Philip Kaufman, 1983 (9*)
This is the true story of America’s early astronaut program. The men who had the “right stuff” were test pilots, who were the first selected as astronauts, even though they weren’t really doing any piloting at that stage. Kaufman’s film has a big budget and a giant cast, and it shows. Admittedly a Hollywood version of a patriotic story, it’s nevertheless very exciting and realistic, especially the early sequences of Chuck Yeager, played by Sam Shepherd, breaking the sound barrier. The movie also has Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Fred Ward as astronauts, Barbara Hershey and Veronica Cartwright as wives, and many others. It manages to maintain a sense of humor and personality by concentrating on a small group of people in just the very beginning of the program. Based on Thomas Wolfe’s best-selling book. Along with Apollo 13, the best true stories among space films.