Moon (2009)

Like a lot of the great fiction, Moon gives us a very small idea and just lets it grow. What starts as an ominous musing on loneliness as a single technician wraps up a 3-year solo tour overseeing an automated mining operation on the lunar surface quickly pushes in all sorts of odd directions, turning itself on its ear and becoming fascinatingly unpredictable. The tweaks that come in the story are the kind of stuff that make up the best of short fiction, expanded out to just the right size. At the film's core is an essentially one-man show by Sam Rockwell, who turns in a career performance while trying to sort out the increasingly bizarre circumstances of his job. For those who like a little more drama and a bit more concept in their sci-fi, this strange, manic tale hits all the right notes.

8 out of 10.