the harvesting of Helium-3, the current power source on Earth, rocket it back to Earth at regular intervals. He is serving his three-year contract all alone only to be assisted by an Artificial Intelligence named GERTY. With just two weeks left for his return to Earth to his wife and daughter, he gets into an accident and is knocked unconscious.
However, when he wakes up he finds himself in the med-bay and finds out that he is not alone on the station. Even though a restricted area now, he goes back to the place where he met the accident only to find something that completely messes up his belief system.
7. Passengers
- Release Date- 21 December 2016
- Cast- Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Spaihts, Andy Garcia, Aurora Perrineau
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 7/30%
- Director- Morten Tyldum
Passengers might not share the same plot details as Interstellar, but it brings to us the theme of existence that rings somewhat close to the chart-breaking film. This movie takes place in a future where humans are on their way to colonize another planet named Homestead 2 which is 120 years away from Earth. The ship is carrying 258 crew members and 5,000 passengers who will be the first to inhabit the planet.
However, one of the passengers, Jim Preston, who is a mechanic is woken up by a malfunction in his hibernation pod 90 years before arrival and is unable to send himself back into hibernation. Doomed with loneliness and spending the rest of his life on the ship, he wakes up another passenger, and as they face conflict and gradual acceptance, they find out that the ship is in danger and now, the lives of all 5,000 passengers rest in their hands.
8. Armageddon
- Release Date- June 30, 1998
- Cast- Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, William Fichtner, Peter Stormare, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jessica Steen, Will Patton, Ken Hudson Campbell, Keith David
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 6.7/43%
- Director- Michael Bay
Armageddon once again puts the faith of humanity in the hands of a handful of heroes and while the VFX work done on this movie might not be the best, it still holds up pretty well. Armageddon shows us that an asteroid the size of Texas is headed toward Earth. In a desperate attempt to save the planet, NASA hires the best deep-sea oil driller in the world, Harry Stamper, and his crew to go to space, land on that asteroid, drill a hole and detonate a nuclear bomb within the asteroid to destroy it.
However, since this is the first of its kind mission, things don’t go as planned and the fate of Earth’s survival is hanging in the middle. Will the drillers be able to achieve success in their mission? Watch this movie to find out.
9. Prometheus
- Release Date- June 8, 2012
- Cast- Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, John Lebar
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 7/ 73%
- Director- Ridley Scott
Prometheus replicates the theme of venturing into the unknown to find existential answers as seen in Interstellar but with an additional element of graphic horror. Set in the same universe as the Alien movies, we see that in the year 2089, an archeologist named Doctor Elizabeth Shaw and her partner Charlie Holloway discover a star map to a planet that could hold the secrets to human evolution.
In the year 2093, both of them with a crew led a deep-space expedition to reach this planet and learn about The Engineers who might be responsible for the creation of all of humanity. However, as they reach the planet, horrors beyond compare come after them and they are left to find a way to survive while also stopping the last surviving engineer from destroying the whole of humanity.
10. Spaceman
- Release Date- February 23, 2024
- Cast- Adam Sandler, Paul Dano, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Sadie Sandler, Isabella Rossellini, Sunny Sandler, Lena Olin
- IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes Rating- 5.7/50%
- Director- Johan Renck
Spaceman is a recently released movie that might have not done very well among the audience because of inaccurate promotions. This movie takes us to Jakub Procházka, a driven and ambitious man who wishes to atone for the sins of his father against the Czech Republic. He becomes the country’s first astronaut and is sent on a mission near Jupiter to study an anomaly seen in the sky.
However, he leaves behind his loving wife and a soon-to-be-born child and while being extremely alone, his ship is infiltrated by an unexpected and uninvited guest who becomes his sole companion on the journey while also giving him insight into his life and what he needs to do when he gets back home. Spaceman might not be the best movie out there but if you want to experience the same emotional turmoil Interstellar offers, this movie is what you are looking for.
