Movies: Astronomy

A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the trut...

In an American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events....

Three teenage girls come of age while working at a pizza parlor in Mystic, Connecticut....

In an age when misinformation, alternative facts, and conspiracy theories have become mainstream, UFOs have risen to become one of the most-talked about pop culture phenomena. With all of this noise, how can we expect anyone to know how much of this ...

In this film, Méliès concocts a combination fairy- and morality tale about the foolishness of trying to look too deeply into the workings of an unstable and inscrutable universe. At a medieval school, an old astronomer begins to teach a class of youn...

A true historical drama about King Sejong, the greatest ruler in Joseon history who sought to enhance national prosperity and military power through astronomy, and Jang Yeong-sil, the most remarkable scientist....

China's FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) can detect radio signals emitted tens of thousands of light-years away, and engineers have faced unprecedented challenges in constructing a giant radio receptor nestled amid mountains. Fr...

This film tells the surprising story of how the Allegheny Observatory has been a world leader in the study of the stars since the 1860s. Self-educated, and often facing unrelenting hardships, the people associated with the Allegheny Observatory defie...

The year is 1985. Oliver, a boy with an overflowing imagination, moves with his family to the southernmost corner of Europe, just as Halley's Comet is about to pass by. These events will mark a before and after in the emotional life of Óliver, who wi...

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a r...

Stunning slow-motion and timelapse cinematography of the landscapes, people and wildlife of the American South West....

In a mountainous region in an Asian backwater banana republic, it is said that the descendents of all those buried in its earth will be blessed with fantastic fortune and good health. However, if a special ceremony is not performed on the grounds, th...

Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Earth. Today, Earth's twin is a planet knocked upside down and turned inside out. Its burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction, shr...

Nerdy Jewish Nelly Sue Edelmeister, daughter of a New York mother and Berlin musician in Berlin gets straight A's, except for gym. When she hears her dream prince, actual royal Edouard, a fellow astronomy buff who studies in Luxemburg, patronizes the...

No one seems to understand Nakami. His nights are restless, his days sleepy, and his time at school is isolating. Yet all that seems to change when he encounters his carefree classmate, Magari, dozing off in their high school’s abandoned observatory....

In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime....

Although the mountain volcano Mauna Kea last erupted around 4,000 years ago, it is still hot today, the center of a burning controversy over whether its summit should be used for astronomical observatories or preserved as a cultural landscape sacred ...

At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the Earth. Several international teams of scientists have been competing in a frantic race to detect it, in uncharted territories, far beyond Neptune. Th...

A documentary chronicling the history of the telescope from the time of Galileo. Featuring interviews with leading scientists discussing Galileo's first use of the telescope to the latest discoveries in cosmology....

Following engineers and scientists on a groundbreaking mission as they build, test and launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory ever constructed, and discovers the astonishing cosmological mysteries it will investigate....