From ‘Apollo 13’ to ‘Gravity’: Our Favorite Movie Astronauts

It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since Ron Howard's quintessential “survival in space” movie 'Apollo 13' hit theaters. To celebrate this anniversary, we celebrate our favorite Hollywood astronaut heroes (some fictional, some real) who braved the cold void of the cosmos in search of knowledge and adventure.

This epic film traced the evolution of man from his earliest cave-dwelling days to his journey into the stars. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) found himself the lone survivor of an expedition to investigate a mysterious, giant monolith orbiting Jupiter. By the time his mission was done, this humble astronaut had transformed into the Star-Child, the first of a new breed of man.

Charlton Heston put his impressive screen presence to good use as he played this cynical astronaut who joined a long space voyage in hopes of finding something better and more enlightened than mankind. Instead, he found a race of intelligent, domineering apes and realized that, in more ways than one, he hadn't really left home at all.

Inspired by the popularity of 'Star Wars,' NBC commissioned a TV remake of the popular Buck Rogers movie serials, with the pilot episode morphing into a full-fledged theatrical movie. This film helped kick-start a franchise, with Gil Gerard playing an ordinary astronaut circa 1987 who found himself frozen for centuries and dealing with life in the 25^th century.

Before 'Apollo 13,' this film set the gold standard when it came to dramatizing the exploits of real-life astronauts. Charles Frank, Scott Glenn and Ed Harris starred in this tale of a handful of elite pilots tapped for Project Mercury, the first manned spaceflight program in U.S. history.

Few Hollywood stars play the everyman hero like Tom Hanks, and that talent served him particularly well in this dramatization of the failed 1970 mission. What started as a mission to realize Lovell's dream of walking on the moon turned into a desperate bid for survival after an accident left their craft crippled.

'Deep Impact' offered a somewhat more thoughtful and realistic alternative to 'Armageddon''s flashy end-of-the-world scenario. All we know is that if a giant asteroid ever comes careening towards Earth, we'd want Robert Duvall's calm, competent Spurgeon Tanner in charge of saving the day.

In this moody, contemplative drama, George Clooney played a widowed psychiatrist called to a remote space station to investigate a strange phenomenon. Thanks to the influence of the nearby planet, every person on the station was confronted with the ghost of someone they held dear. For Kelvin, the question wasn't “How is this happening?” but “Do I ever want to leave?”

This stylish film presented a near-future doomsday scenario where Earth's sun was dying out and a team of astronauts was dispatched to reignite it. Cillian Murphy played the genius physicist responsible for building a Manhattan-sized nuclear bomb to birth a new Sun out of the ruins of the old.

One of Sam Rockwell's most memorable roles was that of Sam Bell, a Moon-based astronaut/miner with about the worst case of cabin fever in history. His mundane life quickly became turned upside down as he discovered the truth about the nature of his job and the fate of his predecessors.

This film tapped into the same space survival vibe as 'Apollo 13' and found similar success. Sandra Bullock's Dr. Stone wasn't compelling simply because she was trapped in orbit with little hope of returning home alive, she was also a woman going through a process of psychological rebirth.

Matthew McConaughey's career renaissance continued as he starred in this epic drama about a crew of astronauts that travel through a wormhole in search of a new home for humanity. Cooper's personal struggle to reunite with his family billions of light years away anchored the film.