Apollo 13

Ron Howard’s 1995 film runs crew and ground team in parallel after an oxygen tank explodes en route to the Moon in 1970 and the landing becomes a rescue. Its two most quoted lines are screenwriting. Swigert spoke first, reporting the trouble in the past tense; Lovell repeated it, adding the undervolt on the main B bus; the writers then moved it into the present. Failure is not an option was invented too; Kranz never said it. The invention is concentrated: the Haise and Swigert friction is largely fiction, while the ground crew rebuilding a carbon dioxide scrubber from what was aboard is accurate. The weightless scenes were flown on a KC-135, sets built inside the fuselage: 612 parabolas, just under four hours of footage in twenty five second bursts. Close ups came from a see saw rig on the ground, which gives the capsule scenes their rhythm. It won Oscars for film editing and sound plus seven more nominations including best picture. Howard was never nominated for directing, yet took the Directors Guild feature award on 2 March 1996. A good fit if knowing the outcome does not drain the tension and the pull is problems solved one at a time. Not for anyone who takes the dialogue for transcript; the best known lines are the changed ones.