‘Apollo 11’ Trailer: Never-Before-Seen NASA Footage Becomes A Stunning Documentary
Peter Jacksonis not the only filmmaker to create breathtaking documentaries out of restored footage. DirectorTodd Douglas Millercrafts a gorgeous documentaryApollo 11out of never-before-seen NASA footage, restoring the 50-year-old footage into what the director has called “the highest quality digital collection of Apollo 11 footage in existence.”
Apollo 11 Trailer
Miller and his team digitized unprocessed, never-before-seen 65mm footage that was recently discovered in the National Archives along with 11,000 hours of uncatalogued NASA audio recordings to createApollo 11, a documentary which critics arecalling"like science made into a dream," and a film thatwill make you"overcome by the sheer enormity of what it meant to leave the Earth and land somewhere else."
The footage looks crisp, clear, and stunningly cinematic, and works as a clear repudiation to moon landing conspiracy theorists. It happened, get over it.
Indie distributor Neon acquired international distribution rights to the film last summer, which was announced on the 49th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing of the Apollo 11 mission made by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. While audiences may have (unjustly) turned a cold shoulder to Damien Chazelle’s profound biopicFirst Man, perhaps they’ll respond more strongly toApollo 11, which is the second film distribution collaboration between Neon and CNN films following last year’s critical hitThree Identical Strangers.
Here is the official synopsis forApollo 11:
From director Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) comes a cinematic event fifty years in the making. Crafted from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage, and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings, Apollo 11 takes us straight to the heart of NASA’s most celebrated mission—the one that first put men on the moon, and forever made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into household names. Immersed in the perspectives of the astronauts, the team in Mission Control, and the millions of spectators on the ground, we vividly experience those momentous days and hours in 1969 when humankind took a giant leap into the future.
Apollo 11premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on July 13, 2025. It will open in theaters sometime in2019.
