First Man

In the 2018 biographical drama First Man, Ryan Gosling portrays Neil Armstrong during the perilous years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. Rather than a traditional patriotic celebration, the film is an intimate, visceral look at the personal sacrifices and immense pressures Armstrong faced. It follows him from the tragic loss of his young daughter through the high-stakes testing of the Gemini program and, ultimately, to the moon. Directed by Damien Chazelle, the movie emphasizes the claustrophobia of the spacecraft and the grief-driven stoicism of a man tasked with achieving the impossible while trying to keep his family intact.