Top 20 Movie Astronauts

One of the staples of the sci-fi genre is space travel. And you really can’t have space travel without astronauts. Given the extremely relevant release of a new movie centered on an astronaut, I figured I’d drop a list of the Top 20 Movie Astronauts (limited to one astronaut from each film).

Ryan Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace (Project Hail Mary) - I’m so incredibly amped up for this movie. I’m chomping at the bits to get into the theater and see it, as the book is one of my all-time favorites. The trailer looks great and everything leads me to believe the film will also be great. Grace is sent on a mission to the Tau Ceti system to investigate a star with the hopes of saving Earth’s Sun and I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll leave it at that. I also think that this will be a career performance for Gosling, but I guess only time will tell! And despite Dr. Grace’s insistence that he not an astronaut, but I have to disagree.

Matthew McConaughey as Joseph Cooper (Interstellar) - There are some performances on here that I haven’t seen. But of all the ones I have seen, this is hands down the best. Sent to help find a new home for humanity due to the blight and famine on Earth, Cooper teams up with astronauts played by Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley, and David Gyasi. McConaughey’s Cooper is a pilot and an astronaut, but more importantly he’s a father who wants to save his kids. And when he ugly cries… I ugly cry.

Matt Damon as Mark Watney (The Martian) - My favorite book of all-time is ‘The Martian,’ written by Andy Weir. Weir is also the mind behind ‘Project Hail Mary’ and wow can he write astronauts well. Damon slides brilliantly into the role of Watney in an Oscar-nominated performance of a man stranded alone on Mars, trying to figure out how to survive on a planet by himself. One of my all-time favorite performances (like Top 5), from one of my all-time favorite films (like Top 7). Watney is an unlikely hero, as the lowest ranking member of his team and the team’s designate botanist, but I’d argue he becomes the best botanist in the history of botany!

Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) - Buzz is less of an astronaut and more of a… space ranger. Allen’s Buzz is one of the most recognizable characters out there and will appear in ‘Toy Story 5’ this year, reuniting with his best cowboy friend. Buzz also appears in the film ‘Lightyear,’ voiced by Chris Evans, but that’s kind of confusing to explain and the movie’s not great. What is great is that my son is currently in a Buzz phase so he should be excited to see the new film in a couple months.

Brad Pitt as Roy McBride (Ad Astra) - This isn’t considered an all-time film. Personally I found it just okay. But Brad Pitt does play an astronaut in it, so it makes it onto the list. And actually there are a handful of films that I could say the same thing about that made it onto here.

Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone (Gravity) - Another Oscar-nominated (any many believe should have been Oscar-winning) performance, this sci-fi thriller is a nerve wracking watch. Originally focused on two astronauts stranded in space, Bullock plays the inexperienced Stone, with George Clooney playing her seasoned counterpart. The film as a whole won 7 of its 10 Oscar nominations, though it did lose Best Picture. Side note, but the film made $700 million at the box office which is crazy for an original film like this. Bullock had a box office clause in her contract, meaning she earned over $70m from this film. Good for her.

Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong (First Man) - Gosling again?! The first of a couple real people on this list, Gosling played the most famous astronaut ever in this 2018 film. An underrated performance from his career, the film is very grounded (no pun intended) and shows the toll the moon landing mission had on Armstrong and his colleagues. Though the film underperformed, it was well noted for it’s historical accuracy.

Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) - The only other real astronaut on the list comes from Ron Howard’s 1993 docudrama. A dramatization of the Apollo 13 mission, Howard said he went to extreme lengths to keep the film scientifically accurate. Hanks leads the ensemble as Lovell, with Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Sinise playing his cohorts.

Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman (2001: A Space Odyssey) - Considered by many to be the greatest sci-fi film of all-time, Bowman faces off with his ship’s autopilot HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film. And just know that if this was a ranked list of astronauts that were turned into a fetus at the end of their film, Bowman would hands down be number one.

Charlton Heston as George Taylor (Planet of the Apes) - In what I think is one of the best sci-fis of all-time, Heston plays an astronaut who ends up on an unknown planet in which humans don’t speak and apes rule society. He lands with two comrades, but ends up as the sole survivor of his craft as he tries to figure out where his ship went off course. Even though this film is nearly 60 years old, I won’t spoil it since it’s one of the greatest plot twists of all-time.

Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell (Moon) - This 2009 Duncan Jones film follows Sam Bell, an astronaut nearing the end of a three year isolated mission on the moon. He experiences a personal crisis and sci-fi madness ensues. The film was nominated for Best British Film at the BAFTAs and is now fairly well beloved in the world of science fiction.

Adam Sandler as Jakub Procházka (Spaceman) - ‘Project Hail Mary’ if it wasn’t very good. One of Adam Sandler more dramatic outings, this film, based on a 2017 novel, follows Jakub, an astronaut on a solo mission who encounters an extraterrestrial spider he names Hanuš. That genuinely sounds very similar to Hail Mary, so Weir may have taken inspiration here, I’m not sure. I haven’t read the book, but the film was a little bit of a miss.

Robert Pattinson as Monte (High Life) - A 2018 film with a non-linear structure, ‘High Life’ follows a group of criminals who are sentenced to a space mission headed straight towards a black hole. The group of human guinea pigs are subject to experimentation by mad scientist Dibs (Juliette Binoche), with Pattinson’s Monte, who is serving a life sentence for manslaughter, as our lead.

Halle Berry as Jocinda Fowler (Moonfall) - A 2022 box office bust, this film centers on a group of astronauts and scientists who must learn what happened to the Moon when it suddenly leaves orbit. Halle Berry’s ‘Jo’ is a former astronaut who takes on a leadership role for NASA and eventually has to get back up into space.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Dr. David Jordan (Life) - A sci-fi horror akin to ‘Alien,’ this film follows a 6-person crew aboard the ISS who discover life and Mars and quickly learn how dangerous it is. Gyllenhaal’s Jordan is the crew’s medical officer with other crew members played by Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Cillian Murphy as Robert Capa (Sunshine) - I admittedly having seen this film, so I don’t know who would be the best person to put here. But Murphy is top billed so I went with him. A 2007 film, it follows a crew of astronauts sent to drop a bomb on the Sun to help reignite it when a global freeze threatens the Earth. The rest of the crew is played by Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Benedict Wong. And do they successfully reignite the sun? Not sure. I’ll let you know after I watch the movie.

Liev Schreiber as Vincent Campbell (The Last Days on Mars) - A sci-fi horror set on the Red Planet, it’s in a very similar vein to ‘The Martian’ except with some ‘Alien’ aspects mixed in. I’ll leave it at that. (Because I haven’t seen it and know nothing else).

Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ava Hamilton (The Cloverfield Paradox) - The third film in the ‘Cloverfield’ franchise, this film follows… you guessed it… a group of astronauts. The team uses a particle accelerator and then is unable to find their way back to the Earth when the planet appears to have vanished. The film had an extremely unique marketing strategy, dropping a surprise trailer during the Super Bowl and then airing the movie on Netflix immediately after the game. Mbatha-Raw’s Ava is the lead character, the crew’s communications officer with other crew members played by David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, John Ortiz, Chris O’Dowd, and Zhang Ziyi.

George Clooney as Dr. Chris Kelvin (Solaris) - From Steven Soderbergh, this 2002 film is based on the ‘60s novel of the same name. It’s set almost entirely on a space station, as Clooney’s character must figure out what went wrong with the missteps of the previous mission.

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley (Alien) - And rounding us out is a character who feels strange to describe as an astronaut because she’s eclipsed so much more than that. A role that has been reprised several times, Weaver’s Ripley is one of the most well known original film characters of all-time. The warrant officer of the ship, the Nostromo, Weaver earned an Oscar nomination for playing Ripley in the sequel, ‘Aliens.’