8) Gravity
Starting off with the film set closest to Earth on this list, Alfonso Cuaron’s award-winning blockbuster spectacle Gravity may also be the closest any movie has got to turning space on-screen into something like a white knuckle rollercoaster ride. While the film never strays far from the Earth’s atmosphere, Gravity assures you that even there the stakes can be horribly high.
In a single bravura take, the film opens by smashing up a space station, caving in one astronaut’s face with flying debris, and leaving two others dealing with an impossible, unprecedented situation. From there, it doesn’t let up for even a second.
As Sandra Bullock’s Ryan Stone and George Clooney’s Matt Kowalski desperately search for a way back down to Earth, they’re forced to come to terms with decreasing oxygen supplies, malfunctioning equipment, and – ironically, for a film called Gravity – the constant pressure of a zero-G environment. The relief felt when the movie finally touches back down on the Earth’s soil is enormous.