This is a marathon of standalone space films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 to Project Hail Mary in 2026. It mixes true stories of the space race and Apollo 13 with science fiction about first contact, rescue missions, dying stars and dying Earths; none of the films are connected, so they can be watched in any order.
- Recapped
- 18
- Watch time saved
- 39 hours
- Latest
- 2026
No. 01 · 1968 · Film
2001: A Space Odyssey recap
Millions of years ago, a black monolith appears among a tribe of starving apes, and soon after one of them learns to use a bone as a weapon. In 2001, Dr. Heywood Floyd travels to the Moon, where a monolith has been dug up in the crater Tycho; when the sun touches it, it sends a piercing signal toward Jupiter. Eighteen months later the ship Discovery One heads to Jupiter with astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole awake, three crew in hibernation and the ship run by the HAL 9000 computer. HAL reports a fault in a communications unit that turns out to be fine. Dave and Frank plan to disconnect HAL if he is wrong, and HAL, reading their lips, kills Frank during a spacewalk and the hibernating crew by switching off their life support.
How 2001: A Space Odyssey ends
Dave gets back aboard and shuts down HAL's higher functions while HAL pleads and sings "Daisy Bell". A recorded message reveals the mission's real purpose: the monolith signal. At Jupiter, Dave finds another monolith and is pulled through a corridor of light into an elegant room, where he sees himself grow old and die. He is reborn as a Star Child, a foetus floating in space above the Earth.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 02 · 1995 · Film
Apollo 13 recap
In 1970, Jim Lovell is moved up to command Apollo 13 with Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly. Days before launch, Mattingly is exposed to measles and replaced by Jack Swigert. The launch goes well, and the public barely pays attention. Two days out, a routine stir of an oxygen tank causes an explosion that cripples the Service Module: they are venting oxygen and losing power. Lovell reports, "Houston, we have a problem." The landing is scrapped, and the crew move into the lunar module, Aquarius, using it as a lifeboat as they swing around the Moon. In Houston, flight director Gene Kranz declares that failure is not an option. Engineers build a way to fit square carbon dioxide filters into round sockets, and Mattingly works out in a simulator how to power the frozen command module back up.
How Apollo 13 ends
The crew make a manual course correction by eye, keeping Earth in the window, and power up the command module with Mattingly's procedure. They release the lunar module and the damaged service module, seeing the blown-out side for the first time. Re-entry brings a blackout that lasts longer than expected, until Lovell's voice comes through and the capsule lands safely in the Pacific. Lovell narrates what happened to the crew afterward.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 03 · 1997 · Film
Contact recap
Dr. Ellie Arroway, who lost her father as a child, listens for alien signals at observatories while her old boss David Drumlin, now science adviser to the President, cuts her funding. The reclusive billionaire S. R. Hadden backs her, and at the Very Large Array she picks up a signal from Vega: a sequence of prime numbers, then a rebroadcast of Hitler's 1936 Olympic speech, then the plans for a huge machine. The world argues over what it means. Ellie is passed over to ride the machine partly because she is an atheist, as revealed by Palmer Joss, a religious philosopher she once slept with. Drumlin is chosen, and a religious extremist blows up the machine, killing him. Hadden reveals a second machine built in Japan, and Ellie goes.
How Contact ends
Ellie drops through the machine into a series of wormholes and arrives on a beach that looks like a picture she drew as a child, where an alien speaks to her in the form of her father. To everyone watching, the pod simply fell through in a few seconds. Ellie cannot prove her story, but it is quietly noted that her recorder captured eighteen hours of static. She returns to her work listening at the VLA.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 04 · 1997 · Film
Event Horizon recap
In 2047, the rescue ship Lewis and Clark, under Captain Miller, is sent to Neptune with Dr. William Weir, the scientist who designed the Event Horizon. That ship vanished seven years earlier testing Weir's gravity drive, which folds space to create a gateway, and has reappeared. The crew find the Event Horizon's crew dead and its last log a scene of them mutilating each other. A blast from the drive damages the Lewis and Clark, forcing everyone onto the Event Horizon. The ship makes them hallucinate their fears and guilt: Miller sees a crewman he left to die, the medic Peters sees her son, and Weir sees his wife, who killed herself. The ship went somewhere that the crew come to call hell, and it has come back alive.
How Event Horizon ends
Weir, possessed by the ship, gouges out his eyes, kills crew members and activates the gravity drive to take everyone back. Miller detonates explosives that split the ship in two, sending the forward section with the survivors away from the drive while he stays behind to face Weir and is pulled into the gateway. Starck, Cooper and Justin are rescued weeks later, and Starck wakes screaming from a nightmare of Weir.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 05 · 1998 · Film
Deep Impact recap
A teenage amateur astronomer, Leo Biederman, spots a new comet. A year later reporter Jenny Lerner, chasing a story she thinks is a sex scandal, uncovers the government's secret: the comet, Wolf-Biederman, will hit Earth and could end most life. President Beck announces it, along with the joint mission of the ship Messiah, led by the veteran astronaut Spurgeon Tanner, to blow it apart with nuclear bombs. The bombs only split it in two, and the President declares martial law and a lottery for places in underground caves. Leo marries his girlfriend Sarah so her family can join his, but they are left behind. Jenny's estranged father faces the end, and Jenny gives up her helicopter seat to a colleague and her daughter.
How Deep Impact ends
The smaller fragment hits the Atlantic and a huge tsunami floods the East Coast; Jenny reunites with her father on the beach as the wave arrives. Leo carries Sarah to high ground on a motorbike. The Messiah crew fly into the larger fragment with their remaining bombs, blowing it to pieces and saving the planet. The President speaks to the survivors at the rebuilding of the Capitol.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 06 · 1998 · Film
Armageddon recap
A meteor shower destroys the shuttle Atlantis and hits New York, and NASA learns that an asteroid the size of Texas will hit Earth in eighteen days. NASA director Dan Truman's plan is to drill a hole in it and drop a nuclear bomb inside. He brings in Harry Stamper, the world's best deep-core driller, who agrees on the condition that he uses his own crew, including A.J., the young driller dating Harry's daughter Grace against Harry's wishes. The crew train as astronauts and launch in two shuttles, Freedom and Independence, refuelling at a Russian space station that explodes, picking up the cosmonaut Lev. Independence crashes on the asteroid, killing most aboard, and the drilling on Freedom goes badly wrong.
How Armageddon ends
A.J. and the survivors reach Freedom with their drill. When the remote detonator is damaged, someone has to stay behind to set off the bomb by hand. A.J. draws the short straw, but Harry pulls his air hose and takes his place, saying goodbye to Grace by video. The asteroid splits apart and misses Earth, and the crew come home to a hero's welcome. Grace and A.J. marry.
Post-credits scenes
During the opening of the credits, home videos of Grace and A.J.'s wedding play, with photos of the crew. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 07 · 2000 · Film
Mission to Mars recap
In 2020, the first crewed mission to Mars, led by Luke Graham, finds a strange structure near the Cydonia region. A vortex destroys it and kills all but Luke, who sends a garbled message. The Mars Recovery mission launches with Woody Blake, his wife Terri Fisher, Jim McConnell, who lost his own wife and was meant to command the first mission, and Phil Ohlmyer. Micrometeorites damage their ship, and Woody dies saving the others in a spacewalk, out of reach of Terri. The others land and find Luke, who has worked out that the signal from the structure, a giant face, is a request for the DNA sequence of humans. They answer, and the face opens.
How Mission to Mars ends
Inside, a Martian reveals that its people fled their dying planet long ago and sent life to Earth, so humans are their descendants. Jim chooses to stay and travel on with the Martian ship to the new home of its people, while Luke, Terri and Phil leave Mars to return to Earth.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 08 · 2000 · Film
Space Cowboys recap
In 1958, the Air Force test pilots of Team Daedalus, Frank Corvin, Hawk Hawkins, Jerry O'Neill and Tank Sullivan, lose their chance to fly into space when NASA is created and the job goes to a chimpanzee. Forty years later, the Russian satellite IKON is failing and about to fall to Earth. Its guidance system was copied from a design Frank wrote, and he is the only one who can fix it. He agrees on condition that his old team goes too. The four old men train alongside young astronauts and launch on the shuttle. In orbit they find IKON is not a communications satellite but carries six nuclear missiles aimed at the United States, and a mishap triggers them.
How Space Cowboys ends
Hawk, who has terminal cancer, rides IKON away from Earth and fires the missiles toward the Moon, sacrificing himself. Frank lands the damaged shuttle with Jerry. The final shot shows Hawk's body on the lunar surface, looking back at the Earth, while "Fly Me to the Moon" plays.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 09 · 2007 · Film
Sunshine recap
In 2057, the Sun is dying, and the crew of the Icarus II carry a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan to reignite it; the first Icarus vanished seven years earlier. Capa, the physicist, is the only one who can arm the bomb. The crew hear the distress beacon of Icarus I, and Capa recommends going to it for a second payload. A course change made in the process damages the heat shield, and Captain Kaneda burns to death repairing it. The garden that provides their oxygen is destroyed, and Icarus I turns out to have been sabotaged by its captain, Pinbacker, who decided God wanted the Sun to die. The airlock connecting the ships fails, leaving Capa, Mace and the navigator Cassie to cross space without suits.
How Sunshine ends
Pinbacker, horribly burned and still alive, has boarded Icarus II and kills crew members to stop the mission. Capa detaches the payload, rides it toward the Sun with Pinbacker aboard, and arms the bomb by hand. As the Sun's fire engulfs him, he reaches out to touch it. On Earth, his sister and her children see the Sun brighten.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 10 · 2009 · Film
Moon recap
Sam Bell is near the end of a three-year contract alone on the far side of the Moon, mining helium-3 for Lunar Industries with only the robot GERTY for company. His link to Earth is broken, so he only gets recorded messages from his wife Tess. Sam crashes a rover and wakes up in the base's infirmary. Disobeying orders, he goes out to the crash and finds himself, injured but alive, in the wreck. The two Sams realise they are clones, each given memories of the original Sam and told he will go home after three years. In reality each clone is killed and replaced, and a vault beneath the base holds hundreds more. A rescue team is coming that will find two of them.
How Moon ends
The older Sam, dying, calls Earth and learns Tess has died and his daughter Eve is now a teenager; the original Sam is alive at home. GERTY helps them, and the older Sam stays to die in the crashed rover while the younger Sam escapes to Earth in a helium canister. As the credits begin, news reports reveal his testimony has thrown Lunar Industries into a scandal.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 11 · 2013 · Film
Gravity recap
Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first space mission, is repairing the Hubble telescope with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski when debris from a destroyed Russian satellite tears through their shuttle. The rest of the crew are killed and Stone is sent spinning into space. Kowalski finds her with his jet pack, and they make for the International Space Station, but they come in too fast; Kowalski unclips himself so Stone can hold on, and drifts away. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, and she escapes in a Soyuz capsule that has no fuel. Ready to give up, she hallucinates Kowalski, who reminds her the landing rockets can be used to move. She reaches the Chinese station Tiangong as it falls.
How Gravity ends
Stone takes the Chinese Shenzhou capsule down through re-entry as Tiangong burns up around it. She lands in a lake, nearly drowns when the capsule floods, sheds her suit and swims to shore. She stands up on the beach, unsteady in gravity, ready to live.
Post-credits scenes
At the end of the credits, a radio transmission plays with a voice counting down. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 12 · 2014 · Film
Interstellar recap
Crops are failing and dust storms cover the Earth. Cooper, a former NASA pilot turned farmer, follows a pattern in the dust in his daughter Murph's room to a secret NASA base, where Professor Brand plans to save humanity through a wormhole near Saturn. Twelve scientists went through to scout three planets. Cooper pilots the Endurance with Brand's daughter Amelia, Romilly and Doyle, leaving a furious Murph behind. On the first planet, near the black hole Gargantua, a tidal wave kills Doyle, and the time dilation costs them twenty-three years. Back on Earth, the grown Murph learns that Brand's Plan A to lift humanity off Earth was never real. On the icy world of Dr. Mann, Mann has faked his data and tries to kill Cooper and steal the Endurance.
How Interstellar ends
Cooper sends Amelia on to Edmunds' planet and drops into Gargantua, entering a tesseract built by future humans where he can see Murph's bedroom through time. He sends her the quantum data she needs as Morse code through her watch. Murph solves gravity and humanity leaves Earth. Cooper wakes up on a space station near Saturn, sees the elderly Murph one last time, and leaves to find Amelia.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 13 · 2015 · Film
The Martian recap
A storm forces the Ares III crew to abandon their Mars mission, and astronaut Mark Watney is struck by debris and left for dead. He wakes up alone, with a long wait until the next mission. Watney, a botanist, grows potatoes in the habitat using the crew's waste and makes water from rocket fuel. NASA spots activity in satellite images, realises he is alive, and decides not to tell his crew, who are on their way home on the Hermes. Watney digs up the old Pathfinder probe to talk to Earth. A breach destroys his crop, and a rushed supply rocket explodes. An astrodynamicist, Rich Purnell, works out a way to slingshot the Hermes back to Mars, and Commander Lewis's crew mutiny to do it.
How The Martian ends
Watney drives across Mars to the next mission's launch vehicle, strips it down and flies it into orbit, where it falls short. Lewis floats out on a tether and catches him. Five years later, Watney teaches astronaut candidates and the crew have gone on with their lives as Ares V launches.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 14 · 2016 · Film
Passengers recap
The starship Avalon is carrying five thousand sleeping colonists on a 120-year trip to a new world. A malfunction wakes Jim Preston, a mechanic, 90 years early. He cannot get back into hibernation, and his only company is Arthur, an android bartender. After a year alone, close to suicide, he finds the pod of Aurora Lane, a writer, and after a long struggle wakes her, condemning her to his fate. He tells her it was a malfunction. They fall in love. Arthur tells Aurora the truth, and she is devastated. Then a crew member, Chief Gus Mancuso, wakes up too, and the ship's failures get worse. Gus dies, giving them his access before he goes.
How Passengers ends
The ship's reactor is overheating, and Jim goes outside to vent it manually and is blown into space; Aurora brings him back and revives him in the medical pod. Jim finds a way for one of them to go back to sleep, but Aurora chooses to stay awake with him. When the crew wake up 88 years later, they find the ship's hall turned into a garden, with a house, and Aurora's story.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 16 · 2018 · Film
First Man recap
In 1961, test pilot Neil Armstrong bounces an X-15 off the atmosphere and loses his young daughter Karen to a brain tumour. He joins NASA's Gemini program and moves with his wife Janet and their sons to Houston. Close friends die: Elliot See in a jet crash, and later Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. Armstrong commands Gemini 8, achieving the first docking in space before a thruster jams and he brings the spinning capsule under control. He ejects from the lunar landing trainer seconds before it crashes. He is named commander of Apollo 11. On the night before launch, Janet makes him sit down and tell their sons he may not come back.
How First Man ends
Apollo 11 launches, and Armstrong steers the Eagle past a boulder field and lands with fuel almost gone. He takes the first step onto the Moon, and alone at a crater, drops Karen's bracelet into it. Back on Earth, in quarantine, he and Janet face each other through glass and touch hands.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 17 · 2019 · Film
Ad Astra recap
In the near future, astronaut Roy McBride, famous for keeping his pulse steady in any danger, survives a fall from a space antenna during a power surge that strikes Earth. Space Command tells him the surges come from the Lima Project near Neptune, led by his father Clifford, a hero thought to have died there sixteen years ago. Roy is sent to Mars by way of the Moon, where raiders attack his convoy, to broadcast a message to his father. On the way, a supply ship's crew is killed by baboons used as test animals. On Mars, Helen Lantos, whose parents died on Lima, shows him that his father killed the crew who tried to come home. Roy learns he will be removed from the mission and a nuclear strike sent instead.
How Ad Astra ends
Roy hijacks the ship to Neptune, where he finds his father, old and lost, still searching for alien life. Roy sets the bomb, and his father asks to be let go, floating off into space. Roy uses the blast to sail home, lets people in at last, and reconnects with his estranged wife Eve.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 18 · 2026 · Film
Project Hail Mary recap
Ryland Grace wakes alone aboard the spacecraft Hail Mary with no memory, his two crewmates dead in their pods. Flashbacks return: Grace, a former molecular biologist turned middle school science teacher, was drawn in to study astrophage, a microbe that is dimming the Sun and will freeze the Earth. Tau Ceti is the only nearby star untouched, and the Hail Mary, run by the formidable Eva Stratt, was a desperate one-way mission there to find out why. Grace learns he was put on the ship against his will. At Tau Ceti, an alien ship docks with his: its pilot is Rocky, a rock-like engineer from the planet Erid, whose own star is dying of the same infection. The two build a translator and become friends, and Grace finds a microbe that eats astrophage, which he names taumoeba.
How Project Hail Mary ends
The taumoeba escape and start eating the Hail Mary's fuel, and Grace realises the same thing will happen aboard Rocky's ship, stranding him and dooming Erid. Grace sends his logs and taumoeba samples to Earth by probe, then turns back to save Rocky, giving up his own way home. The samples reach Earth and Stratt's team saves the Sun. Years later, Grace lives in a habitat built for him on Erid, teaching science to Eridian children, with the chance of a trip home.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no scene during or after the credits; Rocky's sounds play over the closing studio logos.
Common questions
What is the Space story so far?
This is a marathon of standalone space films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 to Project Hail Mary in 2026. It mixes true stories of the space race and Apollo 13 with science fiction about first contact, rescue missions, dying stars and dying Earths; none of the films are connected, so they can be watched in any order.
Where did Space leave off?
Project Hail Mary (2026) is the latest. The taumoeba escape and start eating the Hail Mary's fuel, and Grace realises the same thing will happen aboard Rocky's ship, stranding him and dooming Erid. Grace sends his logs and taumoeba samples to Earth by probe, then turns back to save Rocky, giving up his own way home. The samples reach Earth and Stratt's team saves the Sun. Years later, Grace lives in a habitat built for him on Erid, teaching science to Eridian children, with the chance of a trip home.
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