The Movies Set in Space

When we think of films set in space, our minds run to grand star sagas and epic battles. There are the masterpieces that defined the cosmic frontier—and you will find them here. But this is only the surface of a cinematic universe that is far vast, stranger, and infinitely more interesting.

The authentic frontier of space cinema is found not only in spectacle, but in speculation. When colossal budgets disappear, space ceases to be a physical destination and becomes a metaphysical stage. The cosmic void becomes the perfect canvas on which to project our deepest fears and unresolved philosophical dilemmas.

This guide is an act of cinematic archaeology. It is a path that unites the fundamental pillars, from the most famous films to the most subversive underground cinema. You will find the philosophical science fiction of the Soviet bloc, the space horror where space is a dirty and infected place, and the claustrophobia of the space station as a laboratory for psychosis.

This is the counter-story, a journey through the cinemas that understood the real horror, or wonder, is not what is out there, but what we bring with us.

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

An engineer named Los, obsessed with dreams of an alien civilization, builds a spaceship and travels to Mars. There, he finds a decadent, capitalist society ruled by a tyrant and the beautiful Queen Aelita, who has been spying on Earth. Los inspires a workers’ revolt.

Considered the progenitor of Soviet cinema sci-fi, Aelita is a stunning artifact. It’s a hybrid film: half neorealist drama about the hardships of life in Moscow after the Revolution, half expressionist fantasy. Mars is a triumph of Constructivist design, with geometric costumes and alien sets meant to allegorize a corrupt, capitalist West. Yet, the film is deeply ambiguous, with a dreamlike ending that questions the very nature of the revolution it inspired, suggesting the escape to space is merely a romantic delirium.

Warning from Space (Uchūjin Tōkyō ni Arawaru) (1956)

Starfish-shaped UFOs appear over Tokyo, causing panic. The aliens, the Pairans, attempt to contact scientists to warn humanity of an impending disaster: a rogue planet called “Planet R” is on a collision course with Earth.

This Japanese film from Daiei is a forgotten gem. It was Japan’s first color science fiction film and, reportedly, one of the films that inspired Stanley Kubrick to undertake 2001. Unlike contemporary American invasion films, here the aliens are benevolent, though terrifying in their appearance (starfish creatures with a single central eye, designed by artist Taro Okamoto). It’s a work that reflects Japan’s post-atomic anxiety, where the threat isn’t the other, but a cosmic, impersonal catastrophe, and the only salvation lies in global scientific cooperation.

The Silent Star (Der schweigende Stern) (1960)

After a mysterious alien artifact is found in the Gobi Desert, an international spaceship, the Cosmokrator, is sent to the planet Venus. The crew discovers the remains of an advanced civilization that destroyed itself in a nuclear war, just before it could invade Earth.

This co-production between East Germany (DEFA) and Poland, based on a novel by Stanisław Lem, is the Eastern Bloc’s answer to American sci-fi. Instead of paranoia, the film promotes a message of socialist internationalism: the crew is a multicultural collective working in unison. Visually lavish for its time, the film uses the journey to Venus as a powerful anti-nuclear warning. Space is not a place to be conquered, but a mirror showing Earth its own possible, terrifying future.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A black monolith appears at the dawn of man, triggering evolution. Millions of years later, humanity finds another monolith on the Moon, which sends a signal toward Jupiter. An expedition, led by astronauts Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Poole (Gary Lockwood) and controlled by the AI HAL 9000, sets out to investigate. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.

This is the quintessential science-fiction film, a philosophical and visual work that redefined the genre. Kubrick transforms space travel into a metaphysical experience, an inquiry into humanity’s place in the universe, evolution, and the dangers of artificial intelligence. It is a hypnotic and unmissable work of art, using majestic imagery and silence to ask fundamental questions.

Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) (1962)

A joint Soviet-American mission (in the original version, only Soviet) to Venus goes wrong when one spaceship is forced into an emergency landing. The crew, including a combat robot named “John,” must traverse the hostile, prehistoric landscape of the planet, braving volcanoes and dinosaurs.

This Soviet film is a masterpiece of low-budget engineering and a crucial piece of underground sci-fi cinema history. Its special effects, including an impressive flying car and stop-motion creatures, were so advanced that American independent producer Roger Corman bought the rights. Corman cannibalized all the Russian effects sequences and inserted them into two “new” low-cost American films (Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women), effectively launching a subgenre of exploitation cinema based on international recycling.

Ikarie XB-1 (1963)

In 2163, the starship Ikarie XB-1 undertakes a fifteen-year journey to the Alpha Centauri system in search of life. Along the way, the multinational crew faces isolation, the birth of a child on board, a mysterious abandoned spaceship, and the psychological effects of a “dark star.

Filmed in Czechoslovakia, Ikarie XB-1 is simply one of the most important and influential science fiction films ever made. It is the film that defined the aesthetic of “serious science fiction” long before Star Trek or 2001 (which it blatantly influenced, from the modernist interior design to the crew management). Unlike

Western sci-fi, this film is imbued with a collectivist optimism: the crew is a competent community that solves problems. It’s a milestone of philosophical sci-fi that imagines a mature and cooperative space-faring future.

Silent Running (1972)

In a future where all plant life on Earth is extinct, a botanist, Freeman Lowell, cares for the last surviving forests, preserved in enormous geodesic domes on a cargo freighter. When the order comes to destroy the domes, Lowell rebels and hijacks the ship.

This is an independent film in its soul. It was the directorial debut of Douglas Trumbull, the special effects genius behind 2001. Made on a small budget ($1.3 million), the film is a melancholy environmentalist elegy. It’s an almost solitary work, with Bruce Dern and three drones (affectionately named Huey, Dewey, and Louie) as the only protagonists. Space here is the ultimate desert, the place of a self-imposed exile to protect the last fragment of terrestrial life. It’s a low-budget film that uses its intimate scope to deliver a powerful and desperate message.

Alien (1979)

The crew of the commercial starship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from an unknown planet. While exploring, one of the members, Kane (John Hurt), is attacked by an alien creature. They bring him aboard, but soon discover they have brought a perfect nightmare on board: a xenomorph predator that will hunt them one by one. Directed by Ridley Scott.

This is an absolute masterpiece that fuses horror and science fiction. Scott creates a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere, setting a “monster movie” in a blue-collar context (the crew are space truckers). It is unmissable for its design (H.R. Giger’s creatures), its unforgettable heroine (Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver), and its relentless suspense.

Blade Runner (1982)

In a dystopian, rainy, and overpopulated Los Angeles of 2019, former police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is called back into service. His job: to “retire” (kill) four “Replicants,” Nexus-6 androids indistinguishable from humans, who have illegally returned to Earth to find their creator. Directed by Ridley Scott.

Although set primarily on Earth, this is a pillar of philosophical science fiction. It is a visually stunning neo-noir that asks fundamental questions: what does it mean to be human? Does memory define identity? It is a melancholy and dark work, a must-see for its revolutionary aesthetic, Vangelis’s score, and its profound reflection on life and mortality.

Solaris (1972)

Psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to the space station orbiting the sentient ocean-planet Solaris. The crew is in the grip of psychological crises and the mission is stalled. Kelvin soon discovers why, when the ocean materializes a replica of his deceased wife, Hari.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s magnum opus is the very definition of philosophical sci-fi. It is the Soviet and auteur response to 2001: if Kubrick’s film is a journey outward, toward the stars, Tarkovsky’s is an inward journey, into the abyss of the human soul. Space is a purgatory. The planet Solaris is an unknowable entity that forces the scientists to confront not the cosmic unknown, but their own sins, guilt, and repressed memories. It is a slow, hypnotic, and devastating work about memory and the impossibility of truly understanding “the other.”

Dark Star (1974)

Aboard the dilapidated spaceship Dark Star, a crew of four listless astronauts has been carrying out its boring mission for twenty years: destroying unstable planets. Between a mischievous alien shaped like a beach ball and a dead commander kept in cryostasis, they must face an existential crisis when an “Intelligent Bomb” decides to think for itself.

Born as a student film by John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon, Dark Star is underground sci-fi cinema par excellence. It’s the nihilistic parody of 2001, replacing cosmic epic with existential boredom. The spaceship isn’t a temple of technology, but a dirty, malfunctioning “space camper.” The film is a brilliant satire that culminates in a philosophical debate on phenomenology with a sentient bomb. It invented the “dirty” and “lived-in” aesthetic that O’Bannon would later perfect (in a horror key) in the screenplay for Alien.

Contamination (1980)

A cargo ship drifts into New York, deserted. The police find the crew horrifically exploded from the inside and a cargo of strange, pulsating green eggs. A government agent and an alcoholic ex-astronaut investigate, uncovering an alien conspiracy originating from a failed mission to Mars.

Italian exploitation cinema responds to Alien. Directed by Luigi Cozzi, this space horror is a classic of the creative “rip-off.” The film cleverly shifts the action from space (too expensive) to Earth, turning the threat into a thriller-splatter. The space setting is relegated to a brief, effective flashback on Mars. The film is famous for its exaggerated gore, with human chests exploding at the slightest contact with the eggs’ fluid. It’s a shameless B-movie that capitalizes on an American success with a uniquely Italian energy and brutality.

Gravity (2013)

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a biomedical engineer on her first mission, and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are working outside their shuttle when a field of debris destroys their craft. The two find themselves adrift in the absolute void, tethered only to each other, with their oxygen running out. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón.

Winner of seven Academy Awards, this is an immersive and technically stunning cinematic experience. It is a survival thriller stripped to its core, a tense and agonizing odyssey in deep space. It’s a must-see because it uses space like no other film, turning the void into a terrifying antagonist and the film into a powerful allegory of rebirth.

The Martian (2015)

During a mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris during a storm and presumed dead by his crew, who leave the planet. Left alone, with limited supplies and no way to communicate, Watney must use his ingenuity and botanical training to survive on the red planet. Directed by Ridley Scott.

Unlike many bleak space films, this is an optimistic anthem to human intelligence and problem-solving. It is a fun, smart, and suspenseful film. It is unmissable for Matt Damon’s charismatic performance and for its celebration of science: it is the story of a man who, literally, “colonizes” a planet using logic and engineering.

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

The peaceful planet Akir is threatened by the tyrant Sador. The young Shad is sent to recruit a diverse group of space mercenaries to defend his world. Among them are a space trucker, a hired assassin (Robert Vaughn), and a Valkyrie warrior.

This is the king of independent B-movies, produced by the legendary Roger Corman. It’s the plot of The Seven Samurai (and The Magnificent Seven, with Vaughn reprising the same role) transplanted into space to ride the Star Wars wave. Corman, with his highest budget ever ($2 million), hired young talents destined for glory: James Cameron for special effects (who built spaceships from scrap materials) and James Horner for the score. It’s a glorious, fun, and ramshackle space opera, proof that indie ingenuity can beat the big studios at their own game.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

A rescue ship, the Quest, lands on the planet Morganthus to investigate the disappearance of another ship. The crew discovers a mysterious alien pyramid. Inside, they find not one monster, but a force that materializes their deepest fears, killing them one by one.

Another space horror produced by Roger Corman, often labeled an Alien clone, but in reality, much stranger. The film is a Lovecraftian work that explores psychological fear. The real monster is the crew’s own mind. Galaxy of Terror is infamous for its graphic violence and an alien rape scene (with a giant worm) that has gone down in exploitation cinema history. Once again, James Cameron is credited as production designer, and the grotesque, organic sets of the pyramid are a clear precursor to his future work.

Kin-Dza-Dza! (1986)

A construction foreman and a student in Moscow meet a barefoot man who claims to be an alien. By pressing a button on his device, the two are teleported to the desert planet Pluke, in the Kin-Dza-Dza galaxy. Here, an absurd society with a two-word vocabulary (“Koo” and “Kyu”) is divided by who owns or doesn’t own colorful pants.

An absolute gem of underground Soviet cinema. Kin-Dza-Dza! is a lo-fi “steampunk” dystopian comedy. The space setting (a desert) is a pretext for one of the most ferocious and brilliant satires of bureaucracy, hierarchies, and the absurdity of Soviet society. With its spaceships that look like rusty tin cans and sharp social critique masked as farce, this film is proof that the poorest independent sci-fi is often the smartest and most politically subversive.

Arrival (2016)

Twelve mysterious, shell-shaped alien spacecraft land at different points across the globe. Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a world-renowned linguist, is recruited by the US military to try to establish communication. As the world descends into panic, she must decipher their language to understand why they have come. Directed by Denis Villeneuve.

This is a deep, philosophical, and moving science-fiction film that places communication and language at the center of its narrative, instead of action. It is an unmissable work for its melancholy atmosphere and for how it uses “first contact” to explore complex themes like time, memory, grief, and human unity.

On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie) (1988)

A group of astronauts crash-lands on an alien planet and founds a new civilization. Decades later, their descendants have regressed to a tribal, mythological state, worshipping the last survivor. The arrival of a second astronaut from Earth, Marek, is seen as the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy.

This film is a legend of underground sci-fi cinema. Directed by the visionary Pole Andrzej Żuławski in the 1970s, the production was shut down and destroyed by communist authorities, who considered it an anti-totalitarian allegory. Żuławski was only able to recover and edit 80% of the material a decade later, filling in the missing scenes with a voice-over describing what was lost. The result is a feverish, philosophical, and brutal epic about the creation of religion, violence, and power. It is an overwhelming and delirious visual experience.

Space Truckers (1996)

John Canyon is a freelance “space trucker” who smuggles square pigs. For one last big score, he agrees to transport a mysterious (and illegal) cargo to Earth, ending up entangled in a plot involving pirates, a killer cyborg, and an army of war robots.

Directed by cult horror master Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), this independent film (despite its $25 million budget) is the epitome of “blue-collar” science fiction. Dennis Hopper embodies the gruff, exploited space trucker. Space here isn’t elegant; it’s a cosmic gas station, dirty, corrupt, and commercial. The film is a ramshackle and proudly trashy action-comedy, celebrating the “lived-in” and anti-heroic aesthetic in contrast to Hollywood’s glossy sci-fi.

The American Astronaut (2001)

Interplanetary trader Samuel Curtis navigates a desolate solar system. His mission is to deliver a cat, obtain a clone of a “Real Live Girl,” trade her for the body of the legendary “Boy Who Saw a Breast,” and deliver the latter to the women of Venus to become their new king.

This film is the definition of underground sci-fI cinema. It’s a surrealist space western, a rockabilly musical, and an absurdist comedy, shot in grainy black and white that makes it look like a lost artifact. Directed, written, and starring Cory McAbee, the film creates a lo-fi universe where spaceships look like boilers and space bars are dusty saloons. It’s a work that defies categorization, using space as an absurd backdrop for a picaresque story about loneliness and the frontier.

Moon (2009)

Sam Bell is finishing a three-year contract as the sole operator of a mining base on the dark side of the Moon, with only the computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company. Shortly before his return to Earth, he has an accident and encounters a younger version of himself.

Duncan Jones’s directorial debut is the film that relaunched independent science fiction in the 21st century. It’s a low-budget film masterpiece, built entirely on Sam Rockwell’s incredible performance and a claustrophobic production design. It’s a return to the philosophical sci-fi of the ’70s, exploring themes of identity, isolation, corporate ethics, and the nature of the human soul. Moon proves that the most powerful ideas don’t need exaggerated special effects, but an impeccable script and a human heart.

The Fifth Element (1997)

In a colorful and chaotic future (New York, 2263), ex-soldier and cab driver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) accidentally finds himself having to save the world. His passenger is Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), the personification of the “Fifth Element,” the only creature capable of stopping the ultimate evil threatening the universe. Directed by Luc Besson.

This is a pop, flamboyant, and totally unique work. Unlike dark and serious sci-fi, this is a visually stunning (with costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier) and humorous “camp” opera. It’s a film to see for its infectious energy, visual creativity, and for being a fun, bizarre, and unforgettable space adventure.

Cargo (2009)

In 2267, Earth is uninhabitable and humanity survives on overcrowded space stations. Dr. Laura Portmann joins the crew of the cargo ship Kassandra for an eight-year journey, hoping to earn enough to join her sister on the paradise planet Rhea. During her solitary watch, she begins to suspect she is not alone on board.

The first, ambitious Swiss science fiction film. Cargo is an atmospheric and claustrophobic thriller that borrows heavily from Alien and Solaris. Although the budget is limited, the film excels at creating a sense of empty vastness and paranoia within the gigantic, dilapidated ship. The horror is not (just) a monster, but a conspiracy. Space here is the site of a terrible disillusionment: the discovery that the hope of a new world, Rhea, is just a lie, a virtual reality created to sedate the desperate masses.

Love (2011)

Astronaut Lee Miller is the sole occupant of the International Space Station. Suddenly, all contact with Earth is lost, and the planet below falls silent. Left alone for years, Miller struggles to maintain his sanity, until he discovers a mysterious Civil War diary on board.

A stunning example of micro-budget cinema. Directed by William Eubank (who built the ISS sets in his parents’ backyard) and produced by the band Angels & Airwaves, Love is a visually ambitious art film. Heavily influenced by 2001 and Solaris, the film is a meditation on solitude, isolation, and the human need for connection. Space is not a place of adventure, but a psychological prison. It’s a work that is more emotional than narrative, exploring how memory and stories are the only things that keep us human in the face of the absolute void.

Iron Sky (2012)

In 2018, a marketing mission to the Moon discovers a secret base on the dark side. It is inhabited by Nazis who fled in 1945, built a fleet of flying saucers, and are ready to launch the Fourth Reich against Earth, guided by the propaganda of a Nazi version of Charlie Chaplin.

One of the first major successes of crowdfunding, Iron Sky is an independent Finnish-German-Australian co-production. It is a shameless and grotesque satirical comedy. The absurd premise of “Nazis on the Moon” is a pretext to mock modern politics, particularly the American administration (with a President who is a clone of Sarah Palin) and the hypocrisy of the United Nations. It’s a cult movie that mixes surprisingly good special effects (for the budget) with a political farce that shows how space can be the perfect stage for the most absurd satire.

Europa Report (2013)

A private corporation finances a crewed mission to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, to confirm the presence of a subsurface ocean and search for life. The film is presented entirely through on-board cameras and crew diaries, documenting their discovery and the disasters that follow.

This independent film, directed by Ecuadorian Sebastián Cordero, is a triumph of “hard” science fiction in found footage format. The use of fixed cameras and fragmented audio creates a tense and claustrophobic realism. Unlike many horror films, the horror here doesn’t come from the monster, but from the unknown and the hostile vastness of space. The film is a powerful drama about scientific sacrifice: the mission is not to save the crew, but to ensure the data (the proof of life) gets back to Earth.

High Life (2018)

A group of death row inmates is sent on a one-way mission toward a black hole. On the ship, they are used as guinea pigs by a scientist (Juliette Binoche) obsessed with reproduction experiments in space. Isolation and despair lead the crew to violence and collapse.

The English-language debut of French auteur Claire Denis is a disturbing and carnal work of art. This is arthouse sci-fi. Space is the ultimate prison, an airtight box for taboos and bodily fluids. There is no heroism, only the desperation of human beings “recycled” by society and hurled toward nothingness. It’s a film about the entropy of the body and mind, where the only form of hope, fragile and unsettling, is the protagonist’s (Robert Pattinson) fatherhood in an absolute void.

Aniara (2018)

A massive luxury spaceship, the Aniara, transports thousands of colonists from a devastated Earth to Mars. An accident knocks it off course, condemning it to wander endlessly in space with no hope of return. The film follows the psychological and social collapse of the passengers over the decades.

This Swedish film, based on an epic poem, is perhaps the most nihilistic and terrifying vision of life in space. It is existential space horror. The spaceship is a drifting shopping mall, a symbol of consumerism that continues even in the face of the apocalypse. The heart of the film is Mima, an AI that offers passengers virtual memories of Earth’s nature, until it “dies” from absorbing too much pain. Aniara is a powerful allegory for climate collapse and our inability to face the end.

Prospect (2018)

Teenager Cee and her father Damon land on a toxic alien moon with the goal of harvesting valuable organic gems. The job is dangerous, and their mission turns into a desperate fight for survival when they encounter other prospectors, including the ambiguous and loquacious Ezra.

Prospect is the perfect modern “space western.” It’s a low-budget film that triumphs thanks to incredibly tactile and “gritty” world-building. The aesthetic is everything: the technology is dirty, analog, and repaired with duct tape. The frontier isn’t a planet, but a toxic forest full of spores. It’s a “working-class” survival story, using its sci-fi setting to tell a classic western drama about greed, trust, and the bond between Cee and the mercenary played by Pedro Pascal.

Cosmos (2019)

Three friends, amateur astronomers, are camping in a van equipped for a night of observation. While testing new software, they intercept a radio signal from deep space. They quickly realize it’s not a natural signal and that someone, or something, is responding.

The epitome of indie “zero-budget” cinema. Made by a crew of three (the Weaver brothers) over five years with no external funding, Cosmos is a film that doesn’t take place in space, but is entirely about the cosmos. All the action is confined to the inside of and around a car. It’s a return to the science fiction of wonder, in the vein of Contact. It proves that to create suspense and a sense of cosmic discovery, you don’t need special effects, just a great idea and an excellent script.

Sputnik (2020)

Soviet Union, 1983. Two cosmonauts have a mysterious accident during re-entry. One dies; the other, Konstantin, survives, but he is not alone. He is taken to a secret military facility where a controversial psychologist, Tatyana, discovers that at night, a parasitic alien creature emerges from his body.

An excellent and tense revival of Russian sci-fi horror. Sputnik takes elements from Alien (the parasite) and The Thing (the paranoia) but immerses them in the oppressive atmosphere of the Cold War. The setting of the isolated military base is perfect for a claustrophobic thriller. The film doesn’t rely on cheap scares but builds tension on the symbiotic relationship between Konstantin and the creature, and on the cold logic of the military, who see the alien not as a threat to be destroyed, but as a weapon to be controlled.

Gagarine (2020)

Youri, a 16-year-old obsessed with space, lives in the Cité Gagarine housing project on the outskirts of Paris. When the building, named after the famous Soviet cosmonaut, is condemned for demolition, Youri refuses to leave. He barricades himself inside and begins to transform his apartment into a space capsule.

This French film isn’t technically set in space, but it uses space as its central metaphor. It’s a work of magical realism that fuses harsh social reality (gentrification, the loss of community) with the poetic dream of cosmic escape. Filmed in the real Cité Gagarine complex before its demolition, the film transforms the urban ruin into a makeshift spaceship. Youri becomes an astronaut in his own world, a solitary hero defending his home by turning it into his dream. It is poetic and deeply political science fiction.

Stowaway (2021)

Shortly after the launch of a two-year mission to Mars, the three-person crew discovers a stowaway on board: a ground support technician trapped during takeoff. Irreparable damage to the air recycling system presents the crew with a terrible moral dilemma: there is only enough oxygen for three people.

This indie psychological thriller (distributed by Netflix) is a pure ethical drama. It’s the modern version of the classic story “The Cold Equations.” There are no aliens, villains, or random failures; the threat is mathematics. Directed by Joe Penna, the film is a tense, claustrophobic thriller that revolves entirely around an impossible choice. It’s low-budget sci-fi that excels at asking moral questions: what would you do when the survival of one means the death of everyone else?

Vesper (2022)

After the collapse of Earth’s ecosystem, 13-year-old Vesper survives in a swampy, hostile world, caring for her paralyzed father. Society is divided between the “Citadels” (wealthy enclaves) and the external desolation. Vesper, a bio-hacker, tries to use alien technology to create a future.

Although set on Earth, Vesper is an independent “biopunk” science fiction film that seems to come from another planet. This Lithuanian-French-Belgian co-production creates an alien world on Earth, filled with genetically modified flora and fauna that are both grotesque and beautiful. The aesthetic is incredible for a low-budget film, combining an organic, slimy design with a survival story. It’s an example of how independent cinema can create complex alien worlds without ever leaving the ground, focusing on biotechnology as the new frontier.

Rubikon (2022)

On the space station Rubikon, controlled by a corporation, a soldier and two scientists test an algae-based oxygen generation system. Suddenly, an environmental catastrophe envelops the Earth in a toxic fog. The crew, perhaps the last of humanity, must decide whether to stay safe or risk everything to return and search for survivors.

This tense Austrian space thriller is another excellent example of a “moral dilemma” in orbit. Like Stowaway, Rubikon uses the isolation of space as an ethical laboratory. Set in a dystopian future dominated by corporations, the film explores loyalty, guilt, and class responsibility. The space station, with its clean air, becomes the last “lifeboat” for the privileged, posing a terrible question: who deserves to survive when the world ends?

The Green Slime (1968)

An asteroid threatens Earth. A crew led by Commander Jack Rankin lands on the asteroid to destroy it. During the mission, a crew member collects a sample of a strange green slime. Back on space station Gamma 3, the slime feeds on energy, grows, and multiplies, giving birth to tentacled, single-eyed monsters.

This US-Japan co-production (filmed in Japan with American actors) is the ultimate space B-movie. It’s famous for its psychedelic rock theme song and its blatantly “rubbery” monsters. It’s a film that predates Alien by a decade but already explores claustrophobic space horror. Despite its technical naivety, The Green Slime is a fundamental cult classic that demonstrates how independent and exploitation cinema used space as an economical set for a classic monster movie.