The movie aims to strip away the perceived glamour of Apollo 11 and not shy away from the hardships Armstrong and everyone involved in the famous mission faced. Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong in this biopic, which takes a deeper look at Armstrong’s life between the years 1961-1969. Image Credit: Courtesy of Universal Studios Although it did not fare well with critics, the $140 million movie made more than $550 million at the global box office. Its plot consists of a ragtag group of miners embarking on a space mission to drill a hole into an asteroid’s surface before it can collide with Earth and destroy the planet. This star-studded space movie features actors Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clarke Duncan and Owen Wilson, among others. The gripping action film details the many challenges this crew faced and made the phrase, “Houston, we have a problem,' a part of pop culture.

The movie screens like a documentary retelling of the unfortunate events that forced the crew to forgo their original plan of landing on the moon in order to return home safely.

This Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton starrer chronicles the true story of the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission. Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Photofest In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on Saturday, take a look back at some of the most memorable space-exploration movies - films that popularized all the elements of sci-fi that audiences now love, including nail-biting space missions, extraterrestrial phenomena and astronaut feats.Ĭheck out 11 of Hollywood's fictional forays into the solar system, presented in alphabetical order, below. Movies like Interstellar, The Martian and First Man highlight everything from the adrenaline of rocket launches to the risks of space travel while classics like Apollo 13, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Right Stuff manage to visually capture the excitement of journeys into the final frontier, a trailblazing triumph for the sci-fi genre. Some pics that take to space have even become household names - earning praise for their depictions of adventurous expeditions and explorations into new frontiers. With their first steps on the moon, the famed astronauts not only made a giant leap forward for mankind, but they also inspired a whole new realm of out-of-this-world storytelling and made space a common setting in film. Since Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong’s historic moon landing on their Apollo 11 mission 50 years ago on July 20, 1969, countless movies set in space have been made in attempts to recreate the same groundbreaking spirit.

Planet exploration movies