Tom Wolfe's bestseller about the training of the first American astronauts here becomes an exhilarating, sprawling, Oscar-winning chronicle of the race to put a man into space. The point of director Philip Kaufman's visually dazzling epic is to ally the early test pilots, such as Chuck Yeager (stoically played by Sam Shepard), who clearly have the "right stuff" for the job, with the pioneering heroes of the Old West. Borrowing a great deal from the work of maverick director John Ford in terms of mythological scope and story structuring, Kaufman's historical drama is a great tribute to the space race. It's packed with terrific performances (Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid), thought-provoking satire, nail-biting aerial scenes and emotional resonance.

At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.