The Right Stuff is arguably not as well known to the general movie-going public as most of the other entries in this list, but Philip Kaufmans 1983 experimental epic proved so culturally significant that last year it found itself among films selected by the U.S. Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry. A lengthy, detailed account of birth of the U.S. space programme, The Right Stuff is an adaptation of Tom Wolfes book of the same name and intersperses the story of test pilot Chuck Yeager and the seven astronauts who, as part of Project Mercury, attempted to break the sound barrier and steal a march on the Soviets in the space race. The science, technical hurdles and tangible danger of venturing into outer space are captured with laudable verisimilitude, and Interstellar is very much in the same vein. Nolan has called The Right Stuff an almost perfectly made film and screened it for the crew prior to starting production of Interstellar. Drawing inspiration from the way Kaufman used projections of outer space to heighten the realism, Nolan dispensed with green screen altogether in favour of visual stimuli to help ground the actors performances. Furthermore, in The Right Stuffs Chuck Yeager, he located the embodiment of the adventurous cowboy spirit that led him to seek the services of Matthew McConaughey for Interstellars protagonist.
I watch movies and I watch sport. I also watch movies about sport, and if there were a sport about movies I'd watch that too. The internet was the closest thing I could find.
