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The Movie Room · a Living Undefeated resource
What is Apollo 13 actually about?
Adults solving a problem that cannot be solved, calmly, with the wrong equipment. Everyone comes home — that is not a spoiler, it is the historical record, and it is the reason the film is steadying rather than tense.
What it is
A 1995 docudrama directed by Ron Howard, with Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon as the crew, Gary Sinise as the astronaut left on the ground and Ed Harris as the flight director in Houston. One hundred and forty minutes. An oxygen tank ruptures two days into a lunar mission in April 1970, and the next four days are spent working out how to keep three men breathing in a vehicle built for two. Academy Awards for Film Editing and Sound · National Film Registry 2023.
Who this is wrong for, and when
Two things. It is confined — a long stretch of the film is three men in a cold, cramped, failing capsule, and a viewer who finds enclosed spaces hard will feel it. And there is a family waiting at home who do not know, which is a specific kind of scene for anyone who has sat in a corridor waiting for news about somebody they love.
It contains no bereavement. The 1967 launchpad fire that killed three astronauts is referenced, not depicted.
Why it is on this list
Because there is a particular evening — usually after a long day of being the person who has to decide things — when what helps is not a story about feelings at all. It is watching capable adults put a problem on a table, say out loud what they have to work with, and get on with it.
The film is unusually good at that. Nobody makes a speech. Nobody has a breakthrough. People are tired and specific and they keep working, and it comes out right because of the working rather than because of anyone's spirit. For a household that has spent a year being told to stay positive, a film where competence is the thing that saves people is a relief.
If this one is not right for you
Hidden Figures — the same program, from the ground, and lighter.
Rocky — if you want one person rather than a team.
Paddington 2 — if the room needs no tension at all tonight.
Where to watch it
Start with your library. hoopla and Kanopy both rotate catalog titles of this age and are free with a library card. It is otherwise easy to rent in every region we checked.
We make nothing from any of these links. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site and there never will be.
Back to the room
The Movie Room — one hundred films, sorted by what the evening needs.
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We publish the test we use on ourselves, including the parts we do not pass yet. Read it here.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, any time, anywhere in the United States.
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741.
These are never behind a form on this site and never will be.
Before you give to anyone
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We wrote down the checklist we use. Before we send a dollar anywhere, we run the organization through CharityWatch, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator and Candid. It is one page, and it works on any charity — including this one.
Read the checklist — freeOn the site, right now. Nothing to fill in and no email needed.
Start here — free, no sign-up
Guide one · 7 pages
A Reason to Get Up
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, and what that book can and cannot do for you after somebody dies. Who Frankl actually was, what he actually argued, and the famous quote that is not his.
Download the guide — freePDF, 7 pages. Nothing to fill in, no email, no ask attached to it.
Three more, if you want them
These are the books we read and the things we did after we lost Austin. Not advice and not therapy — an honest account of what helped us, and what the research actually says about each of it. Every statistic in them carries a source and a year.
Guide two · 9 pages
The Circling
The Power of Now, and what is actually happening when you cannot stop going over it. Includes the part no grief guide prints: meditation is not risk-free, and who should be careful.
Guide three · 11 pages
Give It Away
Why doing something for somebody else, expecting nothing back, appears to do something for you. With a verified list of places that will take you this week, and the ones that will ask you to wait a year.
Guide four · 16 pages
The First Year
The practical one. What actually has to be done, what the months afterward really look like, and fifty things that might help — each one labeled for whether there is evidence behind it.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the US. You do not have to be in immediate danger to use it.
Crisis Text Line. Text HOME to 741741.
Veterans Crisis Line. Dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255.
If there is an immediate danger to life, call 911.
