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76
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60
9
17
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37
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53
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66
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45
Box, The
61
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55
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43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
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29
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23
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80
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61
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39
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30
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34
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60
Funny People
32
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27
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41
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39
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46
Halloween II
73
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78
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55
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66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
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47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
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42
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28
Pandorum
63
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86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
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30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
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35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
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88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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58
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96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
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39
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78
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61
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66
Afterschool
xx
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58
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72
Amreeka
48
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73
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62
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55
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76
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86
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13
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70
Beeswax
35
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71
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66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
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76
Bliss
35
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26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
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70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
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75
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82
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67
Departures
xx
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71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
64
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Sunshine

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 113 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Adventure | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Alex Garland
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 20, 2007
DVD: January 8, 2008
Running Time: 107 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: R for violent content and language
Starring Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Troy Garity, and Rose Byrne
The sun is dying. It is no longer providing the energy and the light that mankind needs to survive on Earth. The entire global community pools its resources to send a mission into space to deliver a bomb to reignite the part of the sun that is failing. Our story concerns the eight astronauts and scientists who lead this mission. On their journey towards the sun the crew stumble upon the ship that was sent on the same mission seven years previously, the Icarus I, drifting in space. From this point on things start to go very wrong. Its about how the crew react under the enormous pressure of their endeavor to save mankind. (Fox Searchlight)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A bare outline of the plot reads like a space-adventure thriller with end-of-the-world stakes and a hint of celestial spirituality, and the haunted spaceship twist in the third act is pure B-movie madness.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
If their movie doesn't float your boat as a work of science-fiction, action, philosophy, heliocentrism, or staggering visual spectacle (although, it really should), then it certainly succeeds as a parable for cinematic ambition.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Sunshine is near-classic modern science fiction, hobbled only by a chaotic final reel and some casting missteps in the white-male department.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Another thinking-person's thriller from director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, also co-pilots on "28 Days Later."
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
A first-rate, seemingly sweat-free entertainer, Mr. Boyle always sells the goods smoothly, along with the chills, the laughs and, somewhat less often, the tears. He’s wickedly good at making you jump and squirm in your seat, which he does often in Sunshine, but he tends to avoid tapping into deep wells of emotion.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Sunshine is its own creature, taking inspiration from classic science fiction films but insisting on a gritty reality that much improves on past space adventures.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
In moments--the early moments--Sunshine can feel like a new genre classic, albeit one heavily in debt to its predecessors.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Beam yourselves aboard Sunshine, set 50 years in the future. The voyage works, beautifully.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
The fact that Boyle and Garland have here created something close to an actual trip rather than the mere spectacle that most screen sci-fi contents itself with being nowadays is enough to recommend Sunshine.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
What this spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller lacks in originality it makes up for in pure beauty: It just might be the most visually audacious and startlingly beautiful space opera since the original "Solaris."
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Despite the efforts of the cast (Byrne and Murphy are particularly good), you rarely feel a thing for any of them, but I don't think you're really supposed to, anyway. The characters in Sunshine tackle thorny ethical questions and debate the sanctity of life on their way to the sun, but the movie is really about the voyage, not the voyagers. Enjoy the sights.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
This sci-fi thriller -- which is alternately nail-biting, gorgeous and a little silly -- spends most of its time throwing mechanical and human errors at the most important space mission ever.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
As a pure cinematic experience, it's exhilaratingly, brutally beautiful.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Hard-core science fiction fans will likely greet Sunshine with a smile. Others may find this to be an odd motion picture, but there's enough going on that even those who are expecting something flashier should still be engaged.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The most indelible moment I took away from Sunshine, in which a tiny figure in a golden space suit floats away from the ship into the gravitational pull of the sun, is one of ecstatic, appalling loneliness.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
They’ve taken "2001" and Tarkovsky’s "Solaris" and "Silent Running," mixed in stuff from save-the-earth pictures like "The Core" and "Deep Impact," and thrown in a cheesy climax out of "Alien."
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
For though it can't maintain its momentum all the way to the end, Sunshine until it stumbles is gratifyingly far from the usual space-opera stuff.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Sunshine does for sci-fi what "28 Days Later" . . . did for the zombie movie -- its tale about a manned space mission to the sun preys on our growing fear of obliteration as we confront global warming.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Too much of Sunshine is like a cross between a middling "Alien" movie and "Solaris" (the woozy Steven Soderbergh version).
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The whole thing burns out well before the director reaches his final destination.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
So what starts out as fascinating sci-fi becomes just fi, and winds up pulp fi.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
That last wrong turn completely undoes a picture that had been steering a very impressive course.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
As the film ultimately deviates from its course, the entire undertaking suffers.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Sunshine can be seen as a story about science and religion, about the rational mind and the mad. But at a certain point, like a dying star about to pop into eternal nothingness, the movie can't be seen as anything - it just implodes.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
Danny Boyle still creates an impressive world, visually rich and yet cold and claustrophobic.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Like a collapsing star, Sunshine initially burns brightly but finally implodes into a dramatic black hole.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nathan Lee
Ideas scintillate over the surface of Sunshine without ever quite igniting, but at least the movie sparkles. What it doesn't do is cohere. Action flick, sci-fi thriller, metaphysical adventure, incoherent allegory, ethical hypothesis, and horror film all at once, this mad multitasker has the agenda of a dozen movies. Problem is, we know which ones.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
Problems arise in the film’s third act, however, with a profoundly implausible plot turn that sends the movie skidding into bogeyman horror. It cheapens the sentiment, and the film doesn’t recover.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
One of those unapologetically cerebral space-exploration sci-fi movies that's both boring and compelling at once.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The film is nonsense, and what counts is whether viewers will feel able to lay aside their logical complaints and bask in what remains: a trip in search of a tan.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
The characters are so sketchily drawn that it's hard to keep them straight, let alone get worked up about their survival.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Directed by Danny Boyle, it lacks even a single moment of charm or interest.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 113 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Kendo J gave it a10:
Very awesome movie. Gets a 9 for an excellent tragedy/triumph flick and a bonus mark for having the soundtrack of 2007.
Kyle F gave it a6:
It was okay. If you're looking for a well explained, believable movie don't look at this one. If you want some psuedo emotional stuff, this is your ticket.
Charles T. gave it a9:
Reading other comments made me think that this would be a run of the mill the earth is screwed type of science fiction movie. I was wrong. There were of course some cliches that dragged the movie down but the stunning visual effects made me ignore that. This isn't a movie for someone who likes to sit dumbfaced in front of a screen and let's things be completely explained to them, it's more of a think-a-long movie. You do have to forgive the movie some of its tendencies to stray into the abstract but without those strays, it wouldn't be as special and meaningful. Overall this is a wonderful experience that deserves to be enjoyed.
noop gave it a1:
Very, very crappy movie. Complete nonsense.
Raoul gave it a4:
I liked it, until the horror part came and I actually didn't feel leek bothering to watch the end. I turned it off. So I'd like to reply to Sam, who asked: "How would you have ended it?" My answer would be this: I'd prefer it without an end, over what they decided upon. Anything, but that. Let them succeed, fail, no matter, but keep that sense of intelligence intact, whether it lives or dies.
Arthur C. gave it a1:
Pretty much garbage throughout, the science especially. The 3rd act confirms its stupidity.
Sam gave it a10:
Spoilers Why was the 'slahser flick' section 'shoehorned' in? Because the movie wouldn't have worked without it. We have Capa, a man who fears two things: the sun, and failure to deliver the payload. Then the oxygen garden is destroyed, leaving them with one option: go to the supposedly abandonned Icarus I. Since it becamse their only option, the possibilites on what happened over there are even more thought of and beyond terrifying. When they get there, nothing. They can't control the ship at all, but behold, we have Pinbacker, a man whose sole intentions are to protect what Capa fears and destroy what he needs to protect. Tell me, haters, how would you have ended it? Take away Pinbacker and you have no closure to what happened on Icarus I, which is a huge focus in the film. The movie could not have ended without Pinbacker. Without him, there is no final third. Without him, you take away one of the best things about what is possibly the best sci-fi film of the decade.
