The 9 Best Eclipse-Themed (and Quasi-Related) Movies

Originally Posted 8/16/17

Eclipse-mania is ramping up and won't abate until August 22 -- the day after the upcoming big event. So why fight it? You may as well embrace it. Snag a pair of NASA-approved solar glasses, unwrap a stick of Eclipse gum, punch a straw into a Capri Sun, throw Black Moon's first album on and crank up the volume and then watch a couple of these movies that are at least tangentially-related to eclipses.





Eclipse

Honestly, this third entry in the Twilight series is only on the list because of its title. Look at the bright side -- If you go blind staring at the sun, at least you won't have to watch Eclipse.









Dark of the Moon

Dark of the Moon is the third-worst Transformers movie and it's not about an eclipse -- lunar or otherwise. But the title should get you in the mood for the big day.









Near Dark

Though the title may suggest otherwise, Near Dark doesn't feature an eclipse. Instead it focuses on a rowdy gang of vampires (for whom sunlight is lethal) that would beat the shit outta Kiefer Sutherland and the Lost Boys without breaking a sweat. Near Dark was the most hardcore vampire movie of the 80s -- bar none. And the title's good enough for this list.









Before Sunset

Sunset picks up nine years after American Jesse and French Celine met on a train and spent one night together in Vienna. They'd agreed not to exchange contact info but to meet in Austria again in six months' time. Celine never showed up and they moved on with their lives. But a chance encounter brings them face-to-face in Paris. So there's no eclipse in Sunset. It made the cut because of its title.









Sunshine

The Sun isn't being eclipsed by the moon in Sunshine, it's dying -- which is far worse. The movie revolves around an international crew of specialists on a mission to reignite the dying Sun with a mega-ton nuclear bomb in the year 2057.









30 Days of Night

What takes place during 30 Days of Night isn't an eclipse but a polar night, which has the same effect but for a much longer period of time (night that lasts for more than 24 hours). As the title suggests, the darkness lasts for a month in this case. 

A group of enterprising vampires exploit this phenomenon in order to feed on an Alaskan town to their collective heart's content. This is one of the best vampire movies of all time.









Dragonslayer

Sorcerer's apprentice Galen Bradwarden sets out on a quest to rescue a princess from being sacrificed to a 400-year-old dragon. The confrontation with the dragon takes place during a solar eclipse.

Ladyhawke

Medieval knight Etienne of Navarre is the victim of a curse that causes him to transform into a wolf when the sun sets. The woman he loves, Isabeau d'Anjou, is afflicted by the same curse. In her case, she transforms into a hawk every dawn. Hence, the couple can only be together during "a day without night and a night without day" -- a solar eclipse.









Pitch Black

A group of space-farers crash land on a planet with three suns but the survivors manage to make do. But an eclipse allows the planet's photosensitive and extremely predatory inhabitants to leave their subterranean dwellings and roam the surface. The good news for the crash survivors is that one of them has sick survival skills and surgical implants that allow him to see perfectly well in total darkness. The bad news is that he's a convicted murderer without an ounce of remorse.






Bonus:

Heroes

Heroes is what the X-Men movies should have been -- a world in which people born with diverse superhuman abilities (mutants) face discrimination and government persecution and must unite in order to thwart menaces of their own kind (supervillains). This network television series far outshone the X franchise's unwatchable installments (except for Logan) with their six-figure budgets.

Everything kicks off when the title characters realize that they have special abilities following an October 1, 2006 solar eclipse.

Heroes deftly balances humor and lighthearted moments with an air of danger -- without ever being campy. This greatness is sustained through three entire seasons. The show's quality doesn't suffer until season four and is sadly not re-established in the ill-conceived Heroes: Reborn.