Ikarie XB 1

Ikarie XB 1 (1963) is a landmark Czech science-fiction film directed by Jindřich Polák — watch it online on iFILM. The year is 2163. A crew of forty boards the starship Ikaria on humanity's first deep-space mission, heading toward the Alpha Centauri system. The journey will take years.

Sealed inside the ship, the crew slowly feels the pressure of infinite dark. Fatigue turns to paranoia. Then they encounter a derelict vessel from the twentieth century — what they find aboard is a damning record of where humanity came from. Shortly after, something else appears in the void ahead, and no one can say what it is.

Made five years before Kubrick's 2001, Ikarie XB 1 anticipated much of how cinema would come to imagine space travel — claustrophobic, psychologically rigorous, beautiful in a cold way. It was Czechoslovakia's entry for the Academy Award and remains one of the finest science-fiction films of its era. Stream Ikarie XB 1 (1963) online on iFILM.