If you like For All Mankind, you should check out... For All Mankind

The third season of For all mankindthe alternate history space drama created by Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, premiered Friday on Apple TV Plus.

The new season, now set in the early ’90s, refocuses on the US-Soviet race to colonize Mars, which now faces a third competitor in the form of charismatic tech billionaire Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi of The harder they fall and X-Men: First Class).

An astronaut posing in front of Earth in For All Mankind.

Alternate History Stories are fun, quintessential examples of speculative fiction that explore our world and nature outside of the confines of current reality, physical nature, and recorded history. However, some of the storytelling decisions and the creative decisions behind them don’t mean that much if the audience isn’t familiar with the story in question as it actually happened. That’s all to say: if you like the drama of engineering, space exploration, and the profound human connection between the two, why not take a shot at the 1989 documentary? For all mankind

Directed by journalist and filmmaker Al Reinert (fun fact: he wrote the scripts for Apollo 13 and Final Fantasy: The Ghosts Within) the film begins with visuals and audio of President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech at Rice University, in which he declared the United States’ intention to land a man on the moon before 1970. Combines archival footage of the 1968 Apollo manned spaceflight missions Apollo 7 launch to Apollo 17 in 1972, as well as audio testimonies from 24 of the astronauts who participated in the program, Reinert’s For all mankind

is the antithesis of a hyperbolic space drama. Instead, it’s a calm and inspiring testament to the wonder of space exploration and the power of human collaboration, and a sobering film that exposes the existential fragility of our own planet.

A capsule that detaches from the shaft of a rocket in For All Mankind.

Accompanied by a beautiful score courtesy of the legendary Brian Eno, For all mankind is not only a full-length declaration of love to the pioneering achievement of the Apollo space program, it is also the rare cinematic experience capable of eliciting an intense aesthetic response not unlike the overview effect. For those unfamiliar, the overview effect is a cognitive shift in consciousness reported by several astronauts when observing the relatively small size of the Earth compared to the vastness of space. It’s a moving emotion that resonates through every minute of the film’s runtime.

If you’re looking for a deeply tranquil and inspirational space film that balances the bombastic action and character-driven tension of the Apple TV Plus series, there simply is no better choice than 1989 For all mankind.