Best Space Movies Of All Time

As a space enthusiast it's sometimes difficult to watch space films and not be annoyed at the inaccuracies within the script. We have, however managed to bring together our PERSONAL favourite space films of all time. Some are family friendly and others are just classics you must watch. Enjoy!

Have some free time on your hands and are looking to see the best space movies of all time? You have come to the right place!

This is a genre that has been explored to a limited extent. The movies based on space and the plot lines that explore the adventures of the boundaries of this universe are incredibly amazing.

Surprisingly these movies date back to an earlier time of theatre. The stories were produced to explain the realities faced by the astronauts in outer space as well as in the form of fiction. 

So, you can choose from either one; if you want a jolt of reality, then go for event-based, and if you prefer to watch the production of another person's thought process, then look for something in fiction. Either way, look no further, we have the ultimate list of the best space movies of all time. 

Let's get started!

Our Overall #1 Rated Pick


Alien
  • Cohesive storytelling
  • Steel-cold realism
  • Nice Cinematography
  • Classic

After all these years, this sci-fi adventure, horror masterpiece, still feels acutely contemporary. Ridley Scott, with screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, created this great movie on the idea of space as an infinite new extension of human paranoia and the vulnerability of our bodies.

Sigourney Weaver stars in the movie are Ripley, a crew member of a mining spaceship trudging back home, who is forced to make a detour on receiving a cryptic SOS signal from an isolated planet. Her crew members include Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto, sullen and resentful Brett, played by Harry Dean Stanton, a keen volunteer for the job of exploring the planet, and Ian Holm has played the role of the officer Ash.

The 10 Best Space Movies Comparison Chart

The 10 Best Space Movies of All Time

In this section, we review the Top 10 Space Movies of All Time.

Alien

GENRE: Action, Science fiction, adventure, horror, suspense

DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott

STARRING: Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Henry Dean Stanton

After all these years, this sci-fi adventure, horror masterpiece, still feels acutely contemporary. Ridley Scott, with screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, created this great movie on the idea of space as an infinite new extension of human paranoia and the vulnerability of our bodies. 

Sigourney Weaver stars in the movie are Ripley, a crew member of a mining spaceship trudging back home, who is forced to make a detour on receiving a cryptic SOS signal from an isolated planet. Her crew members include Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto, sullen and resentful Brett, played by Harry Dean Stanton, a keen volunteer for the job of exploring the planet, and Ian Holm has played the role of the officer Ash.

The ship's computer continues to try and decode the message as it diverts the ship to the moon to investigate and provide assistance if needed. What the crew discovers is the first evidence of alien life they have encountered in the universe. However, it is an aggressive extraterrestrial life form that has lethal survival instincts that threaten the crew as they continue their voyage home. 

If you are looking for a package having horror, suspense, and adventure, then this movie is going to have you on the edges of your seats.

PROS

  • Cohesive storytelling
  • Steel-cold realism
  • Nice Cinematography
  • Classic

CONS

  • Low budget movie
Guardians of the Galaxy

GENRE: Action, Science fiction

DIRECTOR: James Gunn

STARRING: Chris Pratt, Lee Pace, Zoe Saldana

If you are searching for a film, which is a masterpiece consisting of action, stunning visual and audio effects, and a soundtrack that causes nostalgia, you should watch this movie. It is going to blow your mind. 

Guardians of the Galaxy is a 2014 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team. The film's cast, led by TV comedian and entertainer Chris Pratt, Benicio Del Toro sci-fi perfection lady Zoe Saldana, and Glenn Close, WWE wrestler help to portray action and fantasy in a realistic way.

A small group of heroes becomes legends as they try to keep an incredible ancient rarity from falling under the control of a truly awful intergalactic warlord. It has a great story with a magnificently mushy 80s popular music soundtrack and heaps of CGI. Karen Gillan (of Dr. Who) is amazing as the twisted Nebula.

A must watch!

PROS

  • Visually stunning
  • Full of comedic ingenuity
  • Great Cinematography
  • Decent storyline

CONS

  • Does Not explain the backgrounds of the heroes
Silent Running

GENRE: Adventure, Drama

DIRECTOR: Douglas Trumbull

STARRING: Ron Rifkin, Bruce Dern, Jesse Vint

This movie is about a simple man faced with a complicated situation. The Earth has become so contaminated that vegetation can't exist there. A space explorer loads up three space vaults with the last remainders of trees. 

The idea is to grow these woodlands in space and return them to Earth when the planet has balanced out. Yet, the program is dropped, and the trees and plants are ordered to be decimated. With the assistance of 3 robots, the researcher assumes control over the spaceship, resolved to spare his woods from obliteration, and perhaps Earth itself. 

The film was made on a plane to give viewers the impact of a spaceship, and it functions admirably. Forced to make a decision between the lives of his buddies and the Earth's last enduring firs and pines, oaks and elms, and creepers and melons, what does the explorer do? Watch the movie to find out!

If you want to watch a masterpiece that is just not only enjoyable but also ahead of its time, then watches this movie. You will love it.

PROS

  • Amazing Effects
  • Brilliant sci-fi film ahead of its time
  • Ecological Sci-Film
  • Unique Idea

CONS

  • Camera results are efficient
Star Wars A New Hope

GENRE: Adventure, Action, Science Fiction

DIRECTOR: George Lucas

STARRING: Mark Hamil, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher

This film provides the viewer with science fiction, adventure, and action all in one package. Princess Leia, Carrier Fisher, has taken designs for the Death Star and is being pursued by Darth Vader in a magnificent star destroyer. The princess's ship tries to stop a boarding by the Empire's stormtroopers. 

Darth Vader enters the ship while Leia puts the designs for the Death Star plans into her robot R2D2, Kenny Baker, helped by C3PO, Anthony Daniels, who, at that point, escapes to the planet Tatooine, while the princess is caught. To know what happens next, you need to watch the movie! It has all the main components that would turn a story into a work of art.

PROS

  • Rewatchable classic
  • Engaging story
  • Well-defined characters
  • Spectacularly effective art design and set decoration

CONS

  • Gun battles onboard the spaceships go on a bit too long
Apollo 13

GENRE: Adventure, Drama, Suspense

DIRECTOR: Ron Howard

STARRING: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton

"Apollo 13" understands the contrast between film bravado and genuine fearlessness. With Tom Hanks, great once more, "Apollo 13" isn't apprehensive about the undeniable fear and suspense at the core of this story. This film and its brave, authentic characters, is a masterpiece.

Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) travels with Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) on what is scheduled as NASA's third lunar landing. To know what makes the mission go wrong, you will have to watch the movie yourself.

The film got an overwhelmingly great reaction from the viewers and got nominated for Best Picture as well. Who would miss a movie of Tom Hanks in which he had done the most exceptional work? This movie is a masterpiece, both captivating and true to its events. It will have you on the edge of your seats.

PROS

  • Impeccable Technical Authenticity
  • Classic
  • An incredible story of overcoming adversity
  • Impressive sight and sound
  • Captivating

CONS

  • Contains some inaccuracies
Star Trek II Wrath of Khan

GENRE: Science Fiction

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Meyer

STARRING: William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, Deforest Kelley

Chief of naval operations Kirk (William Shatner) gets away from the dreariness of a work area employment to work with McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) on another spaceship. Kirk crosses the way of his enemy Khan (Ricardo Montalban), who was the primary opponent in the 1966 Trek TV scene "Space Seed." If you are in love with science fiction and searching to watch something classic, then this movie is for you. Grab it and live the adventure!

PROS

  • Great story
  • Strong Plot
  • Well-executed battle sequences
  • Great dialogue

CONS

  • You have to watch the entire series to understand it
2001 A Space Odyssey

GENRE: Science fiction

DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick

STARRING: Douglas Rain, Frank Miller, Keir Dullea

"2001: A Space Odyssey'' is a great film. This movie is not just for teenagers but also for the children. Grab it and watch it with your family.

When Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and different space travelers are sent on a strategic mission to Jupiter, the ship's computer system, HAL, starts to show abnormal conduct. Paving the way to a tense confrontation among man and machine, this is a movie that will keep you glued to your seats!

PROS

  • Visually Stunning
  • Hugely influential
  • The music is excellent
  • A coherent and easy-to-understand storyline

CONS

  • It does not provide a clear narrative
Gravity

GENRE: Drama, Suspense

DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron

STARRING: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

If you want to see George Clooney in an exciting space-themed movie, then this movie will be perfect for you.

Alfonso Cuarón's great creation that is less of sci-fi movie and more of a thriller set in space makes you breathless with excitement. The story revolves around two space travelers floating in space. 

Sandra Bullock plays the role of Dr. Ryan Stone, who has been sent to space to attach a new gadget to the Hubble telescope. She is under the careful supervision of Matt Kowalski, a space veteran played by George Clooney. Before long, an alarming circumstance unfurls. Yes, you will have to watch the movie to know what happens next!

PROS

  • Entertaining
  • Thrilling
  • Great Cinematography
  • Excellent storyline

CONS

  • Unrealistic space action
The Martian

GENRE: Action, Sci-Fi

DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott

STARRING: Michael Pena, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig

Searching for an inspirational, entertaining, space-themed action movie with good-looking stars? Well, then you have to watch the Martian as it is a good Science Fiction film with all of Ridley Scott's usual cinematic flair.

"The Martian," Ridley Scott's film about a space explorer getting lost in space and surviving on a barren planet. On the most fundamental level, it is a wreck story, one that simply happens to appear like a sci-fi experience. This film is about a man, Matt Damon's Mark Watney, who survives a difficult situation due to his bravery.

PROS

  • A gripping, enjoyable film
  • Superb cinematography
  • Believable

CONS

  • Few missing scenes from the book but as good as the book.
Interstellar

GENRE: Science Fiction, Action

DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan

STARRING: Mathew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Searching for a Christopher Nolan masterpiece? Then, you are in the right place. This fantastic movie will blow your mind with its stunning picture quality, an excellent soundtrack, and complex nature.

Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" is about astronauts going out in space trying to find another home for people on Earth.

Set in a dystopian world of the future, where the second dust bowl and a worldwide crop blight are making the Earth inhabitable, the movie takes you on a journey that you won't forget.

Professor Brand, played by Michael Blaine, is working to find a way of transporting the Earth's population via a wormhole to a habitable place in space.

What happens next, and do they succeed in saving the world? Watch the movie to know more!

PROS

  • Amazing and deep movie
  • Fantastic soundtrack
  • Sci-fi Classic
  • Amazing Cinematography

CONS

  • A bit complex

Buying Guide

If you are planning to watch a space movie with your significant other or your friends on a movie night and somehow you are put in charge of choosing one film that everyone will equally appreciate, you there are a few things that you need to look at before choosing the movie.

Space themed movies have variable genres and specifics amongst them as well. The fiction and the non-fiction are just the two most prominent ones. Choosing a movie has the potential of making or breaking your heart; a bad movie has a substantial chance of wasting your time as well as mood. In order to be able to purchase the best of the best, consider these essential factors!

Types of Space Movies

There are two very distinct categories when it comes to space movies, fiction, and non-fiction. The latter depicts the scenarios that have occurred in reality or a slightly different version of them. Watching these movies give you the experience of looking at realities and difficulties of space life, given the cinematography is top-notch.

The fictional movies take the experience to another level by adding an exciting storyline with characters that do not resemble the real-life astronauts. Instead, they create the involvement of alien and human interaction and include superpowers. It is a long debate as to whether which ones offer a more insightful experience, and in our opinion, whatever excites you should always be the ulterior one, let it be reality-based or fictional. 

Inspirational 

The supreme purpose of a movie is to spark an interest in the field in their viewers, and only those movies which are able to connect with their viewers become inspirational. The entire point of making a movie is that a particular idea is conveyed to the audience. And if that idea can sow the seeds of inspiration even in one person, then that movie is certainly a great one!

Storyline 

A storyline is a way to provide viewers with the inevitable closure, and it exists to help the viewer understand the relation of the movie to the past and future of the story. It is the depiction of the chain of events that get executed in the movie one by one in a particular order to get that inspirational idea across the viewer's mind. 

If the person watching the movie does not understand what is happening in the movie, what was the past, and what the future will be for the movie characters, then they feel lost. A good storyline successfully unravels the series of events in a way the viewer can himself determine what part of the timeline the movie is being screened in and all the other relational timelines as well.

Direction

From the camera to the emotions on the face of the actor and even the storyline, everything works under the command of a director. A skilled person, who knows what is at stake and realizes the importance of the idea behind the movie and has a firm grasp over his crew, can make that idea into a revolutionary reality. 

A director is someone who dictates the possible actions and reactions of actors to the story, the way it should be captured, the angles of the view, and the effects that need to be added in the scene

Always prefer a movie created at the hands of a good director; it will definitely help you seize the day.

Plot

A plot is different from the storyline. The plot is the defining moment of the story being portrayed. It is the point, the idea which keeps the viewer glued to the screen in order to find out what happens next.

The plot is the blank end from where the story can become a huge success or a huge failure. The execution of the plot is also important, but if the plot fails to hold the attention of the people, then the movie will not spark any interest in the movie. 

Often the plot is kept mysterious to some extent, and some of it is revealed to get the public excited about the movie. But you can pretty much guess from the information given if the movie plot is going to spike high or is going to lie flat.

Characters

The characters are the stakeholders of the story, and they depend on how the writer created them and their execution by actors under the order of a director. They are the projections of the writer's mind onto the script, and then become a projection of the director's mind in the shot. 

If the characters hold strong moral values, they can attract the same people towards them. The essence of the characters attracts the attention of people and creates fans who uphold the movie. These characters become the ultimate representatives of the movie, and their depiction can make the viewers fall in love with the movie in mere seconds. 

Acting

Acting is a skill not everyone can acquire. It is an art. To be able to depict another personality is not as easy as it sounds. One has to wear that character's clothes, think like them, and present them to the world as if they themselves are the embodiment of that character. 

To do justice to the role of a character, one has to own the values of that character and lose one part of yourself to it. Even if everything falls apart and is not perfect in any sense, the mere part of acting can have the people hooked to the screens. That is the value of an actor. This is why movies of successful actors attract major crowds, and well, it is a proven deal.

Mind Stimulating 

A movie on a topic as intriguing as space absolutely has to make a person wonder what actually lies beyond our approach. It should be interesting enough to set the mind on a journey throughout the movie into the vast galaxies, from star to star and planet to planet. It should leave a person asking questions that tenderize the soul, and that leaves a person with shivers down the spine. Such a movie is truly mind-stimulating and worth your time, and only these movies deserve to be called cinematic experiences.

Cinematography

When the writers are done writing, and the directors have done their tasks as well, the only ones in the frame are the actors. Of course, the actors should be able to express the right emotions, but it is the job of the cinematographers to capture them at the right angle so that it becomes a real experience for the viewer. The reality of depiction depends upon how the scene is captured and accounts for all or any cinematographic experience of the viewer.

Graphic Designing

When everyone has done their part, and a draft of the movie has been created in the form of a video, the graphic designers come in. The parts that could not have been shot in the actual area are substituted by these graphic designers into real looking backgrounds. 

The movie depends on the graphics to be able to produce a quality picture and a strong background that is not that different from the actual scenario. You can pretty much determine the level of graphics from the movie trailer and decide if it matches up to your quality.

Educational 

If you are talking about a space movie, it is better if it is based on the principles of physics and astronomy. The presence of real-time laws helps people understand these fields a little bit more closely and in a fun way. It does not matter if they are reality bound or fictional; the walk and talk of characters are able to teach this generation at the levels that the schools can never.

Reviews

If you are watching a movie long after its release, then it is safe to read a couple of reviews from authentic movie critics who understand every detail that is critical to its formation and thus can give an honest and essential response to whether it is a waste of money and time or a spectacular piece of art. Every movie has good and bad reviews alike, but they really help to weigh out the necessary stuff for you and help you differentiate between your likes and dislikes. 

Trailer

A trailer of a movie is a short glance at what can be expected from the movie, and you can determine everything from it. From the efficiency of actors to the graphics, an honest trailer can tell you everything you want to know about the movie and still leave you craving for more.

FAQs

Are space movies only for children?

Not at all, space movies are subjected to the audience of every age, depending upon the content they wish to display. There are simple movies that easily explain storylines to movies that entail weird truths about the universe.

Is Star Wars a space movie?

Star Wars is based on extraterrestrial life and scenarios and depicts fictional realities of multiple timelines; thus, it is a space movie. We have explained earlier that fictional movies can be space movies as well.

Are the reality bound space movies of Hollywood a depiction of encounters of NASA astronauts?

Movies like interstellar and gravity are the space movies that are built on the principles and difficulties that the NASA astronauts face in outer space, but at times the story is tweaked a little to make it more appealing to a knowledgeable audience.

Final Words

We are lucky to exist in a time where we can learn so much about the realities of life beyond the skies and that too so easily. All of the information is in our grasp, just a click away, everything has been turned to reality to help us better understand our position in this universe.

It is so very interesting to watch these movies with friends and family and actually learn something while having fun. We have reviewed the top 10 best space movies of all time for you. Hopefully, you will find one that tickles your fancy.

Happy Watching, People!