Films like Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar plot: Crop failure and relentless dust storms threaten Earth’s survival. Former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper sets off on a space journey with a team, hoping to find a habitable planet and save the people left on Earth—including his own family.

Keywords: Ensemble cast, Betrayal, Con job, Race against time, Outer space, Space exploration, Quest, Search, Legacy, Con artist

Style characteristics: Tension, Complexity, Pacing

1. Gravity

IMDB: 7.7

2013 · 1h 31minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Overview

During a routine mission on a space station, debris from a destroyed satellite strikes, killing part of the crew and sending the rest drifting into open space. Alone, Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski fight for their lives, hoping to find a way back to Earth.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Darkness, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Tension (+12%), Action (+15%), Complexity (-33%)

Shared keywords

Race against time, Outer space, Encroaching threat, Survival

2. Ad Astra

IMDB: 6.5

2019 · 2h 3minUnited States, Brazil

Director: James Gray

Overview

Astronaut Roy McBride sets out on a space journey to Mars to make contact with his father—a legendary astronaut whose expedition vanished without a trace 29 years ago during a mission to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Bleakness, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Tension (-12%), Pacing (-18%), Complexity (-23%)

3. Arrival

IMDB: 7.9

2016 · 1h 56minUnited States

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Overview

Alien ships arrive at multiple locations around the world. The U.S. government sends a team of scientists, led by a linguist and a physicist, to one of the ships to try to understand the visitors’ true purpose—before supporters of a military solution provoke a war.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Complexity, Tension, Tropes, ThemesNotable differences: Pacing (-25%)

4. Sunshine

IMDB: 7.2

2007 · 1h 48minUnited Kingdom

Director: Danny Boyle

Overview

In the distant future, humanity faces global cold as the Sun gradually dims. A space mission called Icarus II sets out for the Sun with a nuclear bomb onboard to reignite the fading star.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Tension, Bleakness, Pacing, Tone, TropesNotable differences: Darkness (+20%), Complexity (-18%)

Shared keywords

Race against time, Outer space, Quest, Encroaching threat, Survival

5. The Martian

IMDB: 8.0

2015 · 2h 21minUnited States

Director: Ridley Scott

Overview

Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars after his crew evacuates the planet, believing him dead. Now he has to rely only on his own ingenuity and wits to contact Earth and hold out for rescue.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Tension, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Complexity (-23%)

Shared keywords

Race against time, Outer space, Space exploration, Survival

6. Contact

IMDB: 7.5

1997 · 2h 30minUnited States

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Overview

After years of searching, a radio astronomer finds convincing proof of extraterrestrial intelligence when she receives a signal from an alien civilization. Embedded in the message are instructions for building a machine that could enable true contact with humanity.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Complexity, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Tension (-13%), Pacing (-15%)

Shared keywords

Quest, Search

7. Moon

IMDB: 7.8

2009 · 1h 37minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: Duncan Jones

Overview

Two weeks before the end of his three-year contract on a lunar station, astronaut Sam is involved in an accident. As events unfold, he begins to suspect that something is wrong with the mission and the company controlling it.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Tension, Tone, TropesNotable differences: Bleakness (+17%), Darkness (+18%), Pacing (-24%), Complexity (-12%)

8. Apollo 13

IMDB: 7.7

1995 · 2h 20minUnited States

Director: Ron Howard

Overview

The film tells the story of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, meant to be the third crewed lunar landing, but instead the crew is forced to fight for their survival and a safe return home.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Tension, Tone, TropesNotable differences: Complexity (-13%)

Shared keywords

Race against time, Outer space, Survival

9. Tenet

IMDB: 7.3

2020 · 2h 30minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: Christopher Nolan

Overview

A secret service agent learns to use time inversion to save the world from criminals from the future who are trying to destroy the planet.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Tension, Pacing, Complexity, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Darkness (+15%), Action (+30%)

Shared keywords

Race against time, Encroaching threat

10. Coherence

IMDB: 7.2

2014 · 1h 29minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: James Ward Byrkit

Overview

During a dinner with friends, at the moment a comet passes overhead, the power goes out across the city. Trying to make sense of what’s happening, they run into unknown strangers who look exactly like them.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Complexity, Tension, Bleakness, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Darkness (+20%), Pacing (-12%)

11. Mickey 17

IMDB: 6.7

2025 · 2h 17minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: Bong Joon Ho

Overview

In the near future, Mickey Barnes takes on dangerous assignments for space colonization. Each time he dies, the people in charge create a new clone and upload his memories into a new body—until a malfunction leads to multiple versions of Mickey…

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Tropes, SettingNotable differences: Tension (-13%), Complexity (-13%)

Shared keywords

Outer space, Survival, Survival game

12. Cloud Atlas

IMDB: 7.4

2012 · 2h 52minUnited States, Germany

Director: Lilly Wachowski

Overview

Several stories unfolding across different eras—from the 19th century to the distant future—follow people whose actions and their consequences travel through time and echo into what comes next.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Action, Complexity, Tone, ThemesNotable differences: Darkness (+15%)

13. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

IMDB: 7.2

2001 · 2h 26minUnited States, United Kingdom

Director: Steven Spielberg

Overview

In a world where an ecological catastrophe and Earth’s overpopulation have led to strict limits on childbirth, a series of humanlike androids appears—capable of thoughts and emotions, yet tightly restricted in their rights.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Tone, ThemesNotable differences: Bleakness (+23%), Darkness (+22%), Tension (-12%), Pacing (-12%), Complexity (-16%)

14. Oblivion

IMDB: 7.0

2013 · 2h 4minUnited States

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Overview

After a war with alien invaders, Earth is no longer habitable, and what’s left of humanity has moved to the orbital station Tet. Jack Harper carries out technical missions on the devastated planet and coordinates resource-harvesting drones, but a chance discovery makes him question everything he believed about the war and his own assignment.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Pacing, Tension, Darkness, Tropes, ToneNotable differences: Complexity (-16%)

15. Dune

IMDB: 8.0

2021 · 2h 35minUnited States

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Overview

In the distant future, young Paul Atreides and his family find themselves at the heart of a struggle for the dangerous desert planet Arrakis. A conflict between powerful houses over control of the planet’s resources pulls the native people—the Fremen—into war.

Similarity

Closest characteristics: Tension, Action, Complexity, Tone, ThemesNotable differences: Darkness (+20%), Pacing (-12%)

Shared keywords

Betrayal, Survival