Plot: Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun – but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.

KBZ’s Take: Sunshine is a film with two great acts and a third act where the genre and tone completely change. The first two acts feature some of the best Hard Sci-Fi and technical details of space travel in the subgenre. However, the film derails a bit when you get to the third act. Sci-Fi turns to Horror with a subplot that is a bit hard to believe.

With that said, Sunshine is still one of Danny Boyle’s best films with many great performances from Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Benedict Wong and Hiroyuki Sanada. It’s not only one of the best films of the subgenre but the best film about how we often take the Sun’s rays of life for granted.

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/3Jys36e

Plot: A crew of international astronauts are sent on a private mission to Jupiter’s fourth moon.

KBZ’s Take: We’ll start off by saying if you’re a fan of Alien (1979) and more horror-based Sci-Fi films, you probably will not enjoy this film. It’s more akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Interstellar (2014) with its realistic portrayal of how a manned mission to Europa might look and feel.

It falls much more within the Hard Sci-Fi realm though it also uses a Found Footage format that adds to the eventual tension and ‘discovery’.  We don’t want to say much more about the film than that, but it’s one of the best films of the subgenre that you absolutely should not miss.

Additional Lists: Top Films Set in Space You Haven’t Seen #1, Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #9

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/3HlwUFU

Plot: During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.

KBZ’s Take: We couldn’t leave Alien off our list as it’s THE film that defined Space Horror as a subgenre. Alien was so popular at the time that it spawned numerous subpar knockoffs including Inseminoid (1981), Forbidden World (1982) and Creature (1985). None of those films could recreate the deep space horror that Ridley Scott so expertly crafted.

Though the film is mostly known for its gut-wrenching horror and infamous Xenomorph (The Alien), it also featured some surprisingly accurate details of space travel. The industrial design of the ship fits in with the film’s advancement of deep space mining as an industry, the hibernation pods would also make sense for years or decade-long space travel and the inclusion of dated (Mother) and advanced (Ash) artificial intelligence fits with a corporate controlled, yet commoditized, business.

Additional Lists: Best Future Noir Films #20

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Plot: A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

KBZ’s Take: Another film on our list – Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (2009) – covers the entire Apollo 11 mission and crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. However, First Man is the definitive film about Armstrong and one of the best films of this subgenre.

The film is a perfect balance between the personal life of Armstrong and the psychological toll of the Space Race on both Armstrong and his family and the numerous failures by NASA to beat the Soviets to the moon. It’s a special film of the subgenre that relies on Historical Events vs. Sci-Fi to provide an exciting, pulse-pounding ride.

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/44iASJo

Plot: With only three weeks left in his three-year contract, Sam Bell is getting anxious to finally return to Earth. He is the only occupant of a Moon-based manufacturing facility along with his computer and assistant, GERTY. When he has an accident, however, he wakes up to find that he is not alone.

KBZ’s Take: Moon features quite a few Hard Sci-Fi elements – some which we can discuss and some we cannot (due to spoilers). The first we can discuss is GERTY – Sam’s AI assistant. Though GERTY comes off as typical AI we’ve seen in other Sci-Fi films, it’s the emotional support GERTY gives to Sam while he is isolated on the Moon. The film is one of the better films of the subgenre that focuses on the isolation and monotony of work in space.

The other Hard Sci-Fi element is much more interesting (and controversial) – the film’s reason for Sam being on the Moon in the first place – to mine and extract Helium-3. Though the extraction of Helium-3 as an abundant source of clean energy sounds utopian, there are proponents and skeptics of its feasibility. Either way, Moon is one of the better films that grounds both its narrative and environment in accurate scientific fundamentals.

Additional Lists: Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #7

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/44nw06G

Plot: The true story of technical troubles that scuttle the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, risking the lives of astronaut Jim Lovell and his crew, with the failed journey turning into a thrilling saga of heroism. Drifting more than 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts work furiously with the ground crew to avert tragedy.

KBZ’s Take: Like First Man (2018), Apollo 13 doesn’t rely on Sci-Fi to tell a suspenseful tale about the dangers of space travel. But unlike that film, this film is in a Docudrama format to recreate the intense moments of the Apollo 13 mission.

Though the history of the failed Moon landing mission is well-known, it’s the performances of Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton as the Apollo 13 crew and Gary Sinise and Ed Harris communicating via NASA ground control that elevate the film to an edge of your seat experience. Because Docudramas and Historical Event Films often have a pre-defined outcome, it’s a credit to Director Ron Howard and the cast for transforming a mundane subject covered in History class to a must-see film of the subgenre.

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/3Jypm4G

Plot: Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission. Her commander is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), helming his last flight before retirement. Then, during a routine space walk by the pair, disaster strikes: The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Ryan and Matt stranded in deep space with no link to Earth and no hope of rescue. As fear turns to panic, they realize that the only way home may be to venture further into space.

KBZ’s Take: Though Gravity does trade some scientific inaccuracies for narrative elements, it’s still noted as one of the most scientifically accurate films about astronauts in outer space.

Where the film features some inaccuracies are with the orbiting debris, the orbits of the other space stations and some of the astronauts’ equipment. However, even these inaccuracies are based on actual science though some creative leeway was used to advance the plot. What the film does get right (according to actual astronauts) were the views of the Earth from space, the set designs of the space station and hyperrealism in the film.

Additional Lists: Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #6

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/42khVoD

Plot: Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world’s most advanced supercomputer.

KBZ’s Take: Though 2001: A Space Odyssey is often ranked as the most scientifically accurate movie of all-time, it’s not entirely about space so ranks below two other films on our list.

For a film that’s now almost 55 years old, it’s amazing how much 2001 got right – from the designs of the spacecraft to outer space to the most infamous AI of time – HAL. It helps that the film is based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Clarke himself co-wrote the screenplay. Clarke was one of the premiere writers of Hard Sci-Fi and his involvement (with Director Stanley Kubrick) in 2001, helped inspire future films of the subgenre.

As for the film’s accuracy, you can find lists of those all over the internet, but we like Wikipedia’s list the best. What we found most humorous from this page is that one of the inaccuracies in the film involves an astronaut holding his breath before exposure to the vacuum of space. Holding breath in instead of exhaling out would have caused the astronaut’s lungs to rupture. Clarkes says of this error that had he been on the set that day, he would have caught it. This shows Clarke’s dedication to the accuracy side of science fiction and why 2001 is still a classic film of the subgenre after five decades.

Additional Lists: Best Films About Artificial Intelligence #1, Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #2

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Plot: The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations of human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

KBZ’s Take: When Christopher Nolan tackles a subgenre and their respective themes, you can be rest assured he will go to great lengths to have a solid scientific foundation for his ideas. And that is what he’s done with Space Travel and Time in Interstellar, Time Manipulation in Tenet (2020) and with Neuroscience in Inception (2010). All three films that made our list of the Best Hard Sci-Fi films.

You can tell right away with Interstellar that an exhaustive amount of research went into the film specific to Wormholes, Time Dilation, and Black Holes (that posit the film’s theory for Time Travel). It’s a reason why it’s known as one of the most scientifically accurate films of all time – especially within the Hard Sci-Fi and Films About Space subgenres.

Additional Lists: Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #1, Best Time Travel Films #6

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/3kypTu6

Plot: During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

KBZ’s Take: As we mentioned earlier in this article, we’re prioritizing films about survival in space and The Martian is the best of the lot. The film features many scientifically accurate elements about space including synthesizing water, growing potatoes on Mars and the time it would take to travel from Earth to the Red Planet.

Like other films of the subgenre, the film also takes some creative liberties with scientific accuracy including the major storm on Mars (where Watney gets lost) and some of the portrayals of gravity (which is one third the gravity of earth). This article has a list and explanations of most of the main accurate and inaccurate elements in the film.

While there have been numerous films about Mars – Mission to Mars (2000), Red Planet (2000) and The Last Days on Mars (2013) being the most well-known films – none have come close to depicting the scientific accuracy of survival on an inhabitable planet in the outer reaches of space.

Additional Lists: Best Hard Sci-Fi Films #4

Where to Stream / Buy: https://amzn.to/421IHSX