About Interstellar (2014 Movie)
Interstellar is set in a dystopian future where the human race is dying out. Prompting a group of astronauts to travel through a wormhole in hopes they’ll find an Earth-like planet. Interstellar is probably the closest to a real world Star Trek adventure based on our current level of science and exploration. It’s a wondrous spectacle.
During a recent re-watch I started to think about other movies like Interstellar which question the meaning of the universe. Here’s our picks which we highly recommend you add to your bucket list. Enjoy!
1. The Martian (2015)
Directed by Ridley Scott, The Martian stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It was released in the year 2015.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, The Martian is about an astronaut marooned on Mars and his desperate attempts to try and survive long enough for NASA to rescue him. It’s one of the all time greats of survival science fiction.
2. Oblivion (2013)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Melissa Leo. It was released in the year 2013.
Oblivion focuses on a lone maintenance technician who has almost completed his mission on an Earth completed decimated from an alien war. Completely alone, or so he thought, the maintenance tech discovers woman who survived when her space ship crashed into earth. Together, they do what they can to survive and along the way they discover the truth behind the war with the aliens.
3. Gravity (2013)
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It was released in the year 2013.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, Gravity follows astronaut Dr Ryan Stone who is on her first mission and gets hit by the debris of a destroyed spy satellite which causes her craft to be destroyed and leaves her with the doomed task of trying to find a way back to earth.
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4. Ad Astra (2019)
Written and directed by James Gray, Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland. It was released in the year 2019.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, Ad Astra follows an astronaut who ventures into space in search of his lost father, whose obsessive quest to discover intelligent alien life at all costs threatens the Solar System and all life on Earth.
5. Passengers (2016)
Directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers stars Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, and Andy García. It was released in the year 2016.
Passengers is more of a romantic science fiction movie which borders on abuse when a lone survivor on a transport ship in the middle of a 100 year journey decides to wake up a fellow passenger out of suspended animation because he’s fallen in love with her. However, in doing so he dooms her to a meaningless death on this spaceship in the middle of its maiden voyage. When she finds out the truth she lashes out but not before the degradation of the ship itself forced them to work together to make repairs and save the other passengers still in suspended animation.
6. Elysium (2013)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp, Elysium stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, and William Fichtner. It was released in the year 2013.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, Elysium follows a futuristic earth which is overpopulated and disease ridden while the rich and 1%ers live on the space station called Elysium which orbits around the earth. With this plot point, Elysium explores many themes including classism, immigration and even healthcare.
7. Arrival (2016)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Arrival stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tzi Ma. It was released in the year 2016.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, Arrival follows Louise Banks, a linguist enlisted by the United States Army to discover how to communicate with extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth.
8. Moonfall (2022)
Co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich, Moonfall stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Donald Sutherland, and Carolina Bartczak. It was released in the year 2022.
Moonfall follows two former astronauts alongside a conspiracy theorist who discover the hidden truth about Earth’s moon when it suddenly leaves its orbit. Despite the incredible cast and visual effects, Moonfall was an absolute flop but it’s certainly worth a watch if you’ve got a lazy afternoon planned.
9. Prometheus (2012)
Directed by Ridley Scott, Prometheus stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. It was released in the year 2012.
Prometheus is part of the Alien franchise and is considered to be a prequel to the 1979 film called Alien. It explores the origins of the Engineers and how they created the Xenomorphs in the first instance. However, this search for the Engineers ends horrifically. As most science fiction horror films tend to do. Prometheus was probably a bit too cerebral for the Alien franchise.
10. Apollo 13 (1995)
Directed by Ron Howard, Apollo 13 stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. It was released in the year 1995.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, Apollo 13 is based on a true story in which the astronauts headed to space experience a technical fault on their NASA spacecraft which endangers their lives. This is a survival story in which the failing spacecraft is the antagonist.
11. The Midnight Sky (2020)
Directed by George Clooney, The Midnight Sky stars George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler, and Caoilinn Springall. It was released in the year 2020.
The Midnight Sky is about an aging scientist (played by George Clooney) who must travel across the Arctic Circle to warn away a returning interplanetary spaceship following a global catastrophe on Earth.
12. The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
Directed by Julius Onah, The Cloverfield Paradox stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Daniel Brühl, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo, and Zhang Ziyi. It was released in the year 2018.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, The Cloverfield Paradox is part of the Cloverfield franchise and functions as a prequel of sorts. As it introduces to an earth running out of power and an outer space science experiment by way of a particle accelerator which is designed to create limitless energy for the earth to use. Instead, it opens up portals to multiple parallel dimensions which allows for alien horrors to come through. Alien horrors which we saw in the original Cloverfield film.
13. Event Horizon (1997)
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, Event Horizon stars Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, and Joely Richardson. It was released in the year 1997.
Event Horizon is a cult favourite science fiction horror movie which follows the crew of the rescue vessel, Lewis and Clark, as they investigate the starship Event Horizon which has returned from its maiden voyage – with its crew missing. Bit by bit, however, the crew are taken out by either suicide, victims by hallucinations or are murdered.
The twists in this movie will keep you guessing at every turn.
14. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey stars Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester and Douglas Rain. It was released in the year 1968.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey follows a voyage by a group of astronauts and scientists plus a sentient supercomputer called HAL as they travel to Jupiter to investigate an alien monolith.
15. Armageddon (1998)
Directed by Michael Bay, Armageddon stars Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Keith David, Michael Clarke Duncan, Peter Stormare, and Steve Buscemi. It was released in the year 1998.
Armageddon is a science fiction action film in which an extinction level event sized meteor is headed to earth and the only way they can stop it is by drilling a hole to the center of its crust and blowing it up with a nuclear bomb. The 90s, right? Unfortunately, no NASA trained astronauts have the drilling capabilities necessary to accomplish the mission so a bunch of oil rig miners are sent up to space instead. The results are hilarious, inspiring and exceptionally courageous.
16. The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
Written and directed by William Sachs, The Incredible Melting Man stars Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, and Myron Healey. It was released in the year 1977.
The Incredible Melting Man is a science fiction horror movie and follows an astronaut who body begins to melt when he’s exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. However, he soon realises that if he consumes human flesh then this will keep him alive a little while longer. So, if you’re looking for an astronaut turned radioactive zombie character then you’ve found him in The Incredible Melting Man.
17. The Right Stuff (1983)
Written and directed by Philip Kaufman, The Right Stuff stars Charles Frank, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Lance Henriksen, Scott Paulin, Dennis Quaid, Sam Shepard, Fred Ward, Kim Stanley, Barbara Hershey, Veronica Cartwright, and Pamela Reed. It was released in the year 1983.
One of the great science fiction movies like Interstellar, The Right Stuff follows the Navy, Marine, and Air Force test pilots who were involved in aeronautical research at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as well as the Mercury Seven, the seven military pilots who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight by the United States.
18. Solaris (2002)
Written and Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Solaris stars George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis, and Ulrich Tukur. It was released in the year 2002.
Solaris is a science fiction drama movie where Dr Chris Kelvin, one of the scientists based on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, struggles with the hallucinations he suffers of people who have coke and gone. Hallucinations that talk back to him and interact with him. This causes Dr Kelvin the very purpose of Solaris and what it’s intentions are towards the crew of the space station.
19. Supernova (2000)
Directed by Walter Hill, Supernova stars James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Lou Diamond Phillips, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, and Wilson Cruz. It was released in the year 2000.
Supernova is a rather convoluted film as it shared plot points with other well known science fiction which came out a few years before it (namely Event Horizon and Alien Cargo). It follows a search and rescue vessel which answers a distress signal. One of the men they rescue turns out to be dangerous and altered by a mysterious article who then proceeds to murder the crew. The remaining crew members, Kaela and Nick, must do whatever they can to survive – even if that involves a bit of genetic cross-breeding.
What did you think of this list of ‘Movies like Interstellar’?
What did you think of Interstellar? Have you seen any of these films before?
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