If Chandrayaan 3's success has ignited your interest in lunar missions, here's some fantastic movies on this subject to keep hooked

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Chandrayaan 3’s success has reignited our interest in space missions. As we watched India’s mission to the moon, it’s safe to say that the experience was unmatched. The anticipation, hope and fear of millions of people on the tiny-wired metal legs of the space-machine was enthralling, to say the least. It kept us transfixed till the end. To relive those emotions, we bring a list of films and series that revolve around lunar missions…

Smooth landing
First Man (2018)

Starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, First Man is the masterpiece of cinematic experience. It portrays the first landing on the moon by the American team and the obstacles they countered to achieve it. It gives us an insight into Neil’s personally to those exhilarating moments of Apollo 11’s flight. Damien Chazelle has directed the film and it won him the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Facts meet fiction
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Set in the 1960s when the Ark, a Cybertronian spacecraft, carrying an invention capable of ending the war between Autobots and Decepticons, crash lands on the dark side of the moon and is detected by NASA. President John F Kennedy authorises a mission to put a man on the moon as a cover for investigating the spacecraft. In 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 lands on the moon and secretly inspects the Ark before returning to Earth. With the fictionalised drama with some real incidents infused in its plot, it’s an out-an-out entertainer for sci-fi buffs. And multiple sequels makes it a binge-worthy franchise.

Mission aborted
Apollo 13 (1995)

Hailed as a masterpiece, Apollo 13 is a space docudrama directed by Ron Howard. It stars talented actors, Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise. Based on the aborted 1970’s Apollo 13 lunar mission, it is an adaptation of the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. The mission had astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise but while en route to the moon, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of its oxygen supply and electrical power, forcing NASA’s flight controllers to abort the moon landing mission and get the three astronauts back safely. It too won the Best Sound Award at the Oscars.

Lunar landscape
The First Men in the Moon (2010)

An adaptation of HG Wells’ 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon, the film is a science-fiction made five years before the historic landing on the moon. British-American animator Ray Harryhausen had given the stop-motion animation effects, which include the Selenites, giant caterpillar-like moon cows and the large-brained Grand Lunar.

Space exploration
Interstellar (2014)

One of Christopher Nolan’s best works, it is an exceptional film on time and space. Set in a dystopian future where humanity is embroiled in a catastrophic famine, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humankind.

Real or fake?

According to a conspiracy theory, the US’ Apollo mission in 1969 was a hoax and the three astronauts did not actually walk on the moon. Bill Kaysing, a former US Navy officer who first proposed this theory, stated that the entire mission was filmed in some studio. He self-published a book, We Never Went To The Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, in 1976. Some films were also made on this controversy. Read on:

• A 2001 documentary, titled, Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Was based on this conspiracy theory. Other documentaries, American Moon and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon also addressed this controversy.
• 2015’s British-comedy film Moonwalkers is based on many such conspiracy theories. In fact, it starts with a CIA agent hiring filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame) to film a fake moonwalk.
• Another American-comedy Operation Avalanche on the similar lines released in 2016.

Desi attempts

Antariksham 9000 KMPH

The Telugu film is based on a fictional story of Indian satellite Mihira orbiting on the darker side of the moon that has lost connection with the Indian space station. It triggers the fear of a collision with a Chinese satellite and a subsequent communication black-out in the world. For the rescue a former scientist, Dev, played by Varun Tej, at space station helps fix the technical glitch. It also stars Aditi Rao Hydari and Lavanya Tripathi. Sankalp Reddy has directed the film.

Mission Mangal

The 2018 film, directed by Jagan Shakti, stars Vidya Bala, Huma Qureshi and Akshay Kumar in the lead roles. It was loosely based on the lives of scientists at ISRO who contributed to the Mars Orbiter Mission, India’s first interplanetary expedition. After the success of a film, a web series MOM: Mission Over Mars was released in 2019. It narrates the inspiring story of four women who played a pivotal role in the Mars Orbiter Mission.