Interstellar vs. The Martian vs. Gravity

Gravity in IMAX 3D is an experience that those two movies can't even touch. It is insane how that movie was made.

And I think Gravity is a very different film than the other two: one is primarily made to be an experience, and the other two are story-driven focus.

I'd probably say Martian > Interstellar > Gravity. Gravity is more of a thrill ride, honestly. Interstellar tangles with a fair amount of interesting concepts, even if it struggles to do so effectively, and TARS is fucking great. Martian is my favorite but I'm probably bringing a lot of my fandom of the book into it, honestly. The way they changed the ending still makes me kinda mad and almost ruins the entire movie but whatever.

The Martian only because I read it before the movie and really thought it was adapted well. I liked Interstellar, but it just lasts forever. Gravity was good, but I thought given too much praise

Interstellar and especially Gravity were tainted for me by having just a tad too much spiritual bullcrap peppered in otherwise pretty well done hard sci-fi flicks. Cut one or two conversations from Interstellar and it would be a much better movie in my eyes. Scientists on a mission to potentially determine whether mankind survives or not do not seriously entertain the idea of "love transcending time and space". I haven't seen The Martian, but the book was great, so it got my vote.

Interstellar > Martian >> Gravity.

Gravity is technically very well made. Too bad the casting and the script sucks.

Interstellar was stupid...Matthew David McConaughey never acted like an astronaut or a father so the crux of the movie fails when we are supposed believe or care he is either.

Gravity was gooey/sappy and was jam-packed with really poor science and logical flaws. It was mildly entertaining, yet even that didn't save it.

So, by default, the Martin wins. The book is worth reading, even if you saw the movie.

I haven't seen Gravity yet. I liked both the other ones, but still prefer Red Planet, which I consider very much in the same vein as both Interstellar and The Martian.

Wow, really? Gravity is peoples least favorite? For me, it goes Gravity, The Martian, and then I didn't really like Interstellar all that much, though enjoyed some aspects. It may be seen as shallow, but although The Martian may be more realistic than Gravity (Gravity got the engineering down I hear, rather than some of the other aspect, like how space works and which suit is used), and I enjoy that, but it's not quite as exciting to me as Gravity. Also, you didn't add Moon, which I would happily add, and then that would probably be my choice, though Gravity for me is close. Gravity to me had an effective, though yes, thin plot, and likable characters/actors to me. It was exciting, the effects were good, and the soundtrack was amazing (even better than Hans Zimmer's Interstellar, where I only liked one song [Moon had a pretty good soundtrack too]). Furthermore, it's funny that Matt Damon is in both The Martian and Interstellar, playing somewhat similar roles.

Conceptually, Interstellar speaks to me the most of those three. However, it certainly had its issues, not least of which is the totally silly ethereal black hole realm at the end. I really like the premise and the scope of Interstellar, and despite its flaws I still find it thoroughly enjoyable.

The Martian was very good, and I have far fewer issues with it than I do Interstellar. The only thing I'd say bothered me was that they should have just gone for an R rating rather than using up their PG-13 f-bomb allotment in the first half hour and then being very obvious in avoiding explicitly saying it for the rest of the film.

Gravity was an entertaining romp in the theater, but it's a very shallow, digestible experience. It's neither memorable or thought provoking. It just sort of happens, it's exciting, and then it's done and you move on.

So, for me it's close between Interstellar and the Martian and Gravity is a distant third.

still love interstellar probably because i'm an oversentimental sap. there are a few moments that hit really hard in it, thanks in no small part to that incredible score. the scale and attention to detail, plus the practical effects really make it the heir apparent to 2001. even with its innacuracies i still prefer it top to bottom. and i know everyone hates the ending but it's still a gut punch to me and i still love it. also has two of the most awesome ai/robot companions who for once are helpful and not trying to kill the humans.

the martian is incredibly well made and i do appreciate how mostly accurate it is (save the main premise being false for narrative reasons), and damon does a helluva job in it but i still feel it's a little too hollywood and rote for me to truly love it. still enjoyed it quite a bit, need to finish the book one of these days.

i sorta don't like gravity. it's a wild ride and technically fairly impressive, but there's just something about the science and main premise being bull that turns me off. odd, since i'm mostly forgiving with interstellar which arguably does worse in that regard, but i guess it's just the way i feel. despite bullocks pretty strong performance it just felt a bit empty to me. also the amazing practical effects of interstellar win the day.

moon is also pretty incredible but i'd still personally put interstellar above it (not too far though).

All three are fantastic movies but,

I echo this. I get the entire point of Interstellar was more or less to emphasize how humanity should be more humble because we pretend like we know everything, while really we know nothing. A certain hundreds of years ago if you were to show people a vacuum cleaner they couldn't comprehend it and would think it was possessed. We laugh at the idea of that, but flash forward 500 years and we are far more stupid now than then. I get it. We're doing shit at this very second that is mind numbingly stupid, we just don't see it. So in a sense it's 'the power of love will save humanity' ending that appears nonsense gets a pass on its own set up. Clever, but I still didn't like it.

As for Gravity, it's very impressive but honestly just boring when you get down to it.

The Martian was smart, impressive, tense and engaging throughout the entire film. It might be my favorite movie of all time in fact. But as it stands it's definitely in the top 3. But Pacific Rim is up there too, so if that tells you anything about my taste.

The martian. Don't @ me, lol.

I've only seen the Martian on HBO in a hotel in blurry standard definition and it was a nice little time. I shut Gravity off because when I realized it would be a whole movie of people who can barely control their movement just floating around it felt like a waste of screen time. Interstellar is free on Prime but I've been avoiding it because I've assumed that it's gonna be super sober, contemplative scifi which I don't much care for.

Oh The Martian, easily. One of the best science fiction movies period. Interstellar was great but quite heavy-handed in spots, and Gravity was good but a bit, well, a bit too one-note. I mean it does what you'd expect given its title, but I dunno. It was a decent ride but felt pretty shallow.

But hey, how about that Arrival movie. Now that's a hell of a film.

The Martian is my favourite simply based on how optimistic it is. It puts a smile on my face and I appreciate it for that alone. I appreciated Gravity more when I first saw it than I did Interstellar but if I were asked which one I wanted to sit down and watch now I'd say Interstellar.

This is a really tough call for me. I enjoyed all 3, but none inspire the evangelist in me. I think I'll give my vote to Gravity to counter the harsh discussion around it.

1. Interstellar - It's good but a little boring.
2. Gravity - It's cute but kinda boring.
3. The Martian - It tried but sorta boring.

It's Interstellar for me no contest. I really loved that movie, from the premise, the way they filmed the special effects to the stellar soundtrack by Hans Zimmer.

The remaining two were alright but nothing special. I enjoyed Gravity for the special effects but it was a shallow Hollywood bonanza. The Martian had some good actors in it and decent comedy but nothing to write home about.

@void: Exactly this.

I would go with The Martian over the others, with Interstellar coming in second and Gravity third.

I did not like Gravity all that much. For pure spectacle, it was pretty amazing, but the story wasn't that impressive. And, while I like George Clooney in some movies, I didn't in this. He was just "George Clooney" in it, not an actual character, at least imo. I didn't really emotionally connect with anything. Still, it looked great.

Interstellar was pretty good. I liked probably 80% of it. The ending didn't really knock my socks off. I think I was loving the hard science fiction of it, and then the ending goes into more metaphysical elements. That's not bad at all, but it just didn't wrap up in the way I wanted, needed, or maybe expected? I think I need to go back and watch it again, because I feel like my opinion on it may be half formed or could change if I viewed it another time.

I loved The Martian. My husband and I went to watch it the first weekend it was in theaters. I was viewing it as someone who hadn't read the book, and he was coming to it as someone who read and enjoyed the book. While he said things were changed, he told me that he understood why they changed or cut what they did. I honestly really liked it. I liked the humor and the survival story. In the end, I think Matt Damon did the best at his part and making me connect with him, his emotional reactions and the situation that he found himself in. It was a big movie with big special effects, but it worked for me as a simple story about a guy trapped on Mars, more so than Sandra Bullock being trapped in space in Gravity did, for example.

Long post, but that's my basic overview of all three. There are space movies I definitely like more than these, like Moon, but I understand that you were only asking about these specifically. :)

Wow, I'm actually pretty surprised people like The Martian so much. It just sort of seemed trite to me. Nothing about it really subverted expectations. Fine to watch, but pretty boring. Interstellar, while pretty flawed, at least tries to do weird shit. I appreciate that. It's also beautiful to look at. I think Gravity is the most cohesive of the bunch. Using her journey home as an allegory for the stages of grief was pretty cool.

Hmmm I like all three of these films, wouldn't know which one most.

At the moment, this poll is exactly right.

The Martian > Interstellar > Gravity.

Gravity was hugely overrated, IMO. It's the Titanic of space movies.

Tastes to each of course, but I think The Martian is the only legitimately good movie of the three. Gravity is incredibly goofy, I couldn't believe it was nominated for Best Picture. If you want the absurd special effects then there you have it. Interstellar is fine I guess, but there are parts that just don't work. Him derping randomly into the secret base, stuff like that.

And you want to talk about a cast, The Martian just brings it on all fronts. It's wildly entertaining and if it's on TV I'll end up getting hooked into it like Goodfellas or something.

Arrival.

To me, easily Gravity. Didn't like Interstellar but wouldn't mind taking a 2nd look. The Martian was only notable because Ridley Scott had been terrible for a long stretch.

It's Gravity for me because it created some genuine moments of horror. The kind I didn't know I could get from a movie anymore. I think I learned something about myself after that movie.

But the other ones are good too. The Martian is a bit too comedic to be important enough, for me, and Interstellar becomes a bit too... well, I wont spoil.

Interstellar takes it for me because I loved the setting, the sound, and the conflicts. The design of the robots is still one of my favorites because of how simplistic they are, as well as their obvious homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can see why people disliked the ending, but the entire build-up and tension that lead up to the ending really helped it out in my view. Truthfully, I think the ending would've been better if the brother had smashed the watch in a fit of rage over his burned crops.

The other two I liked, but they didn't grip me the same way Interstellar did.

I hated The Martian's cloying "fun nerd" tone, and I'm really tired of the "let's get our boys back who cares what the brass says" plot. All of this in spite of the excellent direction and casting had me enjoying the ride, but totally uninterested in ever revisiting that movie, in thought or on screen. Separately, I liked enough of both Gravity and Interstellar to outweigh the implausible parts that weighed both of them down. However, Interstellar was more affecting for me than Gravity, and Intersteller's absolutely incredible sense of scale in 70mm invoked the sublime more than any film I've ever seen (a shot of their tiny speck of a ship passing in front of Saturn will never leave me), so it goes Interstaller > Gravity > The Martian.

I thought Gravity was a pretty good movie. I haven't seen Interstellar or The Martian yet.

I haven't seen Interstellar and Gravity but i have seen The Martian which was GREAT.

I haven't seen The Martian. But I liked Gravity a lot more than Interstellar. Interstellar definitely felt a bit overwrought.

The Martian was one of, if not my #1 favorite movie from last year.

Gravity is a film I really enjoyed, and it is one paper the most impressive film out of the three, but I have only seen it once.

Interstellar is a movie I flat out don't like.

Didn't watch The Martian but read the book. Such an aggravating, shallow, mess of "meme-y" humor, two dimensional characters, and overwhelming repetition. Gravity had it's flaws but was such a raw, intense movie that it worked for me (mostly). Definitely a movie where how I felt trumped how I consciously thought about it.

@kcin: When defying orders from higher ups and putting many lives at risk with improbable success was treated as a heroic "fuck you" to the establishment I wanted to stop reading. Haven't been that angry with a book in some time.

To be fair I'm not sure how the movie version handled it.

EDIT: Also I totally just remembered "Pirate-Ninja"...

...I really hated that book.

1. Gravity - Good film.

2. The Martian - Only read the book; overrated.

3. Interstellar - Pure garbage from start to finish.

One has Christopher Nolan. It wins.

The Martian (book) > The Martian > Interstellar > Gravity

Moon.

1. Interstellar - I've seen this movie 3 times this fall, and I think I might watch it again this weekend. That one part toward the end is poorly made and awkward though, but the rest is fantastic.

2. Gravity - Really well made and exiting.

3. The Martian - Saw it once, and while I don't exactly regret it, I doubt I'll ever watch it again.

Martian > Gravity > Interstellar

I think The Martian is amazing, one of the best movies of the year. Gravity is a nice movie, but not very deep and once you take away the 3D big screen experience, it doesn't hold up that well. I just didn't like Interstellar.

So, no real contest here...

Ugh, I do not care for The Martian at all. There was no sense of suspense or drama to it, the passage of time was mishandled, he never actually felt that isolated, and the Damon vlogs were so cringy. It was just entirely boring.

Gravity was visually amazing.

Interstellar had heart and balls to it.

I like all of these movies but I seem to be the opposite of a lot of the comments here in that I read The Martian before the movie was made but because of that I like the movie a lot less.

Didn't care for Interstellar and Gravity seemed all flash and no substance. While both were very pretty films I feel they pale next to The Martian which was not only as enjoyable as the source material, it was clearly the best comedy of the year.

Interstellar for me. The visuals were absolutely spectacular and made a huge impact on me liking that movie. I thought the 4 dimension scene was incredible.

Unfortunately the whole message of 'love is the most powerful force' was completely and utterly bulls**t, as was the ending of McConaughey seeing his daughter again, but the movie still made the biggest impact on me out of the three.

As much as I love scifi, I should probably watch some of these movies at some point...

I am with you on that 100% and it is probably because I'm an over sentimental fool as well. The emotional stuff in it really gets to me, it's very gripping and even dark at times. Even if he gets one last chance to see his daughter, he still basically left both of his kids behind and never saw them again, the son figured he was dead, and even if Murphy and him did have that special connection that 'saved the day' he still didn't get a chance to see her until she was just about to die. That's really genuinely heart wrenching to me, and I'll gladly take hard science and spirituality side by side. And as you mentioned the practical effects are stellar, people can say what they want about Nolan and his films, but his films have some of the best effects around due to how much love he gives practical effects.
Plus that soundtrack is amazing.