How will we ever manage to top the moon landing? It’s been 50 years, and we still haven’t managed to even come close to that kind of grand display of accomplishment, one which marked "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The event captured the attention of the entire world, effectively ending the Space Race and fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy: "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." All of us probably know the story of the moon landing — it’s been taught in every history class and is the topic of countless documentaries and conspiracies over the years — but very few of us were alive to witness it, and even in the off chance that we were alive at the time of the moon landing, it’s highly probably we didn’t get the chance to see it like this.

Apollo 11 doesn’t add any new facts or aspects to Man’s journey to the moon, but it does offer a never-before-seen, close-up glimpse into the interior of the mission, from the cosmos to mission control. It’s very clean and smoothly stitched together, making good use of split-screen to give the journey more jet propulsion, and it’s accompanied by a perfectly synced score by Matt Morton consisting of droning synth, steady, driving minimal beats, and fragments of delicate piano, giving the film a sense of tension, suspense, awe, inspiration, and the fluttering sensation of nervous excitement.