1) Solaris
Perhaps the ultimate cinematic tale of the negative impact that life in space can have on the human mind, Solaris – like Ikarie XB-1 – is based on a novel by sci-fi luminary Stanislaw Lem. It’s a story that’s been adapted twice for the screen, 30 years apart and by radically different filmmakers, with both adaptations implicit in their argument: that it’s really better just sticking on Earth.
Steven Soderbergh and Andrei Tarkovsky had quite different takes at Solaris, but the basic concept is this: a recently-widowed man sent aboard a space station begins to have visions of his dead wife. Is it madness brought on by the mental frailty caused in this unnatural environment, or perhaps by the titular planet the station is orbiting, and which might have supernatural traits? Who cares – once again, the fundamental is that man isn’t meant for straying away from his home planet, not when the space station you’re on is full of people killing themselves for no apparent reason.