The best films about science, scientists

Cinema did not emerge from a eureka moment, but rather through the incremental innovations of pioneers such as the Lumière brothers, Étienne-Jules Marey and Thomas Edison. So it is unsurprising that filmmakers regularly return to science and technology for inspiration.

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30 Extraordinary Measures, 2009

John Crowley is a man on the corporate fast-track, with a beautiful wife and three children. Just as his career is taking off, he learns that his two youngest kids have a fatal disease. John leaves his job and devotes himself to saving their lives. He joins forces with Dr. Robert Stonehill, a brilliant but eccentric scientist. Together they battle the medical and corporate establishment, racing against time for a cure.

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29 A Dangerous Method, 2011

In 1904 a Russian woman named Sabina Spielrein arrives at Carl Jung’s clinic, seeking treatment for hysteria. Jung is eager to test Sigmund Freud’s theories on Sabina and, in fact, successfully treats her. Two years later Jung and Sabina meet Freud in person, and Jung takes over the treatment of Otto Gross, whose influence leads Jung to begin an affair with Sabina, contributing to a rift with Freud.

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28 The Current War, 2017

The dramatic story of the cutthroat race between electricity titans Thomas A. Edison and George Westinghouse to determine whose electrical system would power the modern world.

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27 The Odyssey (L’odyssée), 2016

Thirty years in the life of Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the researcher, scientist, inventor, and filmmaker whose contributions made the general public more curious about the sea.

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26 Creation, 2009

Devastated by the death of his beloved daughter, Annie, Charles Darwin sinks into a deep depression, and cannot bring himself to finish his book about evolution. Though Annie’s death has broken Darwin’s faith in God, it has galvanized that of his wife, Emma. Darwin’s associates urge him to finish his revolutionary work, while Emma strongly objects, leaving Darwin with an agonizing choice.

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25 Kinsey, 2004

Biology professor Alfred Kinsey has a perfectly respectable life teaching and doing research at Indiana University along with a happy home life with his wife. When he realizes that his students, many of them married and with children, still come to him with personal questions about human sexuality, he fights to begin teaching sex education courses and conducts extensive interviews about the sexual history of volunteers despite high-profile opposition.

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24 The Andromeda Strain, 1970

Chilling tale about a US research satellite carrying a deadly extraterrestrial microscopic organism that crashes into a small town in Arizona. A group of top scientists are hurriedly assembled in a bid to identify and contain the lethal stowaway. Based on the novel by Michael Crichton.

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23 Radioactive, 2019

After the death of her beloved husband, Marie Curie’s commitment to science remains strong as she tries to explain previously unknown radioactive elements. But it soon becomes terrifyingly evident that her work could lead to applications in medicine that could save thousands of lives – or applications in warfare that could destroy them by the billions.

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22 The Day After Tomorrow, 2004

After climatologist Jack Hall is largely ignored by U.N. officials when presenting his environmental concerns, his research proves true when an enormous “superstorm” develops, setting off catastrophic natural disasters throughout the world. Trying to get to his son, Sam, who is trapped in New York with his friend Laura and others, Jack and his crew must travel by foot from Philadelphia, braving the elements, to get to Sam before it’s too late.

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21 Apollo 13, 1995

This Hollywood drama is based on the events of the Apollo 13 lunar mission, astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert find everything going according to plan after leaving Earth’s orbit. However, when an oxygen tank explodes, the scheduled moon landing is called off. Subsequent tensions within the crew and numerous technical problems threaten both the astronauts’ survival and their safe return to Earth.

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20 Sunshine, 2007

In the not-too-distant future, Earth’s dying sun spells the end for humanity. In a last-ditch effort to save the planet, a crew of eight men and women ventures into space with a device that could revive the star. However, an accident, a grave mistake and a distress beacon from a long-lost spaceship throw the crew and its desperate mission into a tailspin.

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19 The Man Who Knew Infinity, 2015

In 1913, brilliant East Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan travels to Trinity College in England to work with professor G.H. Hardy.

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18 Einstein and Eddington, 2008

Drama about the development of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and Einstein’s relationship with British scientist Sir Arthur Eddington, the first physicist to experimentally prove his ideas.

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17 Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, 1988

This film is an adaptation of wildlife expert Dian Fossey’s autobiography. Midwesterner Fossey leaves the United States for Africa, where she studies the gorillas of Rwanda and Uganda. As Fossey develops a bond with the animals, she also becomes wary of the poachers who prey on them. Fearing that the gorillas will go extinct if humans continue to hunt them, she organizes a defense league to protect the animals; in doing so, though, she puts herself in a perilous situation.

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16 Lorenzo’s Oil, 1992

True-life drama of a father and mother who battled against the odds to save their son’s life. Augusto and Michaela Odone are dealt a cruel blow by fate: five-year-old Lorenzo is diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease, but the Odones’ persistence and faith leads to the cure which saves their boy and re-writes medical history.

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15 Arrival, 2016

Linguistics professor Louise Banks leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.

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14 The Imitation Game, 2014

In 1939, newly created British intelligence agency MI6 recruits Cambridge mathematics alumnus Alan Turing to crack Nazi codes, including Enigma – which cryptanalysts had thought unbreakable. Turing’s team, including Joan Clarke, analyze Enigma messages while he builds a machine to decipher them. Turing and team finally succeed and become heroes, but in 1952, the quiet genius encounters disgrace when authorities reveal he is gay and send him to prison.

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13 Hawking, 2004

Stephen Hawking contracts a degenerative disease while a doctoral student, but goes on to achieve worldwide acclaim as a physicist and author.

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12 Inherit the Wind, 1960

In the 1920s, Tennessee schoolteacher Bertram Cates is put on trial for violating the Butler Act, a state law that prohibits public school teachers from teaching evolution instead of creationism. Drawing intense national attention in the media with writer E. K. Hornbeck reporting, two of the nation’s leading lawyers go head to head: Matthew Harrison Brady for the prosecution, and Henry Drummond for the defense.

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11 The Physician, 2013

Director Philipp Stölzl adapts author Noah Gordon’s novel about an 11th-century orphan who devotes his life to conquering death after his mother perishes when he is just a child, leaving him to fend for himself in an English mining town. In his quest to become a physician, the young boy studies medicine under renowned Persian expert Ibn Sina. Though the road to enlightenment is a difficult one, the young boy forms many human connections that instill him with the fortitude to pursue his ambitious goal.

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10 Contact, 1997

In this Zemeckis-directed adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel, Dr. Ellie Arroway races to interpret a possible message originating from the Vega star system. Once first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence is proven, Arroway contends with restrictive National Security Advisor Kitz and religious fanatics bent on containing the implications of such an event. An incredible message is found hidden in the signal, but will Arroway be the one to answer its call?

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9 The Theory of Everything, 2014

In the 1960s, Cambridge University student and future physicist Stephen Hawking falls in love with fellow collegian Jane Wilde. At 21, Hawking learns that he has motor neuron disease. Despite this and with Jane at his side he begins an ambitious study of time, of which he has very little left, according to his doctor. He and Jane defy terrible odds and break new ground in the fields of medicine and science, achieving more than either could hope to imagine.

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8 Hidden Figures, 2016

Three brilliant African American women at NASA Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson serve as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race and galvanized the world.

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7 October Sky, 1999

John Hickam is a West Virginia coal miner who loves his job and expects his sons, Jim and Homer, to follow in his footsteps. But Jim gets a football scholarship, and Homer becomes interested in rocket science after seeing Sputnik 1 crossing the sky. John disapproves of his son’s new mania, but Homer begins building rockets with the help of friends and a sympathetic teacher. Rocketry, he hopes, will prove his ticket to a better life.

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6 The Martian, 2015

When astronauts blast off from the planet Mars, they leave behind Mark Watney, presumed dead after a fierce storm. With only a meager amount of supplies, the stranded visitor must utilize his wits and spirit to find a way to survive on the hostile planet. Meanwhile, back on Earth, members of NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring him home, while his crew mates hatch their own plan for a daring rescue mission.

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5 Temple Grandin, 2010

Before enrolling in college, famed animal husbandry expert Temple Grandin visits a cattle ranch owned by her aunt Ann and demonstrates a brilliance for all things mechanical. Once classes begin, the autistic Grandin rises to meet the intellectual challenges though the social ones are a bit more difficult. Grandin triumphs over prejudice to become an innovator in the field of animal care, and a lifelong advocate for humane slaughtering practices.

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4 Awakenings, 1990

The story of a doctor’s extraordinary work in the Sixties with a group of catatonic patients he finds languishing in a Bronx hospital. Speculating that their rigidity may be akin to an extreme form of Parkinsonism, he seeks permission from his skeptical superiors to treat them with L-dopa, a drug that was used to treat Parkinson’s disease at the time.

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3 Oppenheimer, 2023

During World War II, Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves Jr. appoints physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists spend years developing and designing the atomic bomb. Their work comes to fruition on July 16, 1945, as they witness the world’s first nuclear explosion, forever changing the course of history.

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2 A Beautiful Mind, 2001

A human drama inspired by events in the life of John Forbes Nash Jr., and in part based on the biography “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar. From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Jr. experienced it all. A mathematical genius, he made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery.

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1 Interstellar, 2014

In Earth’s future, a global crop blight and second Dust Bowl are slowly rendering the planet uninhabitable. Professor Brand, a brilliant NASA physicist, is working on plans to save mankind by transporting Earth’s population to a new home via a wormhole. But first, Brand must send former NASA pilot Cooper and a team of researchers through the wormhole and across the galaxy to find out which of three planets could be mankind’s new home.

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