Why Interstellar is still relevant ten years later
It’s a Monday afternoon, a little more than a week before Christmas, and I’m walking into an IMAX theater to catch the 10th Anniversary IMAX release of Interstellar in 70mm. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this moment since this special release was announced earlier this year.
Apparently, I’m not the only one excited. As the movie begins, I look around to see the theater full—at 1:45 p.m. on a Monday—for a film that’s 10 years old. I think to myself: there’s something about this movie that still resonates with people. And my experience is no mere anecdote.
In its re-release opening weekend, on only 165 screens (primarily IMAX), Interstellar earned $4.6 million. It made an astronomical $27,891 per screen. For comparison, the movie Y2K, which also debuted the same weekend, made only $2.1 million on 2,100 screens. The success only grew in its second week, with Interstellar amassing a two week total of $12 million by doubling the number of screens it was shown on.
The re-release’s success raises an intriguing question:
Why is Interstellar still captivating audiences a decade after its release?
Allow me to offer four reasons why I think it still resonates.
1. The Rise of Christopher Nolan
By 2014, Christopher Nolan was already a well-known, highly respected director. Over the next decade, he continued to release brilliant and successful movies, becoming synonymous with intelligent, mind-bending blockbusters. However, 2023 elevated him to another level.
Last year, Nolan released his latest film, Oppenheimer. As part of the infamous “Barbenheimer” viral theater event of July 2023, the film went on to earn $975 million worldwide. At the Academy Awards, Oppenheimer took home seven Oscars, including Best Actor, Best Picture, and Best Director for Nolan.
The extraordinary success of Oppenheimer introduced Nolan to a much wider audience. People who might never have considered his more action-oriented films now had the incentive—or permission—to explore his previous works. Those who did surely discovered Interstellar as a film deserving of its enduring acclaim.
2. Intelligent, Emotional Storytelling
Nolan, who often writes his movies with his brother Jonathan, is sometimes criticized for creating films that feel “cold” or emotionally distant. I’ve always found this critique absurd, with Interstellar as the prime counterexample.
The film spans incredible scientific concepts—relativity, wormholes, time dilation—and travels from a dying Earth to a distant galaxy and the heart of a black hole. Yet, despite its high-concept premise, the story’s foundation remains deeply human: the relationship between a father and his daughter.
Cooper’s journey into the universe to save his daughter, and his unwavering determination to return to her, forms the movie’s emotional core. It’s powerful, heartfelt, and deeply moving.
Perhaps no scene better illustrates Nolan’s brilliance than Cooper watching the video messages from his family after returning from Miller’s planet. Time dilation—a difficult concept for most audiences to grasp—is expressed not through lengthy explanation but through raw emotion. After spending a few hours on Miller’s planet, Cooper has lost 23 years relative to those on Earth. As he watches his children age before his eyes, culminating in his now-grown daughter expressing her heartbreak and anger, the scene delivers a devastating emotional punch.
Nolan lets the moment breathe, showing Cooper sobbing in grief and loss. It’s unbelievably moving and unforgettable. The passage of time hits us all. 10 years ago I wasn’t yet married, and now I have a daughter of my own. The film is the same, but the emotional resonance hits differently for me now, as it certainly does to much of its audience. It makes Interstellar worth revisiting time and again.
3. The Score
Hans Zimmer has been to modern films what John Williams was to cinema in the preceding decades: the best in the business. With an illustrious career spanning from Gladiator to Driving Miss Daisy, Zimmer’s work is instantly recognizable, and his score for Interstellar might just be his best.
Not all film scores need to stand out; some simply serve as effective background music to echo the emotions on screen. Others leap into the foreground, transforming scenes into something infinitely greater. The score for Interstellar is a masterpiece of the latter kind.
It’s gentle and moving when needed, eerie and foreboding at key moments. It evokes a sense of danger and adventure, ramping up tension to match the perils of space exploration.
Two standout moments highlight its genius:
1. Miller’s Planet: The score integrates a haunting ticking sound, with each tick representing one Earth day lost due to time dilation. The result is a bone-chilling sense of urgency as time slips away.
2. Dr. Mann’s Betrayal: The pulsating pipe organ blares alongside escalating high-pitched tones as Dr. Mann attempts to commandeer the Endurance. The music perfectly complements the tension, making this one of cinema’s most gripping sequences. I look forward to this scene each time I watch because of the score.
Zimmer’s score is more than accompaniment—it’s integral to the film’s storytelling.
4. Accurate and Spectacular Visuals
Interstellar is a visual masterpiece, showcasing Christopher Nolan’s obsession with accuracy and practical effects. Few directors are as committed to realism, and it shows throughout the film.
Early in the movie, when Cooper, Tom, and Murph chase a rogue drone through cornfields, those fields weren’t CGI—Nolan spent $100,000 planting actual corn outside Calgary, Alberta, later selling the crop for a profit. This attention to detail is evident in every scene.
Once the characters leave Earth, the visuals become even more breathtaking. The Endurance dwarfed by Saturn, the towering mile-high waves on Miller’s planet, and the icy expanses of Mann’s planet—all are jaw-dropping.
The centerpiece, however, is the depiction of the black hole, Gargantua. Physicist Kip Thorne worked with Nolan to create the most scientifically accurate renderings of a black hole ever attempted. The visual effects team used complex mathematical data provided by Thorne, resulting in frames so computationally intense they took 100 hours to render—each second of black hole footage requiring over 100 days to produce.
The result is a stunningly accurate and mesmerizing visual depiction, one that has stood the test of time despite rapid advancements in film technology.
As I write this, Interstellar has become the highest-grossing IMAX re-release in history. Its enduring appeal is a testament to its brilliance—a masterpiece that has only grown more relevant and awe-inspiring with time.
