‘Apollo 11’ documents history like never before | movie review

Apollo 11 Documentary

Apollo 11 assembles incredible unseen footage — from Earth and into space — of the mission to put man on the moon.

30-second review: It's almost unbelievable that Apollo 11 is made solely of archive footage. Every shot and camera move feels so intentional. It's been 25 years since Hoop Dreams became the first and only documentary to be nominated for Best Film Editing at the Oscars. It looks like it's time for another to join its ranks.

Apollo 11 has the ability to give you a sense of wonder about real life. It's one of the best documentaries of the year (decade?) because it doesn't feel like a documentary at all — it's a bold and breathtaking exercise in storytelling.

★★★★★

If you thought the moon landing sequence in First Man was thrilling, then Apollo 11‘s very real footage is going to be sensational for you. In the completely uncut 4-minute shot, you can't see more than the lunar surface getting closer and closer as a small line of text in the corner tells you how much fuel the Apollo Lunar Module called the Eagle has left and how far they are from the surface.

Matt Morton's score, fit for a Hollywood thriller, pulses underneath while you hear Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin converse with Houston in technical jargon. You know how it ends up. The craft lands and Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on our moon. It's the masterful and daring filmmaking that makes it a breathtaking moment in cinema.

Apollo 11 is made of those moments. Even the simple ones where we're sweeping a crowd of onlookers excited to watch the Apollo 11 rocket blast off into space are almost hard to comprehend. Documentary filmmaking like this relies on masterful curation and an understanding of the story you're trying to tell. The fact that director and editor Todd Douglas Miller was able to find clips that gave off the exact emotion he was looking for is astonishing.

Photo by NASA/REX/Shutterstock (3683583c) (Real lunar mission image) Buzz Aldrin stands beside Lunar Module strut and probe Apollo 11 Moon landing mission – 1969

It's so hard to make a clear narrative solely from archive footage. Usually, documentarians need to rely on interviews or voiceovers to fill in the gaps. In Apollo 11, there is none of that. Yet you're never at a loss for what is happening — even when the jargon becomes too technical — and you're always in tune to what the overwhelming emotion behind a scene is.

Even though it's a subject we all know about — or at least think we do — the piece that we're always missing is the emotion — it's why First Man is so successful. Apollo 11 is brimming with empathy for everyone involved — the astronauts, mission control, and the public.

Sensational feels like the right word to use when explaining the feeling of watching this movie. Apollo 11 is as thrilling as any sci-fi and emotional as a sweeping drama. It's an astonishing watch and one of the best movies of the year.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.