One of the reasons why sci-fi has remained so popular is that there are so many different spins that can be put on the genre, and one of the most popular is to take an A-list movie star or two and trap them in space, as seen in movies like The Martian.
Matt Damon gets left behind when his crew jets off from Mars, and he’s forced to use nothing more than his wits and smarts to survive as the only man on the desolate red planet.
Intelligent, thrilling and frequently funny, Ridley Scott’s survival story is just one of many similarly themed movies that are definitely worth checking out, and we’ve got ten more listed below.
10 Trapped In Space Movies Like The Martian
1. Interstellar (2014)
Scientists are trying to safeguard the future of mankind, but one brave team of astronauts have to be the first to test out the dangerous logistics of traveling through a wormhole.
Christopher Nolan’s epic sci-fi is a lot more existential than many movies like The Martian, but it still features plenty of massive-scale action and heady ideas typical of the filmmaker’s work.
Interstellar is more interested in engaging the brain than delivering action-packed set pieces, but it still has more than a few as the story balances heart and intelligence with blockbuster bombast.
2. Passengers (2016)
Two impossibly attractive people are awakened from suspended animation 90 years too early in Morten Tyldum’s Passengers, with A-listers Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as the lead duo.
Inevitably, they discover that the other 5000 passengers are in danger, which gives them something else to do besides wonder how they’re going to spend the rest of their lives with only each other for company.
A whole lot more sentimental than the vast majority of movies like The Martian, the decision to tell a love story against a sci-fi backdrop makes it a unique twist on a familiar setup.
3. Gravity (2013)
Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is both expansive and claustrophobic, and one of the single most immersive experiences that you can find watching a movie.
Sandra Bullock’s medical engineer is sent hurtling into the vast unknowns of space, and faces a desperate race against time if she’s to find any way of making it home alive.
Cuaron’s direction is impeccable, and Bullock anchors the minimalist story with a powerhouse performance, one that wrings every last drop of tension and suspense out of the premise.
4. Apollo 13 (1995)
Movies like The Martian don’t have to be entirely fictional or set in the distant future, and Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 is one of sci-fi cinema’s most engaging true stories.
The crew on board the titular ship are forced to call off their planned Moon landing when an oxygen tank explodes, and it soon becomes clear that they might not even be able to make it home at all.
Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon are reliably solid as the central trio, and the dissension among the crew is just as important to the narrative as the malfunctioning spacecraft.
5. Ad Astra (2019)
Brad Pitt’s astronaut embarks on a dangerous mission to discover what happened to his father 30 years ago, when a deep space mission saw him vanish along with the rest of his crew.
James Gray’s drama focuses more on the psychological side of things than a lot of movies like The Martian, and having an actor of Brad Pitt’s talent and caliber is a major plus point.
A father/son story lashed with all of the sci-fi trappings, including one barnstorming lunar action sequence, Ad Astra is one of the genre’s more underrated recent additions.
6. Oblivion (2013)
Intergalactic repairman Tom Cruise has two weeks left of his mission to the seemingly abandoned planet of Earth, only for him to discover a mysterious stranger in a downed spacecraft.
Realizing that he’s not alone, Cruise slowly unravels a conspiracy that places the future of mankind squarely in his hands as he’s forced to question everything he’s ever believed in.
Joseph Kosinski brings no shortage of visual style to Oblivion, and Cruise is as reliable as ever in the lead role, and even gets to do some of his signature running for good measure.
7. Moon (2009)
One of the movies like The Martian that shares an almost identical thematic core, Duncan Jones’ Moon is a much smaller-scale affair, but is just as effective.
Sam Rockwell is nearing the end of a three-year stretch on the moon, but his psyche starts to unravel just when the end of his journey in outer space is coming to an end.
The headaches and hallucinations might be more severe than first thought, before things get really strange when a clone appears, although the lines between fact and fiction remain blurred throughout.
8. The Last Days on Mars (2013)
Ruari Robinson’s thriller heads straight down the horror route, which instantly differentiates it from the majority of other movies like The Martian.
Three astronauts face a new form of biological warfare as they encounter a microscopic organism that turns the infected into crazed killers, not ideal in the confines of a research station.
Entertaining B-movie hokum, Liev Schrieber brings a sense of world-weary gravitas to the lead role in a low budget sci-fi that successfully transplants the zombie genre to outer space.
9. Red Planet (2000)
With the human race facing extinction, a crack team of astronauts head to Mars to try and revive an abandoned terraforming project in Anthony Hoffman’s Red Planet.
They quickly discover that the colonization of Mars was abandoned for a very good reason, and they’re soon facing a desperate battle for survival against some very restless natives.
Movies like The Martian generally tend to have some underlying theme of message, but Red Planet is just an old-fashioned action thriller with impressive effects and a stellar ensemble.
10. After Earth (2013)
Will Smith and his son lead M. Night Shyamalan’s blockbuster sci-fi, one which focuses entirely on the idea of family, which tends to be a recurring theme in movies like The Martian.
A legendary soldier and his son crash land on an inhospitable and dangerous planet, only for them to discover that they’re the first humans to set foot on Earth in a very long time.
Heavy on sentimentality and relatively light on action for a $130 million blockbuster, After Earth focuses on personal dynamics instead of spectacle, a rarity for big budget sci-fi.