Solaris

Solaris (2002) is a science-fiction drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Steven Soderbergh and producer James Cameron drew from Stanislaw Lem's novel to build a story about grief dressed up as a space mystery. George Clooney plays psychologist Chris Kelvin, dispatched to an orbiting research station above a strange planet after the crew goes quiet.

The station is nearly deserted when he arrives. His old friend, the mission commander, is dead under circumstances no one will explain. The survivors — including characters played by Viola Davis and Jeremy Davies — seem fractured in ways that have nothing to do with loneliness. Then Kelvin's dead wife appears in his cabin: Natascha McElhone as Rheya, present and warm and impossible.

Soderbergh made a film about guilt, not aliens. At 99 minutes it moves slowly and deliberately, with a spare synthesiser score by Cliff Martinez that carries much of the emotional weight. Tarkovsky's 1972 version is canonical; this one is quieter but no less precise. Stream Solaris (2002) online on iFILM.