Hyperlight
2018 · 17m · Canadá
Directed by Nguyen-Anh Nguyen
Genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Two elite astronauts wake up in the abyss of space before returning to their ship, where they discover the reason behind the catastrophic failure of their mission.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's competent sci-fi claustrophobia, sure, but the premise—astronauts wake up, something went wrong, mystery box closes—is exactly the kind of locked-room thriller everyone's already made in space. Nguyen has the craft to pull it off, which is precisely why it doesn't need me.
Formally assured work that understands its debts to Tarkovsky's meditative dread and contemporary space thrillers; the 17-minute structure demonstrates real control over tension and reveal, situating itself thoughtfully within a lineage of philosophical sci-fi.
The genius move here is the choice to keep the astronauts *silent* during the discovery sequence—no expository dialogue, just physicality and the sound design of their breathing and the ship's systems—which transforms a familiar premise into something intimate and unbearably human.