• Director: Georges Méliès
  • Year: 1902
  • Starring: Georges Méliès
  • Runtime: 11m

Méliès returns with his most ambitious film yet—an epic science fiction masterpiece that sees a group of wizards building a giant bullet which they ride to the moon.

He is at the height of his powers here. Elaborate sets and costumes, dozens of extras, special effects, and a runtime of over ten minutes—a James Cameron-level duration for 1902.

It also gives us one of the most iconic images of cinema—the whipped cream moon man with a rocketship in his eye.

As if that wasn't enough, we also have the Galactic Gods who make it snow on our dozing adventurers, the threatening yet somehow extremely fragile bird-faced, claw-handed aliens that explode in a puff of smoke when hit by an umbrella, and a plot twist at the end that could easily have set up a sequel and really kickstarted a franchise.

It's a Méliès, so of course I love it. The hand-painted sets—especially the obviously flat painting of a bullet spaceship that they all somehow climb in and out of—the strange characters, and the ever-exuberant and hyperactive Méliès bouncing off the walls make it all seem so much fun.