The Right Stuff · reception & legacy
1983 · Philip Kaufman
How The Right Stuff has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
An eight-Oscar-nominee that bombed at the box office in 1983 — pundits even blamed its failure for hurting John Glenn's presidential campaign. Four decades on it's routinely called one of the great American epics of the 80s.
What's debated
Fans still argue over the Gus Grissom portrayal — the film's take on the hatch incident struck many (including real astronauts and Grissom's family) as unfair — and whether the three-hour-plus runtime is epic sweep or indulgence.
Its footprint
Tom Wolfe coined it, but the movie cemented 'the right stuff' as shorthand for test-pilot cool; Sam Shepard's Yeager strolling away from a crash and the 'Who's the best pilot you ever saw?' exchange are endlessly referenced touchstones of American-movie swagger.
Where it stands
A 'great film nobody saw in theaters' that became a dad-movie-canon staple and a you-must-see for anyone into space-program cinema, sitting comfortably alongside Apollo 13 and First Man as the genre's granddaddy.