The watchlist

Rocks on screen

Disasters, documentaries and Hollywood nonsense.

24 videos about asteroids, comets and what happens when they turn up, each with our verdict, from Armageddon and Deep Impact to Don't Look Up and NASA's own footage. Films get a science score, where one is "it was never a physics film" and five is "bring a textbook". Real footage and missions get the badge that says they are real. The videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced embeds, which do not set tracking cookies, but your browser does contact YouTube to load each player. The Privacy page has the details.

Showing 1 to 10 of 24

Film 2021 · Netflix Malaysia

Don't Look Up

What you are watching. Two astronomers discover a comet, 5 to 10 km wide, on course to hit Earth in just over six months. Nobody important cares. Directed by Adam McKay.

Our interpretation. Note that it is a comet, not an asteroid, which is the first thing everyone who works with rocks will tell you. The orbital mechanics are movie-grade and no real survey would find a world-ender six months out. As a documentary about how people react to bad news that needs an inconvenient response, it is uncomfortably accurate. Start here, then check your own habits.

Science, out of five

Bad astronomy, brutal sociology.

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Documentary 2021 · TIFF

The science of Don't Look Up

What you are watching. Director Adam McKay talks to astronomer Dr Amy Mainzer, who worked on the film as its science adviser, at a Sloan Science on Film showcase.

Our interpretation. The rare Hollywood Q&A where someone asks how the science works and gets an actual answer. Worth it for hearing a working asteroid hunter explain what the film bent, what it kept, and why the real job is mostly patient measuring.

This one is real

Fact check, with a cinema seat.

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Film 2021 · Entertainment Weekly

Don't Look Up: the cast break it down

What you are watching. Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Tyler Perry and others talk through the film in a roundtable.

Our interpretation. A lot of very famous people explaining, politely, that they know the joke is also about them. Useful for seeing how the tone was pitched, and for confirming that the end of the world is a hard thing to act convincingly alarmed about.

This one is real

Famous people, mild self-awareness.

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Film 1998 · TrailersPlaygroundHD

Armageddon

What you are watching. Michael Bay's asteroid blockbuster. An asteroid "the size of Texas" is 18 days away, so NASA hires a team of oil drillers to land on it and plant a nuclear bomb.

Our interpretation. Texas is roughly 1,300 km across. The rock that wiped out the dinosaurs was about 10 km. This one would have ended everything before anyone found a drill. The film also suggests that training astronauts to drill is harder than training drillers to be astronauts. Magnificent, loud, and wrong in the most entertaining ways possible.

Science, out of five

Rocks, explosions, zero physics.

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Film 1998 · TrailersPlaygroundHD

Deep Impact

What you are watching. Released two months before Armageddon: a comet is discovered heading for Earth, a spacecraft is sent to break it up, and the world's governments prepare for the worst. Morgan Freeman is the president.

Our interpretation. Another comet, but this one at least treats the problem like a problem. People are told, society copes, there are bunkers, and nobody drills anything. The tsunami sequence is the big set piece and is not completely implausible. The calmer, sadder disaster film.

Science, out of five

The sensible one, relatively.

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Film 2012 · Rotten Tomatoes Trailers

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

What you are watching. Steve Carell and Keira Knightley are neighbours in the last weeks before an asteroid called Matilda hits. No one saves the day, because the film is not about that.

Our interpretation. The only asteroid film where nobody builds a rocket, which is refreshing. It is mostly about what you would do with three weeks. There is no science to speak of and it does not pretend otherwise. If the end is coming, it argues, choose your company carefully.

Science, out of five

Romcom with a countdown.

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Film 1979 · Vintage Movie Trailers

Meteor

What you are watching. Sean Connery and Natalie Wood star in a Cold War disaster film. A huge asteroid is on course for Earth, and the US and the Soviets have to cooperate, which they do reluctantly.

Our interpretation. Armageddon before Armageddon, with more Cold War and less Bruce Willis. The central idea, that the only thing that could get two superpowers to cooperate is the end of the world, has aged better than the effects. Not the best-reviewed film in the genre, but the original.

Science, out of five

The grandfather of the genre.

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Mission 2022 · Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

DART: the moment of impact

What you are watching. NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately flew into Dimorphos, a small moonlet of the asteroid Didymos, on 26 September 2022, at around 6 km/s.

Our interpretation. This one is real, and it worked. A spacecraft about the size of a vending machine changed the moonlet's orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes. Nobody was in danger; it was a test of whether we can nudge a rock if we ever need to. It turns out that we can. The footage is the last few minutes of one very expensive camera.

This one is real

We hit one on purpose. It worked.

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Mission 2022 · New Scientist

DART smashes into Dimorphos

What you are watching. A news-style cut of the DART impact: final approach, the last images from the spacecraft, and the aftermath seen from other telescopes.

Our interpretation. Watch for the ejecta plume afterwards: the debris flung out is part of why the nudge was bigger than the impact alone would have managed. The follow-up mission, Hera from ESA, is on its way to find out exactly how much.

This one is real

Real, and strangely satisfying.

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Real footage 2013 · Asteroid Day

Chelyabinsk meteor, dashcam

What you are watching. Dashcam footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor over Russia on 15 February 2013. Dashcams are common in Russia, so it was filmed from everywhere.

Our interpretation. An object about 20 m wide that nobody saw coming, because it approached from the direction of the Sun. It exploded in the air with roughly 500 kilotons of energy and the shockwave broke windows across a city, injuring more than a thousand people, mostly from glass. The best argument for looking up. And for watching dashcams.

This one is real

The rock nobody saw.

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