Apollo 13 (1995)
The stirring film adaptation of Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, is scripted by William Broyles Jr. (Cast Away) and Al Reinert (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), with Ron Howard in the director’s chair. It tells the remarkable story of the 1970 lunar mission that went terribly wrong – plunging three astronauts into a life or death situation, as their NASA colleagues on the ground frantically worked to bring them back to Earth.
The film balances the drama on the ground – led by Kathleen Quinlan as Lovell’s wife, Marilyn, Ed Harris as Flight Director Gene Kranz and Gary Sinise as Ken Mattingley (the astronaut bumped from the flight over health concerns) – with the drama unfolding in space. Tom Hanks portrays Flight Commander Jim Lovell, Kevin Bacon plays Jack Swigert (the astronaut that replaced Mattingley) and Bill Paxton shines as Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise. Each performance perfectly contributes to the claustrophobic desperation of the situation, which reaches a crescendo as the stricken spacecraft attempts re-entry after having performed a sling-shot manoeuvre around the Moon.