The most scientifically accurate films about space

Scified EditorialsBy Guest Nov 13, 2025Comments

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Films about space travel or contact with extraterrestrial civilizations are rarely well-made.

Almost always, they are adaptations of books by authoritative authors, or productions based on real events from Russian and American space exploration, or films by genuine enthusiasts who are not afraid to invite experts to the set and take their advice seriously. Below are representatives of all three categories.

Apollo 13 (1995)

The very film that gave the world the eternal meme “Houston, we have a problem!” A representative of the same genre as the above-described Salyut 7, it is a retelling of the events of an accident in space based on the memories of the participants, with the richest and most accurate recreation of details possible. An important film of the nineties, featuring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton on screen in beautiful NASA spacesuits.

Deep Impact (1998)

Not everyone remembers now that, at the same time as Michael Bay's film about a meteorite cataclysm, Armageddon, its exact copy, Deep Impact, was released on the big screen. Only much, much more scientific, without silly rides on an asteroid and with a competent presentation of both human psychology and astrophysical mechanisms. Plus, Elijah Wood, not yet tormented by the ring. To this day, it remains an exemplary science fiction disaster movie.

Contact (1997)

In Russia, the name Carl Sagan means little to most people, but in the English-speaking world, he is something like the Soviet professor Sergei Kapitsa — a great popularizer of science and an authority, the likes of which are rare in our galaxy. Robert Zemeckis based his film Contact on Sagan's novel, which tells the story of space travel through a system of wormholes toward an unknown civilization. No acid monsters or Martians with lasers: just a respectable, solid science fiction drama starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey.

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Interstellar (2014)

The universe is full of coincidences. It's amazing how the same Matthew McConaughey appeared 17 years later in another famous film on the same theme — traveling through wormholes and the space-time paradoxes they cause. Geeks love to find cross-references and secret links between the films Contact and Interstellar. Nolan's Interstellar is an even more complex and ambitious film, and its massive success gives hope that the population of intelligent moviegoers in the 21st century is not yet lost.

The Martian (2015)

Director Ridley Scott put aside all the fun with aliens in order to shoot the most realistic space drama-Robinsonade possible. Left on the Red Planet, an astronaut (Matt Damon) is forced to learn the basics of survival in a world completely unsuitable for humans in a dilapidated module on the surface of Mars. At times, the film strays from scientific rigor and allows itself some liberties. Nevertheless, its genre is unique, and you would be hard-pressed to find a more strictly scientific alternative.

Gravity (2013)

People with higher technical education and, even more so, space experience had several questions and complaints about Gravity, especially regarding the physics of the movements of the film's heroine and other objects in near-Earth orbit. However, let's not forget: Gravity is a blockbuster film, its goal was to immerse the viewer in space, emptiness, and weightlessness and to make it as realistic as possible, which director Alfonso Cuarón did very successfully. The plot is quite ascetic—the survival of a female astronaut (Sandra Bullock) in open space after the destruction of the space shuttle.

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