In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
THINKFilm, Discovery, Film4

Description

In the Shadow of the Moon follows the manned missions to the Moon made by the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The documentary reviews both the footage and media available to the public at the time of the missions, as well as NASA films and materials which had not been opened in over 30 years. All of this has been remastered in HD.

Augmenting the archival audio and video are contemporary interviews with some surviving Apollo era astronauts, including Al Bean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Charlie Duke, and Harrison Schmitt. The former astronauts have the only speaking roles in the movie, although occasional supplementary information is presented on screen with text and archival television footage presents the words of journalists such as Jules Bergman and Walter Cronkite. Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the Moon, declined to participate.

Collected reviews and ratings

10 Space.com

Unlike so much that has come and gone before, Sington has reinvented the Apollo documentary format. Where the earlier film left us wanting much more, this time around we finally get that which we've been waiting for so long.
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10 The Space Review

It is hard, watching the movie, to not get a lump in your throat at one point or another, particularly when Aldrin, Collins, and Duke (who was capcom in mission control) describe the Apollo 11 landing.
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8.0 Variety | Todd McCarthy

Deftly mixing a treasure trove of archival footage with engaging commentaries of surviving astronauts from all nine Apollo moonshots, this British production will bring it all back for those with first-hand memories of the time, while providing a stimulating primer for younger generations.
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8.0 Empire

Almost 40 years after Apollo 11’s historic first moon-landing, the lovingly restored footage still retains power. Even with the reclusive Neil Armstrong sadly absent, the film succeeds as a reminder of human endeavour.
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8.0 Wall Street Journal

This magnificent documentary, directed by David Sington and presented by Ron Howard, rises to the occasion by interspersing its interviews with NASA footage that evokes the grandeur of the whole Apollo adventure.
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8.0 Los Angeles Times

Their number is small and their status is elite: They are the only humans to have visited another world, to have actually walked on or been in close proximity to the moon. Their story, as captured in the riveting documentary "In the Shadow of the Moon," is an unexpected knockout.
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8.0 Washington Post

Forget all the engineering miracles: "In the Shadow of the Moon" is a documentary that tells the human story of the astronauts who, decades ago, journeyed to an airless desert world nearly a quarter of a million miles away.
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8.0 New York Times

That’s why “In the Shadow of the Moon” is such a morale booster. The power of its archival images hasn’t diminished with familiarity. There is Earth, spinning in space, a blue and green paradise ringed with clouds. And there is the moon’s surface, up close and forbidding, with shadowy craters like pockmarks: a place of absolute desolation. Yes, we did it.
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7.5 ReelViews

In the Shadow of the Moon successfully recaptures the feeling of what made the Apollo missions so special. Many of those involved still invoke terms like "magic" in discussing the alchemy that allowed men to reach the moon and survive to tell the tale. It has been 35 years since anyone walked on the moon and will be at least another decade before the next person does so.
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