Interstellar

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.

Nov 5, 2014 2h 49mPG-13Science FictionAdventureDrama
8.5IMDb
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A dying Earth sends a former pilot through a wormhole in search of a new home, while relativity turns every hour away from his daughter into years of her life.

Hard science fiction with a father-daughter tragedy at the centre. No other blockbuster makes an equation feel like grief.

Signature
Drama · Mind-Bending · Action
Worldwide
$747M
Watch Trailer

Who's in it

Cast

The billed ensemble, with character names. Open any performer for their Nutevio filmography.

The Nutevio profile

Movie DNA

How Interstellar actually feels to watch, measured on the twelve traits our editors track across every Nutevio title.

Action81
Drama98
Humor14
Violence19
Mind-Bending92
Mystery13
Emotional54
Romance13
Darkness20
Suspense54
Pacing61
Family Friendly9

Story overview

What It's About

Spoiler-free. Read the analysis below for the full argument.

A dying Earth sends a former pilot through a wormhole in search of a new home, while relativity turns every hour away from his daughter into years of her life.

Nutevio Editorial Analysis

Why Interstellar works

Interstellar is Nolan's most emotionally exposed film, and the one where his fascination with time finally has something to grieve. The premise is hard science fiction — a blighted Earth, a wormhole, relativity as an antagonist — but the structure is a domestic drama about a father who leaves and a daughter who has to grow old waiting.

The relativity sequence on Miller's planet is the clearest statement of intent in Nolan's career: an hour spent on the surface costs 23 years at home, and the film cashes that out not in exposition but in a stack of unwatched video messages. Matthew McConaughey plays the scene almost silently. It is the moment the physics becomes unbearable.

Hoyte van Hoytema's photography favours practical everything: real cornfields, real ice, miniature spacecraft, IMAX cameras mounted inside a full-size Ranger cockpit. Kip Thorne's equations shaped Gargantua's accretion disc, producing an image that later fed back into published astrophysics. Hans Zimmer's organ score — written before he knew the film was about space — treats the cosmos as a cathedral.

It divides audiences on its third act, and that argument is the point. Nolan chooses love as a physical parameter rather than a metaphor, which either lands as a leap of faith or a step too far. Either way, it is a blockbuster willing to end on a father who has become a ghost in his daughter's bedroom.

By The Nutevio Editors

Where to watch

Streaming

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Why We Recommend It

Why It's Ranked

Interstellar appears in 9 Nutevio collections. Here is the argument behind each placement.

  1. Ranked #1 because no other film makes an abstract physical law feel like grief.

    A dying Earth, a wormhole, and a clock that runs differently for everyone you love.

  2. Ranked #1 because the rare Nolan film where the feeling outruns the mechanism.

    His most emotional film, and his most rigorous.

  3. Ranked #1 because it uses real physics to break your heart.

    Time dilation as the cruellest possible plot device.

  4. Ranked #1 because rated 9.4 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest adventure titles in the catalogue.

    A dying Earth sends a former pilot through a wormhole in search of a new home, while relativity turns every hour away from his daughter into years of her life.

  5. Sci-Fi Movies Ranked #1

    Ranked #1 because rated 9.4 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest sci-fi titles in the catalogue.

    A dying Earth sends a former pilot through a wormhole in search of a new home, while relativity turns every hour away from his daughter into years of her life.

  6. Ranked #2 because the best modern argument for space as emotional territory.

    A rescue mission with relativity as the villain.

  7. Ranked #2 because nobody else was making films this big and this strange.

    Blockbuster ambition at its peak.

  8. Drama Movies Ranked #4

    Ranked #4 because rated 9.4 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest drama titles in the catalogue.

    A dying Earth sends a former pilot through a wormhole in search of a new home, while relativity turns every hour away from his daughter into years of her life.

  9. Ranked #7 because emotional physics: the only blockbuster where an equation makes you cry.

    Relativity turned into a father-daughter tragedy.

The record

Awards

2 wins · 5 nominations

A visual-effects landmark whose black hole was rendered from real physics.

Academy Awards

1 win · 5 nominations

  • WinnerAcademy Award for Best Original Score

Saturn Awards

1 win

  • WinnerSaturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film

The numbers

Box Office & Release

Interstellar returned 4.5× its budget worldwide.

Budget
$165M
Opening weekend
Domestic gross
International gross
Worldwide gross
$747M
Release date
Nov 7, 2014
Runtime
2h 49m
MPAA rating
PG-13
Language
English
Country
United Kingdom, United States of America

Figures from the verified production record. Fields we cannot source are left blank rather than estimated.

Watch

Official Trailer

How it was made

Behind The Scenes

Production facts, technique and the decisions that shaped what ended up on screen.

  • A real cornfield

    The production planted 500 acres of corn in Alberta and sold the harvest afterwards to offset the cost.

  • Physics first

    Kip Thorne's gravitational-lensing equations drove the render of Gargantua; the results were later published as scientific papers.

  • No green screen for space

    Ranger and Endurance interiors were built practically and projected with 30-foot screens so the actors saw real starfields.

  • TARS was operated live

    The monolithic robot was a physical puppet carried on set, with Bill Irwin performing the voice and the movement.

In their words

Iconic Quotes

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Professor Brand
Murph, I'm coming back.
Cooper
We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars.
Cooper
Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.
Brand

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Never stop watching

Related Collections

Story structure

The Timeline

How the film is built, beat by beat.

  1. Beginning

    The dust and the farm

    A failing Earth, a former pilot turned farmer, and a daughter who insists her bedroom is haunted.

  2. Major Events

    Spoiler

    Hidden — reveal spoilers to read this beat.

  3. Turning Point

    Spoiler

    Hidden — reveal spoilers to read this beat.

  4. Climax

    Spoiler

    Hidden — reveal spoilers to read this beat.

  5. Ending

    Spoiler

    Hidden — reveal spoilers to read this beat.

Behind the camera

The Filmmaking

The department heads whose choices define the film's craft.

Direction

Screenplay

Cinematography

Editing

Music

Visual effects

Listen

The Film Score

Composed by Hans Zimmer.

Hans Zimmer wrote the first cue from a one-page letter about fatherhood, before he knew the film involved space at all.

  1. 01

    Cornfield Chase

    The film's optimism, played on organ.

  2. 02

    No Time for Caution

    The docking sequence, scored as a countdown.

  3. 03

    Stay

    Six minutes of departure.

On location

Where It Was Filmed

Real places that shaped the look of the film.

  • Alberta, Canada

    The Cooper farm and its 500-acre cornfield.

  • Svínafellsjökull, Iceland

    Mann's frozen planet.

  • Los Angeles, USA

    Sony Pictures Studios interiors and the tesseract build.

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