6 great movies about space travel

To infinity and beyond...

From the very beginning, cinema has been fascinated by the idea of ​​space travel.

Space travel in films is constantly evolving. In the era of the space race, space movies were anticipating a utopian future. In the 1970s, a darker vision took hold, reflecting the growing social and political calamity in the real world. And then, after Star Wars, a more fantastical and action-packed view of life in space became the norm.

In the last decade, cinema's view of space travel has changed again. While the Guardians of the Galaxy films and reboots of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises have emphasized adventure, many others, including Gravity (2013) and The Martian (2015), have turned to the potential dangers of space travel that are becoming more and more common in the world. Meanwhile, a growing number of films, including Interstellar (2014), are wondering if we can find a new home on Planet B if humanity depletes the Earth.

6 PHOTOS

1. Space Odyssey 2001

Stanley Kubrick's film, which showed the possibilities of science fiction cinema, continues to be a touchstone for any film dedicated to space exploration. The story was the result of nearly two years of intense discussions between Kubrick and his co-screenwriter, science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, and took even longer to complete: the director began filming in December 1965 and only completed the film in March 1968.

2. Star Wars.

While sci-fi cinema as a whole took a more mature direction in the 1970s, George Lucas's third empire-building film took a completely opposite approach. Opening with an epic battle among the stars and culminating in an even bigger battle, Star Wars will present a universe in which man has mastered space travel by making a quick jump from one habitable planet to another, possible with a simple push.

3. Alien.

By the time Ridley Scott directed this landmark sci-fi horror film, space travel in films had become so commonplace that it seemed almost anyone could do it. In Alien, the astronauts are blue-collar workers complaining about bonuses and food. Their latest job is towing 20 million tons of mineral ore to Earth. Only the threat of a pay freeze convinces the crew of the Nostromo to make the fatal journey to the nearest "original" moon, from which they unwittingly return the universe's deadliest predator to the ship.

4. Apollo 13.

Released in the undeveloped period for a space movie, Apollo 13 tells of a period when, after Neil Armstrong, space travel suddenly became a thing of the past for a world preoccupied with problems on Earth. In Ron Howard's account of the doomed adventure of Apollo 13 in 1970, only when astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Hayes (Bill Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) is not in mortal danger on their way home from an aborted mission to the moon.

5. Aniara.

Adapted from the epic poem by Harry Martinson, the film by Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja traps the viewer in a luxurious civilian vehicle destined for Mars, but which, after a crash, is left in space without a rudder and no way to turn around.

6. To the stars.

An Army Corps engineer travels the galaxy in search of his father, who went in search of an extraterrestrial civilization 20 years ago.