We’re talking about movies where space is so much a part of the film that without space the movie is simply incoherent nonsense. Movies where space is the antagonist or the frontier or the battlefield-not simply the highway between other more interesting worlds. Movies where the central action involves characters who exist in space. So movies like Blade Runner or the Fifth Element are also absent. So, too, are we ignoring movies set on futuristic Earths, which have technically achieved deep space travel, but where the central plot takes place only on our familiar terrestrial plane.

Movies just involving beings from space, either invading or just sort of hovering there-think Arrival or District 9-we’re excluding. Before we begin ranking space movies and incurring the wrath of correctional comments-because, invariably, we will exclude the one film you have on VHS, which is really a banger but doesn’t get enough love and so, of course, is ignored from yet another list by yet another incompetent writer who has the film taste of a child, etc., etc.-we should get definitional.

Best space movies Casino Royale