Part of Science On Screen® 2025
When a mysterious life-threatening event strikes Earth, astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) goes on a dangerous mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones) — and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
Overflowing with stunning cosmic visuals, a gorgeous Max Richter score and a deeply emotional core, director James Gray’s epic but intimate tale of one man’s journey through space in search of Answers was a minor flop at the box office on its initial release, but critical reappraisals in the years since have vindicated it as a humane masterpiece of 21st century science-fiction.
Science on Screen® is an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
“AD ASTRA is beautiful, contemplative, and loaded with meaning — not an action movie, but one that leaves you with plenty to ponder.” —Alissa Wilkinson, Vox “The canniness of Gray’s procedure is matched by the boldness, even the recklessness, of the extremes to which he pushes it — along with his characters, his story, his emotions, and his techniques. The result is to turn AD ASTRA into an instant classic of intimate cinema — one that requires massive machinery and complex methods to create a cinematic simplicity that, for all the greatness of his earlier films, had eluded him until now.” —Richard Brody, New Yorker “Godard famously said that the way to criticize a film is to make another film, and through that lens, AD ASTRA plays like a critique of its blockbuster brethren — films that marshal the limitless budgets and resources of the studio system, all at the service of filmmakers with nothing whatsoever to say, or feel.” —Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
Speaker and Topic: TBA
