It isn’t that wild of an idea to imagine an astronaut uncontrollably hurtling through space, but the thought of it is one the most heart-stopping feelings there is. Being all alone and in a climate they can’t survive in is one 0f the biggest fears people have on Earth, so when that’s in space, the tension is unlike anything else.
So many movies have managed to convey that feeling of stress, anxiety, and isolation in many different ways. Whether it’s overly ambitious scientists going off the beaten path, or crash-landing on an alien-infested planet, there are so many lost-in-space movies that are equal parts exciting and exhausting.
2018's The Cloverfield Paradox expands on the Cloverfield series tenfold, as the film takes the franchise into space, and the inhabitants on the station don’t just get lost in space, but in different dimensions too.
Just like any sci-fi horror movie, it’s all about the crew members’ fight for survival, and though the fact that it’s tied to the bigger Cloverfield universe is hardly a revelation, the reveal in the final shot is an absolute shock to the system. Though the movie isn’t the most beloved amongst fans, and it’s seen as the weak link in the series, it has inspired the theory that all three Cloverfield movies take place in different dimensions, which makes the film much more interesting.
With the title being Latin for “to the stars,” Ad Astra sees Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) go on a space mission to try and find his father, whose obsession is to find alien life. It has one of the most realistic depictions of space travel in a movie, and the surreal visuals and isolation in space leaves Ad Astra with many parallels to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
It’s stunning and the story is so deep, but interestingly enough, general audiences didn’t love the movie quite as much as the critics did, hence its underwhelming rating on IMDb.
In Event Horizon, after 18 people disappeared on board a ship, a new crew investigates what happened to them, but not without so many weird occurrences happening, as the ship jumps through black holes.
Event Horizon is one of the most claustrophobic sci-fi movies there is, and the title refers to the boundaries around black holes and the events that happen in them, which don’t affect the observer. Though the movie might not have been well received by critics, it actually went on to inspire Interstellar, so much so that the way that Billy explains black holes is the same way Dr. Romilly explains it in the Christopher Nolan-directed ilm.
After almost crash landing on a barren wasteland after a storm, the crew members on board the Prometheus ship make mistake after mistake, and it leads to bloodshed and DIY alien abortions.
When it was first released, there were such high expectations for the movie, as people thought that it was going to detail the meaning of life. But it instead turned out to be a decent Alien prequel that frustratingly laid down a ton of questions but didn’t give any answers.
So many movies about being lost in space feel so isolated, as they feature barely any more than one or two main characters, nobody has carried a sci-fi film on their shoulders as well as Sandra Bullock does in Gravity.
As it follows Ryan (Bullock) working on a space station, Gravity has incredible CGI and the movie is visually stunning, but Bullock’s performance as she’s spiraling through space completely out of control is what ties the film together. The long, sprawling shots and depth of field make the idea of Bullock being completely alone in space that much more exhausting, and it’s one of the best 3D movies ever made.
Granted, the whole of Planet of the Apes takes place on Earth, but after becoming stranded on a planet that he believes to be unknown, George (Charlton Heston) is completely lost in space, even if they are on their home planet. And right up until the final few minutes of the two-hour movie, fans are none the wiser either.
Though it was originally planned to be found in the jungle, the moment George finds the half buried Statue of Liberty on the beach remains one of the most startling endings to a movie to this day.
Though it was bizarrely nominated for Best Comedy at The Golden Globes, The Martian is a sci-fi movie through and through. Not only is it one of the best of the last 10 years, but one of the very best lost-in-space films. Though he isn’t exactly lost, as Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is very much aware he’s on Mars, but he is alone and ultimately left for dead on the planet.
Watney is left to fend for himself and travel thousands of kilometers across the planet. Given that it was director Ridley Scott’s big return to sci-fi, there are few other filmmakers that are so adept at tackling lost in space movies, as Scott has made so many of them.
Being arguably the most ambitious movie ever made, especially considering the limitations in the film industry at the time, 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most comprehensive movies about space travel ever made.
And just like all of the best Stanley Kubrick movies, it’s so open to interpretation, as everything that happens when David Bowman (Keir Dullea) is seemingly being perpetually thrust through space is so bizarre. Between traveling through the LSD trip that is the stargate, and ending up in a house somewhere in the middle of the universe where he watches himself age, nobody has ever been more lost in space than Bowman.
In Alien, though the crew members are in stasis until they reach their destination, they are all woken up early when they detect a transmission from a nearby moon. Despite protests, the crew agrees to land on the moon, which is the biggest mistake they could have ever made.
With most of the movie taking place on the Nostromo with the crew members trying to survive the alien’s wrath, being lost in space isn’t exactly the problem at hand, but it doesn’t help the situation either. The combination of space travel and being hunted by the xenomorph makes it a brilliant sci-fi film.
Though it might be considered that Interstellar is pretty polarizing, it sits at a huge score of 8.6 on IMDb, and it’s rated as the 28th greatest movie of all time on the website.
The film isn’t just about space travel, but time travel and parallel universes too, and as so many of the characters get scattered throughout time, space, and different dimensions, it’s more heart-stopping and intense than any other movie about being lost in space. Interstellar is the gold standard of space travel movies, as its visual effects, sweeping score from Hans Zimmer, and the ambitious scope of the movie are all completely unrivaled.
