In the Shadow of the Moon (2008)

"British Documentarian David Sington has assembled together all the old codgers from the Apollo space missions (with Neil Armstrong conspicuously absent) to tell their stories. These craggy-faced old Yanks make for good company, providing humorous observations and moving philosophies about their voyages that took place between 1968 and 1972."

"It is impossible not to have a sense of awe and wonderment, watching this absorbing film. We hear about the feeling at lift-off: the buzz, the apprehension. There's even the sombre, sobering speech from then US President Richard Nixon, written 'just in case' the lunar module failed to lift off from the moon."

"In David Sington's wonderful, beautifully assembled documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, Apollo astronauts who landed on or circled the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s look back modestly, movingly and with insight on the experience. They had the right stuff then, and it has mellowed and matured into something even better. It's not to be missed."

"When you were on the moon, they remember, you could blank out the Earth by holding up your thumb in front of your face. Yet they were struck by how large the planet was, and how thin and fragile its atmosphere, floating in an infinite void and preserving this extraordinary thing, life. And below, we were poisoning it as fast as we could."

"A healthy reminder of just how inspiring the human race can be."

"The heart of Sington's film, though, is the dry humour and boundless humility of his interviewees. In their wise and withered faces (more fascinating than any lunar landscape), the camera finds something almost ineffable – a spirit of adventure that transcends both politics and patriotism. It's a shame that the notoriously shy Neil Armstrong couldn't be tempted out to join them."