Accuracy and movies can be like water and oil. After all, the aim of cinema is to capture your mind and entertain you, and perhaps this entertainment comes in the form of an epic space battle or the eye-covering tension of a slasher movie. Does it need to be accurate to be entertaining? Heck no!
In fact, we sometimes take solace in movie narratives being completely fabricated, leaving the theater with an exasperated, “Phew, at least it was only a movie.” But sometimes the moments that stick with us the most are the ones that feel feasible. It only makes sense that the stakes can seem a lot higher when they’re based in reality.
With that in mind, we’ve selected five movies that use the reality of technology and science to not just wow the imagination, but to use it as fuel for their dramatic engines. From the reaches of outer space to the depths of the ocean, it’s surprising just how far some filmmakers will go to ensure their movies are accurate…while still keeping you entertained along the way.
1. Interstellar (2014)
In the world of Interstellar, Earth's future is bleak as a global crop blight and a second dust bowl threaten to render the planet uninhabitable. Humanity is left with only one option: Send Matthew McConaughey through a wormhole in space.
Whether it's black holes or time dilation, all of the science presented in Interstellar is inspired by real theoretical physics. This is mostly thanks to American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, who was both a scientific consultant on the film and an executive producer. Thorne committed so much to the film that he wrote a book called The Science of Interstellar, where he goes into great detail about the cosmic science featured in the movie. Director Christopher Nolan describes Thorne’s work on the film in his forward to the book:
“He saw his role not as science police, but as narrative collaborator—scouring scientific journals and academic papers for solutions to corners I’d written myself into. Kip has taught me the defining characteristic of science—its humility in the face of nature’s surprises”
Thorne also worked closely with the film’s VFX team, Double Negative, and its chief scientist, Oliver James. James writes software used by artists to create visual effects for movies. In the case of Interstellar, Thorne would work out complex equations in a program called Mathematica that James would then translate into renders for the film(Opens in a new window). Some stunning set pieces came from this relationship, including the black hole Gargantua.
James had to visualize how light would interact with a black hole—including how it would bend around and change shape through it—to create Gargantua. You can find videos of early black hole simulations on the film’s YouTube channel(Opens in a new window).
Ultimately, Interstellar’s crowning achievement is its commitment to theoretical physics. The film is able to capture your imagination in part because it was born from the imagination of science. (Watch on Paramount+(Opens in a new window).)
2. First Man (2018)
First Man recounts the life of legendary astronaut Neil Armstrong and what led him to take those first few steps on the moon.
The film’s opening minutes feature Neil, played by Ryan Gosling, in the cockpit of a North American X-15, a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft, shaking violently. As you see the analog numbers on the dashboard flip higher and higher with the altitude, you think, “There's no way this hunk of creaking metal will make it this far.” It does, but there's never relief, and on the descent, your anxiety only increases. This is spaceflight as it actually was, not the stuff of science fiction.
After Armstrong’s family gave writer Josh Singer the OK to move forward with First Man, NASA officially signed on to be a consultant on the film. In an article in Popular Science(Opens in a new window) regarding the film’s accuracy, NASA’s multimedia liaison Bert Ulrich mentions, “One of the great legacies of NASA is the assets that we have: the footage and photos and other details in our historical archives.” In 2017 alone, Ulrich and NASA provided assistance on 143 documentaries, 25 feature films, and 41 television shows.
Josh Singer, director Damien Chazelle, and the rest of the production staff used these assets to great effect. Singer was able to fly a simulation of Armstrong’s X-15 flight described above and the crew was able to create models of NASA’s actual equipment used during that time.
Sound is extremely important in the film, and NASA was able to provide the actual spacesuits used in the Gemini and Apollo flights. The sound artists captured the audio of the suit’s zippers going up and down, as well as the airflow within the helmets. It’s no surprise First Man was nominated for two Academy Awards, sound mixing and sound editing.
Singer and Chazelle also went to great lengths to capture the energy in the mission control room during the Gemini 8 launch. After the crisis, there were no transcripts available from the launch, so Singer was able to find one of the remaining flight directors who was there on that fateful day.
The team behind First Man wanted to create a historically accurate depiction of Neil Armstrong’s life, and to do that they had to capture the danger and cost that came with humankind’s grandest expedition. The drama, it turns out, didn’t need much embellishing. (Watch on Hulu with Live TV or FX Now.)
3. The Conversation (1974)
When surveillance expert Harry Caul suspects the couple he is spying on will be murdered, he is overcome by guilt and paranoia in this ‘70s thriller directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The drama in The Conversation is intrinsically tied to the technology of the time, an era when covert audio devices yielded far better results than video in the world of surveillance.
Coppola’s inspiration for the film derived from a conversation(Opens in a new window) with another director, Irvin Kershner, in which they discussed where the safest place for two people to have a private conversation would be. The answer was...nowhere. Kershner mentioned that he heard of microphones with gun sights on them that were so powerful and selective they could pick up a specific conversation, even in a crowd. These are the very microphones depicted in the opening moments of The Conversation.
According to Crypto Museum(Opens in a new window), an array of real gadgets, including pen microphones(Opens in a new window) and harmonica-activated telephone bugs(Opens in a new window), are featured and used correctly in the film. The opening shot is of the titular conversation being recorded, a God's-eye view slowly moving around a crowded Union Square. The audio trickles in, broken and incomprehensible before focusing on the subject, a couple attempting to have a private conversation.
Coppola said the whole scene was shot with radio mics, and despite it being chaotic to film, it was the same technology the protagonist would be using on this job in the story. It's rare to see a film rely on the reality of its technology rather than its potential, and this reality is used to great effect in The Conversation. (Watch on Showtime or Paramount+(Opens in a new window).)
4. Mr. Robot (2015-2019)
Elliot Alderson is a cybersecurity engineer turned vigilante hacker in the mind-bending television masterpiece that is Mr. Robot. Now, before we keep going, we’re aware that the name of this article specifically cites movies, but what is prestige television if not long-form cinema? Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Mr. Robot features the most accurate depictions of hacking in any fictional story, no matter how big the screen.
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Hacking is often used as a device to easily solve a narrative problem disguised as a technological one. It can often invite any number of cliche visual tropes like typing rapidly but nonsensically into a keyboard, or a wall of code(Opens in a new window) seen on a monitor when someone is hacking or being hacked. Mr. Robot’s creator, Sam Esmail, says he devoted much of the show’s resources to depicting hacking as accurately as possible, with a team of talented minds to ensure narrative accuracy.
Kor Adana, the show's technological producer, headed this team(Opens in a new window). Adana used to work in cybersecurity and oversaw all the technical aspects of the show, ensuring that the hacks, codes, and tools were all genuine(Opens in a new window). Another member of the team, Marc Rogers, is well known for pioneering hacks in the ‘90s. Adana and Rogers were joined by Ryan Kazanciyan, chief security architect for security firm Tanium, as well as two former FBI agents.
The creative pipeline of the show went like this(Opens in a new window): The writers would sketch out story arcs and character trajectories, then pass these outlines to the technology team to figure out how technology and hacking would move the story between these points. After the hack was approved by Esmail, Adana would write a detailed breakdown of how it works. In addition, animators built interactive versions of the hacks in flash that would accept any input, ensuring that no matter what the character typed, it would look correct.
Drama is at its most exciting when it meets plausibility, and this happens to great effect again and again in Mr. Robot. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video(Opens in a new window).)
5. Finding Nemo (2003)
We’re not going to sit here and tell you fish can talk and that they have wacky adventures, but Finding Nemo is based on a surprising amount of actual marine science(Opens in a new window).
Much of the movie’s accuracy is found in its art direction and design. All of the fish featured in the film, like clown fish, blue tang, sharks, and anglerfish, all look like their real-life counterparts, albeit with that iconic Pixar animation flair. If you look at images of the great barrier reef seen in the film next to images of the real one, they're shockingly similar. The animation team also developed such a realistic water simulation for the movie they were asked to tone it down(Opens in a new window) for the final product.
The facts are right too: clown fish can lay up to 1,000 eggs and anglerfish use their headlamps as lures. And though the speed is exaggerated for the film, tropical fish do sometimes “hitch a ride” on the East Australian Current in the summer.
Perhaps Finding Nemo isn’t the most accurate film on this list, but it uses real science to inform creative decisions for its design and storytelling. (Watch on Disney+(Opens in a new window).)
For more on multimedia vs. real life, see our story on 5 Modern Technologies 'The Jetsons' Accurately Predicted 60 Years Ago. And to watch any of the movies and shows mentioned above, check out our list of the best video streaming services.
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