The Spacewalker

The Spacewalker (2017) is a Russian historical thriller directed by Dmitry Kiselyov — watch it online on iFILM. The story is set in March 1965, when the USSR and the United States were racing to rack up firsts beyond the atmosphere. The mission assigned to pilot Pavel Belyayev and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the one no one had attempted: leave the capsule and float free in the void. Evgeny Mironov and Konstantin Khabensky play the two men who drew that assignment.

The test vehicle blew up two weeks before launch. There was no time to find out why — the Americans were not going to wait. So the flight went ahead with open questions, and in orbit every one of them became a problem. The suit inflated beyond specs, the spacewalk ran long, the re-entry calculations went wrong. Director Kiselyov stages the crisis sequences with a tight, suffocating urgency that keeps the tension physical rather than patriotic.

The production worked from declassified records and firsthand accounts; Roscosmos served as a co-producer. For anyone drawn to space history told from the Soviet side, without the usual triumphalism, this is the rare film that earns the drama. Stream The Spacewalker (2017) online on iFILM.