First Man

First Man (2018) eschews the grandiose in favor of a meticulous, intimate portrait of Neil Armstrong’s life and the fraught mission that culminated in his moonwalk. Director Damien Chazelle’s camera hovers close to the ground, capturing the visceral terror and technical precision of space travel. The film grapples with loss and ambition, its narrative framed by the personal tragedies that haunt Armstrong. Chazelle and Ryan Gosling, who plays the lead, craft a study in quiet heroism, one that privileges the human over the heroic.