Interstellar is set in a dystopian future where Earth is becoming uninhabitable due to widespread crop failures, dust storms, and environmental collapse. Humanity faces extinction as food supplies dwindle, and society regresses to a survivalist state. The story follows Joseph "Coop" Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA pilot turned farmer, who is drawn into a mission to save humanity by finding a new home among the stars.
Miller’s Planet: A water-covered world with massive tidal waves caused by Gargantua’s gravitational pull. The team loses Doyle and hours of exploration time, only to find Miller dead and no viable data. Back on the Endurance, 23 years have passed due to time dilation, and Tom (now Casey Affleck) is an adult struggling on a dying Earth.
Mann’s Planet: A frozen, ammonia-rich world where Dr. Mann (Matt Damon), a celebrated Lazarus astronaut, is found in cryogenic sleep. Mann awakens and admits he falsified data about his planet’s habitability out of desperation to be rescued. His betrayal leads to Romilly’s death in an explosion and nearly destroys the mission when he attempts to hijack the Endurance.
Cooper sacrifices himself, falling out of the tesseract, only to be rescued near Saturn decades later by a human space colony. On Earth, Murph (now Jessica Chastain as an adult, and Ellen Burstyn as an elderly woman) uses his data to perfect a gravity equation, enabling humanity to launch massive space stations and escape Earth.
Act 1: Earth’s Decline and the Call to Adventure
The film opens with Cooper living a quiet life with his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow), his teenage son Tom (Timothée Chalamet), and his inquisitive 10-year-old daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy). Mysterious gravitational anomalies—later revealed to be messages from an unknown intelligence—lead Cooper and Murph to a secret NASA facility. There, Professor John Brand (Michael Caine) explains that a wormhole has appeared near Saturn, offering access to a distant galaxy with potentially habitable planets. NASA’s "Lazarus" missions previously sent astronauts through the wormhole to scout these worlds, and now a crew is needed for a follow-up mission. Cooper, with his piloting skills, is recruited to lead the expedition, despite Murph’s heartbreak over his departure.Act 2: The Journey Through the Wormhole
Cooper joins the Endurance spacecraft crew, including Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), Professor Brand’s daughter; physicist Romilly (David Gyasi); geographer Doyle (Wes Bentley); and two AI robots, TARS and CASE. They travel through the wormhole to a system orbiting a supermassive black hole called Gargantua. Time dilation due to Gargantua’s gravity means that hours spent in this system equate to years back on Earth. The crew evaluates three planets scouted by Lazarus astronauts: Miller’s, Mann’s, and Edmunds’.Miller’s Planet: A water-covered world with massive tidal waves caused by Gargantua’s gravitational pull. The team loses Doyle and hours of exploration time, only to find Miller dead and no viable data. Back on the Endurance, 23 years have passed due to time dilation, and Tom (now Casey Affleck) is an adult struggling on a dying Earth.
Mann’s Planet: A frozen, ammonia-rich world where Dr. Mann (Matt Damon), a celebrated Lazarus astronaut, is found in cryogenic sleep. Mann awakens and admits he falsified data about his planet’s habitability out of desperation to be rescued. His betrayal leads to Romilly’s death in an explosion and nearly destroys the mission when he attempts to hijack the Endurance.
Act 3: Sacrifice and Revelation
With fuel running low, Cooper and Amelia face a critical decision. They use Gargantua’s gravity for a slingshot maneuver to reach Edmunds’ planet, but this requires sacrificing parts of the mission. Cooper detaches his ranger craft, sending himself and TARS into the black hole to shed weight and ensure Amelia reaches Edmunds’. Inside Gargantua, Cooper enters a tesseract—a five-dimensional construct created by future humans. He realizes the anomalies on Earth were messages from himself, sent back in time to guide humanity. Using gravitational waves, he encodes NASA’s coordinates in Murph’s room and, later, the solution to a quantum gravity equation Professor Brand couldn’t solve.Cooper sacrifices himself, falling out of the tesseract, only to be rescued near Saturn decades later by a human space colony. On Earth, Murph (now Jessica Chastain as an adult, and Ellen Burstyn as an elderly woman) uses his data to perfect a gravity equation, enabling humanity to launch massive space stations and escape Earth.
