Of all the mysteries of life, one that continues to confound us is what, exactly, lies beyond our planet. After thousands of years of peering into outer space as far as we could, we began to look for those answers in a very concrete way by sending people to the stars, and our movies have reflected our desire to know more, meaning that a number of humanity’s biggest and brightest stars have played space-faring individuals on screen. Here for you now are 32 famous actors who’ve played astronauts.
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Let’s start with one of the more harrowing views of space travel, Gravity, which garnered a number of Academy Award wins after its 2013 release. Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Ryan Stone, who’s on her first space mission in order to help upgrade a telescope. But, things very quickly go wrong when she’s doing a spacewalk, and debris from a recently deactivated satellite hits the shuttle and leaves her stranded with many of her crew dead, Ryan floating through space, and desperate to find a way back to earth all on her own.
Brad Pitt (Ad Astra)
A space trip that doesn’t go too much better involves Brad Pitt’s Roy McBride in 2019’s Ad Astra. When Roy is tasked with traveling to Mars to see if the crew of a mission that was searching for other intelligent life, which was led 29 years earlier by his father, is still alive, he’s unwittingly thrust into a situation that’s far more dangerous than even standard space travel is known to be.
Ryan Reynolds (Life)
Noted comedic actor and big-screen superhero talent Ryan Reynolds has also donned a space suit for the very much not comedic Life, a 2017 ode to terror in space. After a probe returns to the International Space Station with soil samples from Mars, what is at first a dormant cell quickly turns into, well, life, and begins to cause a lot of horrific trouble for Reynolds’ engineer and the rest of the crew.
Halle Berry (Moonfall)
If you’re starting to sense a theme here, that outer space is dangerous, congratulations, because you really are paying attention. In the sci-fi disaster epic, Moonfall, Halle Berry’s NASA deputy director has to investigate when the moon begins to leave its orbit and come closer to Earth, threatening all of civilization. When she digs deeper into the mystery, however, she finds a government cover-up that goes back many decades and is forced to head back into space with a small crew to take care of the growing problem herself.
Michael Peña (A Million Miles Away)
Considering the incredible number of films we have where those who head into space are prominent characters, there are actually relatively few based on the lives of real people. A Million Miles Away stars Michael Peña as José M. Hernández, a Mexican-American engineer who served as a migrant worker when he was a child and went on to become an astronaut who worked aboard the International Space Station.
Viola Davis (Solaris)
There are many sci-fi films of the mind-trip variety and Solaris is no different. Viola Davis portrays one of the last surviving members of a space station crew orbiting the titular alien world, who must then try to help George Clooney’s visiting psychologist understand the truly strange phenomena that led to the death or disappearance of most of the crew. If you enjoy a twisty ending that leaves you with lots of questions, you’ll enjoy this one.
Mark Wahlberg (Planet Of The Apes)
You know this story; you love this story. Planet of the Apes saw Mark Wahlberg take over the role of an astronaut who crashes on a foreign planet, only to find that apes are now the dominant species, while humans are mostly without speech and used as slave labor.
Chris Evans (Sunshine)
And here we have yet another space movie where a mission does not quite go as planned. Sunshine features stars like Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans as the crew of a ship that’s been tasked with traveling to our dying sun to deliver a bomb in the hopes of reigniting it so that our planet can avoid another catastrophic ice age.
Adam Driver (65)
Ever wonder what Earth was like about 65 million years ago when dinosaurs still ruled the land? Well, that’s what alien astronaut Mills (Adam Driver) accidentally finds out when his ship is struck by a large field of asteroids and crashes on our planet, leading him to have to protect the only other survivor as they flee many dangerous beasts in an attempt to get to a faraway escape pod so they can return home.
Sigourney Weaver (Alien)
It’s possible we’d have far fewer of these “if it can go wrong on a space mission it will” science fiction films without what many consider one of the best horror movies of all time, Alien. The classic stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, one of a seven-person crew who unknowingly stumble upon the ultra-dangerous xenomorphs that would go on to become legendary in sci-fi horror, which quickly leads to pretty much nothing but increasingly bad times on their doomed mission.
Tom Hanks (Apollo 13)
We’ve hit upon another story based on some real-life adventures! In Apollo 13, Tom Hanks stars as Commander Jim Lovell who, along with Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), board their 1970 mission to the moon in order to become the third American crew to land there. However, trouble starts almost immediately.
Natalie Portman (Lucy In The Sky)
While not completely a true life story, 2019’s Lucy in the Sky is billed as being “loosely inspired” by the life of NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak. The plot concerns Natalie Portman’s Lucy, who has just returned from her first space mission, which had such a huge impact on her that she no longer feels connected to her family or life here. As she pushes herself to return on the next mission, she undergoes a mental breakdown that sends her life into a tailspin.
Glen Powell (Hidden Figures)
While the amazing biopic, Hidden Figures, focuses on three Black women (Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who worked as NASA mathematicians during the height of the Space Race in the 1960s, we do still get an astronaut in this film. Twisters star Glen Powell plays John Glenn, who became the first American in orbit in 1962.
Robert Pattinson (High Life)
You’d think a movie called High Life would finally focus on some good times in space, but…nahhhhh. Robert Pattinson is a member of a crew of convicts on death row who’ve been sent to retrieve energy from a black hole, with the experiments of their commander leading to a child being born on board while crew members spiral out of control.
Tom Cruise (Oblivion)
Tom Cruise’s 2013 film, Oblivion, features him in a twisty plot that involves a post-apocalyptic Earth, evil A.I., even more evil aliens, and his character trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with his assigned mission. This is a good one that people hardly ever talk about.
Jodie Foster (Contact)
Based on the 1985 novel by Carl Sagan, Contact stars Academy Award winner Jodie Foster as a scientist who specializes in the search for extraterrestrial life, and finds a big clue toward that goal when she locates a radio signal that appears to be sent from a distant star, and is eventually chosen as the person to make first contact with the alien race behind the signal. Contact is an amazing film that is a must-see for sci-fi and space movie lovers.
Colin Farrell (Voyagers)
This movie is a real (space) trip. Voyagers stars Colin Farrell as the leader of a crew of very young adults who were bred away from humanity and had some of their hormones and emotions suppressed in the hope of keeping them manageable. But, when two of the crew realize what’s been done to them and convince everyone to stop taking the chemical, well, the proceedings get extremely emotional and tension doesn't let up for quite some time.
Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar)
By now, it’s probably pretty clear that our idea of space travel and exploration is mainly one of danger, especially from the unknown, and Christopher Nolan’s wildly successful Interstellar is certainly another addition to the film canon that shows us that. In it, Matthew McConaughey plays a former NASA test pilot who’s chosen to lead a mission through a wormhole that is hoped to lead to at least one habitable planet for humanity, which is dealing with a global famine that’s threatening an extinction event.
Idris Elba (Prometheus)
Those Alien xenomorphs just won’t leave us alone, will they? In Prometheus, we get their origin story as a crew following an ancient star map searches for the beginnings of humanity, but instead finds…you know, a secret plot and lots of terror. Idris Elba portrays Janek, the heroic captain of the doomed spaceship.
Adam Sandler (Spaceman)
If you’ve ever gotten the sense that space travel can be kind of lonely, Adam Sandler’s Spaceman turns that idea up to 11. His astronaut is six months into a solo mission that sees him missing his wife and the unborn child he left behind, when he realizes he has a stowaway: an alien creature who can communicate telepathically with him, and seeks to understand humans while helping alleviate the astronaut’s loneliness.
Ryan Gosling (First Man)
This biographical drama sees Ryan Gosling play Neil Armstrong, who became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. The story follows Armstrong, his wife Janet (Claire Foy), and other astronauts and NASA figures as they prepare for the famed Apollo 11 mission that led to Armstrong making history.
Angela Bassett (Supernova)
Even two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett has taken a turn at playing a space explorer whose time there does not go as planned. When she and her crew answer a distress call from thousands of light years away during their deep space mission, things go from bad to worse at, well, the speed of light.
Matt Damon (The Martian)
Matt Damon famously starred in one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, playing astronaut Mark Watney, who’s forced to survive on Mars alone after being accidentally left behind when he’s presumed dead by the rest of his crew as they’re forced to evacuate.
Bruce Willis (Armageddon)
Possibly the best non-traditional astronaut movie ever made, Armageddon stars good guy Bruce Willis as an oil driller recruited to go into space with a team of his mean so that they drill into a massive asteroid, implant a nuke in it and blow it up in the hope of stopping it from destroying the planet and human civilization as we know it. I got excited just writing that!
Laurence Fishburne (Event Horizon)
In space, no one can hear you scream. Unless you’re on a spaceship with other people that’s destined to run into loads of trouble, then, you know, all of those people will probably be able to hear you. There’s lots of screaming in 1997’s Event Horizon, which stars Laurence Fishburne as the captain of a rescue ship that goes to answer a distress call sent by a ship that disappeared several years prior. There’s a vivisection in this one. I’m starting to think we should just leave space alone.
Robert Duvall (Deep Impact)
You must remember Deep Impact, as it was released about two months before the more popular Armageddon, but featured a comet being on a collision course with our precious homeworld. Robert Duvall plays the pilot for the crew that’s dispatched to (you guessed it) drill into the comet and nuke it to smithereens. The mission does not go off without a hitch, and that’s why they call this a disaster movie.
Ethan Hawke (Gattaca)
In a society where most babies are created with genetic altering to make sure they have only the best traits of each parent, a man (Ethan Hawke) who was born without that practice poses as a man who was altered so that he can reach his dream of becoming an astronaut without all of the discrimination that people like him suffer in a society where people are expected to be “perfect” to have the best opportunities in life.
Sam Rockwell (Moon)
Ok, so maybe being in space, in general, isn’t always terrible. But it definitely seems like being alone in space for an extended period could be a bad sign for your future. Such is the case with Moon, where Sam Rockwell plays the lone human operating a mining facility on the titular celestial body, who comes to a startling revelation as he nears the end of his three-year work term.
Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys)
Clint Eastwood has portrayed a number of (basically) good guys, so it makes complete sense that he would have stepped into the shoes of an Air Force pilot who retired long ago, but ends up leading a mission of other retired pilots to fix an old Soviet communications satellite that’s in danger of crashing to Earth.
Liv Tyler (Space Station 76)
As you’ve likely noticed, there are not a lot of comedies among this bunch, but Space Station 76 is definitely one of them. This “retro-futuristic” parody stars Liv Tyler as the newly arrived station’s co-pilot, who soon comes to realize that the apparently utopian lives of those on board are hiding some very real problems.
Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest)
Here is another comedy that’s been a cult hit pretty much since its release in 1999. Galaxy Quest focuses on the cast of a fictional Star Trek-like series who are pulled into a hilariously real war between alien races, when the kind, gentle aliens have seen their show and believe it’s a documentary.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Cloverfield Paradox)
The Cloverfield franchise grew with this 2018 entry, which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as an engineer aboard an orbiting space station where the plan is to test a particle accelerator in the hope of using it to provide the planet with infinite energy. You know what happens, right? Things don’t go as planned.
Many of our finest actors have pretended to travel in space for our entertainment, and this list gives you a number of amazing options should you decide to launch an astronaut movie binge session.
