''Gravity'' is a 2013
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...
directed by
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco ( , ; born 28 November 1961) is a Mexican filmmaker. He is known for directing films in a variety of genres including the family drama ''A Little Princess'' (1995), the romantic drama ''Great Expectations'' (1998), the c ...
, who also co-wrote, co-edited, and produced the film. It stars
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock (; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, Bullock was the world's highest-paid actress in 2010 and 2014. In 2010 ...
and
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the ot ...
as American
astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
s who are stranded in
space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consi ...
after the mid-orbit destruction of their
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...
, and attempt to return to
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
.
Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son
Jonás and attempted to develop the film at
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
. Later, the distribution rights were acquired by
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film production and distribution company of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment (both ultimately owned by Warner Bros. Discovery). The studio is the flagship producer of li ...
.
David Heyman, who previously worked with Cuarón on ''
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and is the third in the ''Harry Potter'' series. The book follows Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, a young wizard (fantasy), wizard ...
'' (2004), produced the film with him. ''Gravity'' was produced entirely in the United Kingdom, where British
visual effects
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of
a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production.
The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...
company
Framestore
Framestore is a British animation, visual effects company and creative studio based on Chancery Lane in London. Formed in 1986, it acquired (and subsequently merged with) the Computer Film Company in 1997. It works on feature films and telev ...
spent more than three years creating most of the film's visual effects, which involve over 80 of its 91 minutes.
''Gravity'' opened the
70th Venice International Film Festival
The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy from 28 August to 7 September 2013. American film director William Friedkin was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Italian film director Bernardo Bertoluc ...
on August 28, 2013, and had its North American premiere three days later at the
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022.
History
First held on 30 August 1974, t ...
. Upon its release, ''Gravity'' was met with widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its direction and visuals. Considered one of the best films of 2013, it appeared on numerous critics' year-end lists, and was selected by the
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Lead ...
in their annual ''Movies of the Year'' list. The film became the
eighth highest-grossing film of 2013 with a worldwide gross of over $723 million, against a production budget of around $100 million.
The film earned accolades from numerous critics and guilds. At the
86th Academy Awards
The 86th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2013 and took place on March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. ...
, ''Gravity'' received ten nominations, including
Best Actress
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...
for Bullock and
Best Picture
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
, and won seven awards, including
Best Director,
Best Original Score,
Best Cinematography, and
Best Visual Effects. The film was also awarded six
BAFTA Awards
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...
, including
Outstanding British Film and
Best Director, the
Golden Globe Award for Best Director
The Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture is a Golden Globe Award that has been presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization composed of journalists who cover the United States film industry fo ...
, seven
Critics' Choice Movie Award
The Critics' Choice Movie Awards (formerly known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award) is an awards show presented annually by the American-Canadian Critics Choice Association (CCA) to honor the finest in cinematic achievement. Writ ...
s, the 2013
Ray Bradbury Award
The Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation (formerly the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation) is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fant ...
, and the 2014
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
The Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is given each year for theatrical films, television episodes, or other dramatized works related to science fiction or fantasy released in the previous calendar year. Originally the award covered both ...
.
Plot
The
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...
''Explorer'', commanded by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, is in Earth orbit to service the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...
(HST). Dr. Ryan Stone is aboard on her first space mission, to perform a set of hardware upgrades on the Hubble. During a
spacewalk
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA in ...
,
Mission Control in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
warns ''Explorer''s crew about a rapidly expanding cloud of
space debris
Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, or space garbage) are defunct human-made objects in space—principally in Earth orbit—which no longer serve a useful function. These include derelict spacec ...
accidentally caused by the Russians having shot down a presumed defunct spy satellite (see
Kessler syndrome
The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collisional cascading, or ablation cascade), proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollutio ...
) and orders the crew to return to Earth immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly thereafter as more communication satellites are knocked out by the debris.
High-speed debris strikes the ''Explorer'' and Hubble, tearing Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a
Manned Maneuvering Unit
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is an astronaut propulsion unit that was used by NASA on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984. The MMU allowed the astronauts to perform untethered extravehicular spacewalks at a distance from the shuttle. ...
(MMU), rescues Stone, and they return to the Explorer, soon discovering that the Shuttle has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. Stone and Kowalski decide to use the MMU to reach the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
(ISS), which is in orbit about away, Kowalski estimating that they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.
On their way to the ISS, the two discuss Stone's home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the station, they see that the ISS's crew has evacuated using one of its two
Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...
spacecraft, the remaining Soyuz spacecraft exhibiting damage with its parachute having been deployed in space rendering it unable to return to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby
Tiangong space station, away, in order to board the
Shenzhou spacecraft to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering fuel, the two try to grab onto the ISS; the duo's tether snaps on one of the station's solar panels. Stone's leg gets entangled in the Soyuz's parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski's suit, but it soon becomes clear that the cords will not support them both. Despite Stone's protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him. Stone is pulled back towards the ISS, while Kowalski floats away.
Stone enters the space station via the
airlock
An airlock, air-lock or air lock, often abbreviated to just lock, is a compartment with doors which can be sealed against pressure which permits the passage of people and objects between environments of differing pressure or atmospheric compo ...
of the ''
Pirs'' module. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski or Earth, and concludes that she is now the sole survivor. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, forcing her to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the Soyuz away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers snag, preventing the spacecraft from leaving; Stone performs a spacewalk to cut the cables, succeeding just as the debris field returns, destroying the station. Stone angles the Soyuz towards Tiangong, but soon discovers that the Soyuz's engine has no fuel.
After an attempt at radio communication with an
Inuk on Earth, Stone resigns herself to her fate and shuts down the cabin's oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
, there is a knock on the window, and Kowalski enters the capsule. Scolding her for giving up, he tells her to rig the Soyuz's
soft landing rockets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong, before himself disappearing. Realizing Kowalski's appearance was a
hallucination
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
, Stone regains the will to go on, restoring the spacecraft's oxygen flow and rigging the landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong.
Unable to dock with Tiangong, Stone ejects herself from the Soyuz and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to the rapidly deorbiting Tiangong. Stone manages to enter Tiangongs Shenzhou capsule just as the station enters the upper atmosphere, undocking the capsule just in time.
The Shenzhou capsule
re-enters the atmosphere successfully, despite having sustained debris damage during its descent, and lands in a lake. Radio communication from Houston informs Stone that she has been tracked on radar and that rescue crews are on their way. Stone opens the hatch but is unable to exit due to water rushing in. She takes a deep breath and holds it until the capsule sinks, allowing her to swim through the hatch. She sheds her
Sokol space suit that is weighing her down, and crawls onto the beach before standing up triumphantly and walking away.
Cast
*
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock (; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, Bullock was the world's highest-paid actress in 2010 and 2014. In 2010 ...
as Dr. Ryan Stone,
a medical engineer and mission specialist from
Lake Zurich, Illinois
Lake Zurich is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States, a northwest suburb of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,759. The village is named after a body of water named "Lake Zurich," which is completely located in ...
, who is on her first space mission.
According to Cuarón, Stone is "a character who lives in her own bubble", and in the film "she's trapped in her space suit."
Bullock's role was extremely demanding and daunting. She called the experience "lonely" and said there was "frustrating, painful isolation" on set, but in the best way, and described her working day on the shoot as a "morose headspace".
She was cast in 2010, just a few months after finalizing her divorce from
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the " Little Dixie" area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained st ...
.
''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...
'' estimated that Bullock would earn at least $70 million based on theatrical returns alone for the film.
*
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the ot ...
as Lieutenant Matt Kowalski,
the commander of the team. Kowalski is a veteran astronaut planning to retire after the ''Explorer'' expedition. He enjoys telling stories about himself and joking with his team, and is determined to protect the lives of his fellow astronauts.
*
Ed Harris
Edward Allen Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in ''Apollo 13'' (1995), '' The Truman Show'' (1998), '' Pollock'' (2000), and '' The Hours'' (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award ...
(voice) as Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
* Orto Ignatiussen (voice) as Aningaaq,
a
Greenlandic Inuk fisherman who intercepts one of Stone's transmissions. Aningaaq also appears in an eponymous short, written and directed by ''Gravity'' co-writer
Jonás Cuarón
Jonás Cuarón Elizondo (born 1983) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and cinematographer. He is the son of the Academy Award-winner Alfonso Cuarón by the latter's first wife, Mariana Elizondo. Jonás Cuarón
studied ...
, which depicts the conversation between him and Stone from his perspective.
*
Phaldut Sharma
Phaldut "Paul" Sharma, also known as Paul Sharma, is a UK-based actor and dancer. He is best known for his roles in Gavin and Stacey as Achmed and Eastenders as AJ Ahmed .
Career
Television and film
Sharma played Vinnay Ramdas in '' Casualty'' ...
(voice) as Shariff Dasari,
the flight engineer on board the ''Explorer''.
* Amy Warren (voice) as the captain of ''Explorer''.
* Basher Savage (voice) as the captain of the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
.
Themes
Although ''Gravity'' is often considered to be a science fiction film,
Cuarón told the
BBC that he does not, rather seeing it as "a drama of a woman in space". According to him, the main theme of the film was "adversity"
and he uses the debris as a metaphor for this.
Despite being set in space, the film uses motifs from shipwreck and wilderness survival stories about psychological change and resilience in the aftermath of a catastrophe.
Cuarón uses the Stone character to illustrate clarity of mind, persistence, training, and improvisation in the face of isolation and the consequences of a relentless
Murphy's law.
The film incorporates spiritual or existential themes, in the facts of Stone's daughter's accidental and meaningless death, and in the necessity of summoning the will to survive in the face of overwhelming odds, without future certainties, and with the impossibility of rescue from personal dissolution without finding this willpower.
Calamities occur but only the surviving astronauts see them.
The impact of scenes is heightened by alternating between objective and subjective perspectives, the warm face of the Earth and the depths of dark space, the chaos and unpredictability of the debris field, and silence in the vacuum of space with the background score giving the desired effect.
The film uses very long, uninterrupted shots throughout to draw the audience into the action, but contrasts these with claustrophobic shots within space suits and capsules.
Human
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
and the resilience of life may also be seen as key themes of ''Gravity''.
The film opens with the exploration of spacethe vanguard of human civilizationand ends with an
allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...
of the dawn of mankind when Ryan Stone fights her way out of the water after the crash-landing, passing a frog, grabs the soil, and slowly regains her capacity to stand upright and walk. Director Cuarón said, "She's in these murky waters almost like an
amniotic fluid
The amniotic fluid is the protective liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a gravid amniote. This fluid serves as a cushion for the growing fetus, but also serves to facilitate the exchange of nutrients, water, and biochemical products between ...
or a
primordial soup
Primordial soup, also known as, primordial goo, primordial ooze, prebiotic soup and prebiotic broth, is the hypothetical set of conditions present on the Earth around 3.7 to 4.0 billion years ago. It is an aspect of the heterotrophic theory (also k ...
, in which you see
amphibians
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbo ...
swimming. She crawls out of the water, not unlike early creatures in evolution. And then she goes on all fours. And after going on all fours she's a bit curved until she is completely erect. It was the evolution of life in one, quick shot".
Other imagery depicting the formation of life includes a scene in which Stone rests in an
embryo
An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...
nic position, surrounded by a rope strongly resembling an
umbilical cord
In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologi ...
. Stone's return from space, accompanied by
meteorite
A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object ...
-like debris, may be seen as a hint that elements essential to the development of life on Earth may have come from outer space in the form of meteorites. The film also suggests themes of humanity's ubiquitous strategy of
existential
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
resilience; that, across cultures, individuals must postulate meaning, beyond material existence, wherever none can be perceived.
Some commentators have noted possible religious themes in the film.
For instance,
Robert Barron
Robert Emmet Barron (born November 19, 1959) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and ...
in ''
The Catholic Register
''The Catholic Register'' is a Canadian weekly newspaper published by the Archdiocese of Toronto. Founded in 1893, it is the oldest English-language Catholic publication in Canada. Based in Toronto, Ontario, and circulated nationally, it is publ ...
'' summarizes the tension between ''Gravity''s technology and religious symbolism. He said, "The technology which this film legitimately celebrates ... can't save us, and it can't provide the means by which we establish real contact with each other. The
Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
in the sun, the
Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) or alternatively ...
icon, the statue of
Budai
Budai ( zh, c=布袋, p=Bùdài; ko, 포대, Podae; ja, 布袋, Hotei; vi, Bố Đại) was a Chinese monk who is often identified with and venerated as Maitreya Buddha in Chan Buddhism. With the spread of Chan Buddhism, he also came to b ...
, and above all, a visit from a denizen of
heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
, signal that there is a dimension of reality that lies beyond what technology can master or access ... the reality of
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
".
Production
Development
As a child,
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco ( , ; born 28 November 1961) is a Mexican filmmaker. He is known for directing films in a variety of genres including the family drama ''A Little Princess'' (1995), the romantic drama ''Great Expectations'' (1998), the c ...
had an affinity for space programs, dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and would watch live
Moon landings
A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.
The United St ...
on television.
He was 8 years old when
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...
landed on the Moon in 1969 and was profoundly influenced by
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
...
. At that time, his grandmother bought a new television in order to be able to see the Moon landing. He watched space films, like ''
A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' (french: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel '' From the Earth to the Moon'' and its 187 ...
'' (1902), and was further drawn to films featuring the technology of space exploration and trying to honor the
laws of physics, such as ''
Marooned Marooned may refer to:
* Marooning, the intentional act of abandoning someone in an uninhabited area
Film and television
* ''Marooned'' (1933 film), a British drama film
* ''Marooned'' (1969 film), an American science-fiction film
* ''Marooned ...
'' (1969) and ''
Woman in the Moon
''Woman in the Moon'' (German ''Frau im Mond'') is a German science fiction silent film that premiered 15 October 1929 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo cinema in Berlin to an audience of 2,000. It is often considered to be one of the first "serious" ...
'' (1929).
In 2008, money dried up on a project titled ''A Boy and His Shoe'' written by Cuarón and his son Jonás. They wrote a first draft of what would become ''Gravity'' in three weeks. After they finished the screenplay, Cuarón attempted to develop his project at
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
, where it stayed in
development hell
Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are Media industry, media and Software industry, software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between d ...
. When co-chairmen
Marc Shmuger
Marc Shmuger (born June 27, 1958) is an American entertainment executive and film producer. From 1998 to 2009 he was working for Universal Pictures, where he became chairman in 2006. From February 2016 to December 2017 he was the CEO of EuropaCorp. ...
and
David Linde
David Linde (born February 8, 1960) is the CEO of the Los Angeles, California-based film production company Participant, a position to which he was appointed in October 2015. Prior to his role at Participant, Linde had leading roles at Universal ...
were ousted from Universal in 2009, Cuarón asked for the project to be released, and then Warner Bros Pictures chief Jeff Robinov stepped in. After the rights to the project were sold, it began development at Warner Bros. Three years later, when the movie was still unfinished, Robinov was let go.
In 2014, author
Tess Gerritsen
Tess Gerritsen (born Terry Tom; June 12, 1953) is the pseudonym of Terry Gerritsen, an American novelist and retired general physician.
Early life
Tess Gerritsen is the child of a Chinese immigrant and a Chinese-American seafood chef. While grow ...
filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. for breach of contract, alleging that the film ''Gravity'' is an adaptation of her 1999 novel of the same name. The suit was dismissed twice in 2015.
Writing
Cuarón co-wrote the
screenplay
''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993.
Background
After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, f ...
with his son
Jonás.
However, Cuarón never intended to make a space film. Before conceiving the story, he started out with a theme: adversity. He would discuss with Jonás survival scenarios in hostile, isolated locations, such as the desert (Jonás wrote a desert film, ''
Desierto
''Desierto'' is a 2015 thriller drama film co-written and directed by Jonás Cuarón. It was produced by Cuarón together with his father Alfonso and his uncle Carlos, and distributed by STXfilms
STX Entertainment is a mini-major American e ...
'', which was released in 2015).
Finally, he decided to take it to an extreme place where there's nothing: "I had this image of an astronaut spinning into space away from human communication. The
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
was already so obvious."
Casting
For the female role, Cuarón was in search of a lead that could "carry" the film in a manner akin to
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
's character in ''
Cast Away
''Cast Away'' is a 2000 American survival drama film directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and Nick Searcy. Hanks plays a FedEx troubleshooter stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in ...
'', being the only person onscreen for a large part of the movie, and he began looking at a wide range of actors for the role.
In 2010,
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
, who had rejected a sequel to ''
Wanted
Wanted may refer to:
Law enforcement
* Fugitive, a person wanted by the authorities
* Wanted poster, a poster put up to inform the public of one or more criminals whom authorities wish to apprehend
Film
* ''Wanted!'', a 1937 British comedy film
...
'' (2008), was in contact with Warner Bros. to star in the film.
Scheduling conflicts involving Jolie's Bosnian war film ''
In the Land of Blood and Honey
''In the Land of Blood and Honey'' ( bs, U zemlji krvi i meda) is a 2011 war drama film written, produced, and directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Zana Marjanović, Goran Kostić, and Rade Šerbedžija. The film, Jolie's first commercial re ...
'' (2011), and a possible sequel to ''
Salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...
'' (2010) led Jolie to end her involvement with ''Gravity'', leaving Warner Bros. with doubts that the film would get made.
The studio approached her for a second time to reconsider her former decision, but Jolie again declined.
In mid-2010,
Marion Cotillard
Marion Cotillard (; born 30 September 1975) is a French actress, film producer, singer, and environmentalist who is widely known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters in both European and Hollywood productions.
She has received ...
screen-tested for the part but instead went on to accept a role in another sci-fi film, ''
Inception
''Inception'' is a 2010 science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced the film with Emma Thomas, his wife. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infi ...
'' and the comedy–drama ''
Little White Lies''.
Scheduling conflicts with the television series ''
Gossip Girl
''Gossip Girl'' is an American teen drama television series based on the novel series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series, developed for television by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, ran on The CW network for six sea ...
'' in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
and the film ''
The Town'' in Boston prevented actress
Blake Lively
Blake Ellender Lively ( Brown; born August 25, 1987) is an American actress. Born in Los Angeles, Lively is the daughter of actor Ernie Lively, and made her professional debut in his directorial project ''Sandman'' (1998). She starred as Brid ...
from getting the part.
In September 2010, Cuarón received approval from Warner Bros. to offer the role without a
screen test
A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a came ...
to
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag, he, נטע-לי הרשלג, ) is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving mu ...
, who was praised for her performance in ''
Black Swan
The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon ...
'' (2010) at that time. Portman rejected the project because of scheduling conflicts. Other stars considered to some degree included
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts (born 28 September 1968) is a British actress. After her family moved to Australia, she made her film debut there in the drama '' For Love Alone'' (1986) and then appeared in three television series, '' Hey Dad..!'' (1990), '' ...
,
Carey Mulligan
Carey Hannah Mulligan (born 28 May 1985) is an English actress. She has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
Mulli ...
,
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the ''Forbes'' Celebrity 100 list. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 100 ...
,
Sienna Miller
Sienna Rosie Diana Miller (born December 28, 1981) is an American-British actress. Born in New York City and raised in London, she began her career as a photography model, appearing in the pages of Italian ''Vogue'' and for the 2003 Pirelli ca ...
,
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish (born 7 August 1982) is an Australian actress. Cornish is best known for her film roles as Heidi in ''Somersault'' (2004), Fanny Brawne in '' Bright Star'' (2009), Sweet Pea in ''Sucker Punch'' (2011), Lindy in '' Limitless'' (201 ...
,
Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Maria Hall (born 3 May 1982) is an English actress and filmmaker. She made her first onscreen appearance at age 10 in the 1992 television adaptation of '' The Camomile Lawn'', directed by her father, Sir Peter Hall. Her professional s ...
, and
Olivia Wilde
Olivia Jane Cockburn ( ; born March 10, 1984), known professionally as Olivia Wilde, is an American actress and filmmaker. She played Remy "Thirteen" Hadley on the medical-drama television series ''House'' (2007–2012), and has appeared in the ...
.
Warner Bros. then approached Sandra Bullock for the role, and she was cast in October 2010.
In March 2010,
Robert Downey Jr. had entered discussions to be cast in the male lead role, but he left the project that November to star in ''How to Talk to Girls''a project in development with
Shawn Levy
Shawn Adam Levy (born July 23, 1968) is a Canadian film director, film producer, actor, and founder of 21 Laps Entertainment. He has worked across genres and is perhaps best known as the director of the '' Night at the Museum'' film franchise an ...
attached to direct. In December, with Bullock signed for the co-lead role, George Clooney replaced Downey.
Filming
Made on a production budget of , ''Gravity'' was filmed digitally on
Arri Alexa
The Arri Alexa (stylised as ΛLEXΛ) is a digital motion picture camera system developed by Arri. First introduced in April 2010, the camera was Arri's first major transition into digital cinematography after previous efforts such as the Arrif ...
cameras. Most of the film is computer generated.
In the majority of shots the only elements captured with a camera are the faces.
The movie was shot digitally using
Arri Alexa
The Arri Alexa (stylised as ΛLEXΛ) is a digital motion picture camera system developed by Arri. First introduced in April 2010, the camera was Arri's first major transition into digital cinematography after previous efforts such as the Arrif ...
Classics cameras equipped with wide Arri Master Prime lenses. The final scene, which takes place on Earth, was shot on an
Arri 765 camera using
65mm film
70 mm film (or 65 mm film) is a wide high-resolution film gauge for motion picture photography, with a negative area nearly 3.5 times as large as the standard 35 mm motion picture film format. As used in cameras, the film is wid ...
to provide the sequence with a visual contrast to the rest of the film.
CGI elements were shot at
Pinewood and
Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio located in Shepperton, Surrey, England, with a history dating back to 1931. It is now part of the Pinewood Studios Group. During its early existence, the studio was branded as Sound City (not to be confused ...
in the United Kingdom. The landing scene was filmed at
Lake Powell
Lake Powell is an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It is the second largest artificial reservoir by maximu ...
, Arizonawhere the astronauts' landing scene in ''
Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
'' (1968) was also filmed.
Principal photography began in London, on May 9, 2011. The film contains 156 shots, with an average length of 45 secondsfewer and longer shots than in most films of its length. Although the first
trailer had audible explosions and other sounds, these scenes are silent in the finished film. Cuarón said, "They put in explosions
n the trailer
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
As we know, there is no sound in space. In the film, we don't do that." The soundtrack in the film's space scenes consists of the musical score and sounds astronauts would hear in their suits or in the space vehicles.
For most of Bullock's shots, she was placed inside a large mechanical rig with thousands of LED bulbs to simulate outer space.
Getting into the "lightbox" rig took a significant amount of time, and so Bullock stayed in it for up to 10 hours a day, communicating through a headset.
Costume Designer
Jany Temime
Jany Temime is a French costume designer. She is best known for her work on the final six films in the ''Harry Potter'' film series, each of which garnered her Saturn Award nominations. She won the Costume Designers Guild Award in 2012 for t ...
said the spacesuits were fictitious – "no space suit opens up at the front – but we had to do that in order for her to get out. So I had to redesign it and readapt all the functions of the suit for front opening."
Cuarón said his biggest challenge was to make the set feel as inviting and non-claustrophobic as possible, including having a large celebration each day when Bullock arrived.
Shooting long scenes in a
zero-g environment was a challenge, and so they used
computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The image ...
for the spacewalk scenes and automotive robots to move Bullock's character for interior space station scenes.
Shots and blocking had to be planned well in advance for the robots to be programmed, which caused the production period to last four and half years.
Cuarón had initially assumed it would take about a year to complete the film after completing the script.
The lightbox was named one of 2013's best inventions by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine, and is suggested as a breakthrough in entertainment technology comparable to the motion-capture technology of ''
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
'' (2009), the battle-scene software of ''
Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'' (2001–2003), and the "
bullet time
Bullet time (also known as frozen moment, dead time, flow motion or time slice) is a visual effect or visual impression of detaching the time and space of a camera (or viewer) from those of its visible subject. It is a depth enhanced simulation of ...
" effect of ''
The Matrix
''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantolia ...
'' (1999).
Warner Bros started screening the movie to test audiences well before it was finished, with crude animation instead of finished special effects. Initial feedback asked for monsters or aliens. Cuarón refused. It was only at the 2012 Comic-Con, where the opening sequence was successfully showcased, the studio was finally convinced the project could succeed.
Cinematography
Cuarón wanted to do
tracking shot
A tracking shot is any Shot (filmmaking), shot where the film camera, camera follows backward, forward or moves alongside the subject being recorded. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly ...
s, in part because the producers wanted to film it like an
IMAX
IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating.
Graeme ...
-style
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Chan ...
documentary.
Like his previous films,
Emmanuel Lubezki
Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern (; born November 30, 1964) is a Mexican cinematographer. He sometimes goes by the nickname Chivo, which means "goat" in Spanish. Lubezki has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, ...
did not use prior footage as the starting point of his work on ''Gravity''. Instead, he carried out a search of images from
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
and
Roscosmos
The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...
. He and his team put together a large collection of photographs and picked what was best for the film.
Lubezki said that they based the visuals on descriptions from astronauts, with some artistic license in depicting how the stars looked during the daytime in space. He wanted to incorporate the stars as much as possible to feel as deep as possible and avoid plain darkness and
two dimensional feeling.
The 13-minute opening scene was challenging for the team to shoot. Cuarón asked Lubezki to start the film with a brightly lit Earth, adding shadows and dusk as the threat grows stronger. The light was constantly changing from one frame to the other with the actors spinning around the shuttle, the shuttle itself spinning, and the Earth spinning as well as orbiting around the sun all simultaneously. It took many months to design it and years to shoot it.
When the team designed the sequence, Lubezki had in mind one of his favorite cinematographers,
Vittorio Storaro
Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. (born 24 June 1940) is an Italian cinematographer widely recognized as one of the best and most influential in cinema history, for his work on numerous classic films including '' The Conformist,'' '' Apocalypse No ...
, and how he utilized lighting in his films.
Visual effects
Visual effects were supervised by
Tim Webber
Tim Webber is a Welsh visual effects supervisor. He is known for his work on ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' (2005), ''The Dark Knight'' (2008), ''Avatar'' (2009), and ''Gravity'' (2013), for which he received an Academy Award for Best V ...
at the British VFX company
Framestore
Framestore is a British animation, visual effects company and creative studio based on Chancery Lane in London. Formed in 1986, it acquired (and subsequently merged with) the Computer Film Company in 1997. It works on feature films and telev ...
, which was responsible for creating most of the film's visual effectsexcept for 17 shots. Framestore was also heavily involved in the art direction and, along with The Third Floor, the
previsualization
Previsualization (also known as previsualisation, previs, previz, pre-rendering, preview or wireframe windows) is the visualizing of scenes or sequences in a movie, prior to filming. It is also a concept in various creative practices, including a ...
. Tim Webber stated that 80 percent of the film consisted of CGIcompared to James Cameron's ''
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
'' (2009), which was 60 percent CGI. To simulate the authenticity and reflection of unfiltered light in space, a manually controlled lighting system consisting of 1.8 million individually controlled LED lights was built. The 3D imagery was designed and supervised by Chris Parks. The majority of the 3D was created by
stereo rendering the CGI at Framestore. The remaining footage was
converted into 3D in post-productionprincipally at Prime Focus, London, with additional conversion work by Framestore.
Music
Steven Price composed the
incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
for ''Gravity''. In early September 2013, a 23-minute preview of the soundtrack was released online. A soundtrack album was released digitally on September 17, 2013, and in physical formats on October 1, 2013, by
WaterTower Music
WaterTower Music (formerly New Line Records from 2000 to 2010) is an American record label serving as the in-house music label and run by entertainment company Warner Bros., ultimately owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The name and logo are based ...
. Songs featured in the film include:
* "Angels Are Hard to Find" by
Hank Williams Jr.
* "
Mera Joota Hai Japani
''Mera Joota Hai Japani'' (; ) is a Hindi song with music by Shankar Jaikishan and lyrics by Shailendra, written for the 1955 Bollywood film ''Shree 420''. It was performed by popular Bollywood star Raj Kapoor, though actually sung by playback ...
" by Shailendra and Shankar Jaikishan
* "Sinigit Meerannguaq" by Juaaka Lyberth
* "Destination Anywhere" by Chris Benstead and Robin Baynton
* "922 Anthem" by Djay Adx and Gaurav Dayal
* "Ready" by Charles Scott (featuring Chelsea Williams)
In most of the film's official trailers, ''
Spiegel im Spiegel
' ( 'mirror(s) in the mirror') is a composition by Arvo Pärt written in 1978, just before his departure from Estonia. The piece is in the '' tintinnabular'' style, wherein a ''melodic voice'', operating over diatonic scales, and ''tintinnabular ...
'', written by Estonian composer
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in pa ...
in 1978, was used.
Release
''Gravity'' had its world premiere at the
70th Venice International Film Festival
The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy from 28 August to 7 September 2013. American film director William Friedkin was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Italian film director Bernardo Bertoluc ...
on August 28, 2013, and had its North American premiere three days later at the
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022.
History
First held on 30 August 1974, t ...
.
It was released in the US in
RealD 3D
RealD 3D is a digital stereoscopic projection technology made and sold by RealD. It is currently the most widely used technology for watching 3D films in theaters. Worldwide, RealD 3D is installed in more than 26,500 auditoriums by approximately ...
and
IMAX 3D
IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating.
Graeme ...
on October 4, 2013, and in the UK on November 1, 2013. The film's US release coincided with the beginning of
World Space Week, which was observed from October 4 to 10. The film was originally scheduled to be released in the US on November 21, 2012, before being rescheduled for a 2013 release to allow the completion of extensive post-production work.
Box office
''Gravity'' emerged as one of the most successful sci-fi films of all time, and the biggest box office hit of both
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock (; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, Bullock was the world's highest-paid actress in 2010 and 2014. In 2010 ...
and
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the ot ...
's careers.
It became the highest-grossing feature film in October history, surpassing the animated ''
Puss in Boots
"Puss in Boots" ( it, Il gatto con gli stivali) is an Italian fairy tale, later spread throughout the rest of Europe, about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for ...
''
and holding the record until 2019's ''
Joker''. Bullock's previous highest-grossing film was ''
Speed
In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quant ...
'' ($350.2 million) while Clooney's benchmark was ''
Ocean's Eleven
''Ocean's Eleven'' is a 2001 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Ted Griffin. The first installment in the ''Ocean's'' film trilogy, it is a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film of the same name. The ...
'' ($450.6 million).
Preliminary reports predicted the film would open with around $40 million in the US and Canada. The film earned $1.4 million from its Thursday night showings, and reached $17.5 million on Friday. ''Gravity'' topped the box office and broke the record held by ''
Paranormal Activity 3
''Paranormal Activity 3'' is a 2011 American found footage supernatural horror film, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. It is the third (chronologically, the first) installment of the ''Paranormal Activity'' series and serves as a pr ...
'' (2011) as the highest-earning October and autumn openings, grossing $55.8 million from 3,575 theaters. 80 percent of the film's opening weekend gross came from its 3D showings, which grossed $44.2 million from 3,150 theaters. $11.2 million—20 percent of the receipts—came from IMAX 3D showings, the highest percentage for a film opening of more than $50 million.
The film stayed at number one at the box office during its second and third weekends. IMAX alone generated $34.7 million from 323 theaters, a record for IMAX opening in October.
''Gravity'' earned $27.4 million in its opening weekend overseas from 27 countries with $2.8 million from roughly 4,763 screens. Warner Bros. said the 3D showing "exceeded all expectations" and generated 70 percent of the opening grosses.
In China, its second largest market, the film opened on November 19, 2013, and faced competition with ''
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'' which opened on November 21, 2013. At the end of the weekend ''Gravity'' emerged victorious, generating $35.76 million in six days. It opened at number one in the United Kingdom, taking over the first weekend of release, and remained there for the second week. The film's high notable openings were in Russia and the CIS ($8.1 million), Germany ($3.8 million), Australia ($3.2 million), Italy ($2.6 million) and Spain ($2.3 million).
The film's largest markets outside North America were China ($71.2 million), the United Kingdom ($47 million) and France ($38.2 million). By February 17, 2014, the film had grossed $700 million worldwide. ''Gravity'' grossed $274,092,705 in North America and $449,100,000 in other countries, making a worldwide gross of $723,192,705making it the
eighth-highest-grossing film of 2013.
Calculating in all expenses, ''
Deadline Hollywood
''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, wi ...
'' estimated that the film made a profit of $209.2 million.
According to the tracking site Excipio, ''Gravity'' was one of the most copyright-infringed films of 2014 with over 29.3 million downloads via
torrent site
A BitTorrent tracker is a special type of server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol.
In peer-to-peer file sharing, a software client on an end-user PC requests a file, and portions of the requested f ...
s.
Reception
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 356 reviews, with an average rating of 9.00/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Alfonso Cuarón's ''Gravity'' is an eerie, tense sci-fi thriller that's masterfully directed and visually stunning." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out based on reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 96 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "universal acclaim", and making it the second-highest scoring widely released film of its year. In
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave ''Gravity'' an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
CinemaScore later issued an apology for the grade, saying they should have limited the poll to 3D showings instead of both 2D and 3D screenings (''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...
'' said it was "playing like an A+ film").
Matt Zoller Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and film-maker.
Career
Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for ''New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as w ...
, writing on
RogerEbert.com
''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times ...
, gave the film four out of four stars, calling it "a huge and technically dazzling film and that the film's panoramas of astronauts tumbling against starfields and floating through space station interiors are at once informative and lovely".
Justin Chang, writing for ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', said that the film "restores a sense of wonder, terror and possibility to the big screen that should inspire awe among critics and audiences worldwide".
Richard Corliss of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' praised Cuarón for playing "daringly and dexterously with point-of-view: at one moment you're inside Ryan's helmet as she surveys the bleak silence, then in a subtle shift you're outside to gauge her reaction. The 3-D effects, added in post-production, provide their own extraterrestrial startle: a hailstorm of debris hurtles at you, as do a space traveler's thoughts at the realization of being truly alone in the universe."
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...
of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' gave the film five out of five stars, writing "a brilliant and inspired movie-cyclorama ... a glorious imaginary creation that engulfs you utterly."
Robbie Collin
Robbie Collin is a British film critic.
Collin studied aesthetics and the philosophy of film at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He edited the university's student newspaper, '' The Saint''.
Collin has been the chief film critic at ''The D ...
of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' also awarded the film five out of five stars.
Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...
of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' gave the film four out of four stars, stating that the film was "more than a movie. It's some kind of miracle."
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis.
Early life
Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...
, writing for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', highlighted the use of 3-D which he said, "surpasses even what James Cameron accomplished in the flight sequences of ''Avatar''". Scott also said that the film "in a little more than 90 minutes rewrites the rules of cinema as we have known them".
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...
said it was one of his top ten films of 2013. ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'', ''Time'' and ''
Total Film
''Total Film'' is a British film magazine published 13 times a year (published monthly and a summer issue is added every year since issue 91, 2004, which is published between July and August issue) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched ...
'' ranked the film as the best of 2013.
Some critics have compared ''Gravity'' with other notable films set in space. Lindsey Weber of
Vulture.com
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...
said the choice of
Ed Harris
Edward Allen Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in ''Apollo 13'' (1995), '' The Truman Show'' (1998), '' Pollock'' (2000), and '' The Hours'' (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award ...
for the voice of Mission Control is a reference to ''
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...
''.
Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy (born February 16, 1950) is an American film critic and author. He wrote for '' Variety'' for 31 years as its chief film critic until 2010. In October of that year, he joined ''The Hollywood Reporter'', where he subsequently served ...
of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...
'' suggests the way "a weightless Stone goes floating about in nothing but her underwear" references ''
Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'' (1979).
Other critics made connections with ''
2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968).
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post- New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability ...
praised the film and stated, "I think it's the best space photography ever done, I think it's the best space film ever done, and it's the movie I've been hungry to see for an awful long time".
Empire Online,
AskMen
AskMen is a free online men's web portal, with international versions in Australia, Canada, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is owned by Ziff Davis and operates through the IGN Entertainment unit.
History
AskMen was ...
and ''
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' also considered ''Gravity'' to be one of the best space films ever made,. While ''The Huffington Post's'' Lauren Duca later included ''Gravity'' on the site's list of "8 Movies from the Last 15 Years That Are Super Overrated", another of the site's film critics, Christopher Rosen, placed it at the top of his list of Best Movies of 2013. ''Gravity'' was included on the top ten lists of 93 critics and topped the list of 22 of them.
Accolades
''Gravity'' received ten nominations at the
86th Academy Awards
The 86th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2013 and took place on March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. ...
; together with ''
American Hustle
''American Hustle'' is a 2013 American historical black comedy crime film directed by David O. Russell. It was written by Eric Warren Singer and Russell, inspired by the FBI Abscam operation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. It stars Christia ...
'' it received the greatest number of nominations for the 2014 ceremony, including
Best Picture
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
,
Best Actress
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...
for Bullock, and
Best Production Design. The film won the most awards of the night with seven
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
s: for
Best Director,
Best Cinematography,
Best Visual Effects,
Best Film Editing,
Best Original Score,
Best Sound Editing
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
, and
Best Sound Mixing. The film is second only to ''
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...
'' (1972) to receive the most Academy Awards in its year without winning Best Picture, and has since been the most awarded film since ''
Slumdog Millionaire
''Slumdog Millionaire'' is a 2008 British drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel '' Q & A'' (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup. It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Pa ...
'' (2008).
Cuarón won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Director
The Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture is a Golden Globe Award that has been presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization composed of journalists who cover the United States film industry fo ...
, and the film was also nominated for
Best Motion Picture – Drama,
Best Actress – Drama for Bullock and
Best Original Score.
''Gravity'' received eleven nominations at the
67th British Academy Film Awards
The 67th British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, were held on 16 February 2014 at the Royal Opera House in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2013. The nominations were announced on 8 January 2014 by ...
, more than any other film of 2013. Its nominations included
Best Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
,
Outstanding British Film,
Best Director,
Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...
, and
Best Actress in a Leading Role. Cuarón was the most-nominated person at the awards; he was nominated for five awards, including his nominations as producer for Best Film awards and editor.
Despite not winning Best Film, ''Gravity'' won six awards, the greatest number of awards in 2013. It won the awards for Outstanding British Film, Best Direction,
Best Original Music,
Best Cinematography,
Best Sound, and
Best Visual Effects.
''Gravity'' also won the 2014
Hugo Award
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier ...
for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
Home media
''Gravity'' was released on digital download on February 11, 2014, and was released on
DVD,
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
and
Blu-ray 3D
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on February 25, 2014, in the United States and on March 3, 2014, in the United Kingdom. , ''Gravity'' has sold 908,756 DVDs along with 957,355 Blu-ray discs for $16,465,600 and $22,183,843, respectively, for a total of $38,649,443. ''Gravity'' was also offered for free in HD on Google Play and Nexus devices from late October 2014 to early November 2014.
A "special edition" Blu-ray was released on March 31, 2015. The release includes a "Silent Space Version" of the film which omits the score composed by Steven Price.
Scientific accuracy
Cuarón has stated that ''Gravity'' is not always scientifically accurate and that some liberties were needed to sustain the story. Despite this, the film has been praised for the realism of its premises and its overall adherence to physical principles, although several inaccuracies and exaggerations were still noted.
According to NASA Astronaut
Michael J. Massimino
Michael James Massimino (born August 19, 1962) is an American professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and a former NASA astronaut. He is the senior advisor of space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
Early l ...
, who took part in Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Missions
STS-109
STS-109 (SM3B) was a Space Shuttle mission that launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 1 March 2002. It was the 108th mission of the Space Shuttle program, the 27th flight of the orbiter '' Columbia'' and the fourth servicing of the Hubble ...
and
STS-125
STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''.
The launch of the Space Shuttle ''Atl ...
, "nothing was out of place, nothing was missing. There was a one-of-a-kind wirecutter we used on one of my spacewalks and sure enough they had that wirecutter in the movie."
Astronaut
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
called the visual effects "remarkable" and he hoped that the film would stimulate the public to find an interest in space again, after decades of diminishing investments into advancements in the field:
Former NASA astronaut
Garrett Reisman
Garrett Erin Reisman (; born February 10, 1968) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was a backup crew member for Expedition 15 and joined Expedition 16 aboard the International Space Station for a short time before becoming a ...
said:
Former astronaut
Chris Hadfield
Chris Austin Hadfield (born August 29, 1959) is a Canadian retired astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot, and musician. The first Canadian to perform extravehicular activity in outer space, he has flown two Space Shuttle missions and also se ...
was critical of ''Gravity''s portrayal of astronauts, particularly its depiction of Bullock's character, saying "When she's faced with a problem, she's panicking and has no idea what to do. George Clooney is driving around like some sort of space cowboy and he's the only one who has any idea what's going on. I think it set back a little girl's vision of what a woman astronaut can be an entire generation." In contrast, Vanessa Reich-Shackelford from Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology while considering the character of Dr. Ryan Stone wrote: "I came to realize that writers Alfonso (also director) and Jonás Cuarón had created one of the most positive representation of a woman in
STEM
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
on screen so far."
Astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a p ...
, astronomer and skeptic
Phil Plait
Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964), also known as The Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer, skeptic, and popular science blogger. Plait has worked as part of the Hubble Space Telescope team, images and spectra of astronomical objec ...
, and veteran NASA astronaut and spacewalker
Scott E. Parazynski
Scott Edward Parazynski (born July 28, 1961 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American physician and a former NASA astronaut. A veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks, Parazynski's latest mission was STS-120 in October, 2007 – ...
have offered comments about some of the most "glaring" inaccuracies.
''
The Dissolve
''The Dissolve'' was a film review, news, and commentary website which was operated by Pitchfork and based in Chicago, Illinois. The site was focused on reviews, commentary, interviews, and news about contemporary and classic films.{{cite web, url ...
'' characterized these complaints as "absurd", problems "only an astrophysicist would find".
Examples of differences from reality include:
* Several observers (including Plait and Tyson) said that in the scene in which Kowalski unclips his tether and floats away to his death to save Stone from being pulled away from the ISS, Stone would simply need to tug the tether gently to pull Kowalski toward her. According to the film's science adviser Kevin Grazier and NASA engineer Robert Frost, however, the pair are still decelerating with Stone's leg caught in the parachute cords from the Soyuz. The cords stretch as they absorb her kinetic energy. Kowalski thinks that the cords are not strong enough to absorb his kinetic energy as well as hers, and that he must release the tether to give Stone a chance of stopping before the cords fail and doom both of them.
* By the time
Tiangong-1
Tiangong-1 () was China's first prototype space station. It orbited Earth from September 2011 to April 2018, serving as both a crewed laboratory and an experimental testbed to demonstrate orbital rendezvous and docking capabilities during its ...
was launched in 2011, the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...
had been
retired from service.
* Stone is shown not wearing
liquid-cooled ventilation garments or even socks, which are always worn under the EVA suit to protect against extreme temperatures in space. Neither was she shown wearing
space diapers.
Unlike real space suits, Stone can open her suit in the front, by herself.
* Stone's tears first roll down her face in micro-gravity, and are later seen floating off her face. After being pushed from her eye by her eyelid, the
surface tension
Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. water striders) t ...
is not sufficient for the tears to continue adhering to her jawline. However, the film correctly portrays the spherical nature of drops of liquid in a micro-gravity environment.
* Kowalski's use of the MMU as his personal jet pack zipping around the spacewalking scene was criticized by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
''s Jeffery Kluger as being unrealistic. NASA's spacewalks are strictly choreographed in advance.
* The Hubble Space Telescope, which is what shuttle ''Explorer'' is there to repair at the beginning of the film, previously had an altitude of about and an
orbital inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...
of 28.5 degrees. As of the release of the film, the International Space Station, which is where they travel using only Kowalski's MMU, had an altitude of around and an orbital inclination of 51.65 degrees. The significant differences between orbital parameters would have made it impossible to travel between the two spacecraft without precise preparation, planning, calculation, the appropriate technology, and a large quantity of fuel at the time.
Despite the inaccuracies in ''Gravity'', Tyson, Plait and Parazynski all said they enjoyed watching the film.
Astronaut
Cady Coleman
Catherine Grace "Cady" Coleman (born December 14, 1960) is an American chemist, an engineer, a former United States Air Force colonel, and a retired NASA astronaut. She is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and departed the International ...
advised Sandra Bullock on the film.
Notes
See also
*
Kessler syndrome
The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collisional cascading, or ablation cascade), proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollutio ...
*
List of films featuring space stations
There is a body of films that feature space stations. Science fiction films have featured both real-life space stations such as the International Space Station and ''Mir'' as well as fictional ones such as the Death Star and the Satellite of Lo ...
*
Survival film
The survival film is a film genre in which one or more characters make an effort at physical survival. It often overlaps with other film genres. It is a subgenre of the adventure film, along with swashbuckler films, war films, and safari films. Su ...
*
2013 in film
The following tables list films released in 2013. Three popular films (''Top Gun'', ''Jurassic Park'', and '' The Wizard of Oz'') were re-released in 3D and IMAX.
Evaluation of the year
Richard Brody of ''The New Yorker'' said, "The year 2013 h ...
*
List of American films of 2013
This is a list of American films released in 2013.
Box office
The highest-grossing American films released in 2013, by domestic box office gross revenue, are as follows:
January–March
April–June
July–September
October� ...
*
List of British films of 2013
The British film industry produced over five hundred feature films in 2013. This article fully lists all non-pornographic films, including short films, that had a release date in that year and which were at least partly made by the United King ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{authority control
2013 films
2013 3D films
2013 drama films
2013 science fiction action films
2010s American films
2010s British films
2010s disaster films
2010s English-language films
2010s science fiction drama films
2010s science fiction thriller films
2010s survival films
American 3D films
American disaster films
American science fiction action films
American science fiction drama films
American science fiction thriller films
American space adventure films
American survival films
BAFTA winners (films)
Best British Film BAFTA Award winners
British 3D films
British disaster films
British science fiction drama films
British science fiction thriller films
British space adventure films
British survival films
Dune Entertainment films
Films about astronauts
Films about death
Films about NASA
Films about space hazards
Films directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Films produced by Alfonso Cuarón
Films produced by David Heyman
Films scored by Steven Price
Films shot from the first-person perspective
Films shot in Arizona
Films shot in London
Films shot in Surrey
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Sound Editing Academy Award
Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Direction BAFTA Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alfonso Cuarón
Greenlandic-language films
Golden Eagle Award (Russia) for Best Foreign Language Film winners
Hard science fiction films
Heyday Films films
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form winning works
IMAX films
Marvin the Martian films
Warner Bros. films