The airlock scene - the money shot of the deep space movie. Whether you find it cliché, offensive or whether you lock yourself in the bathroom with a compiled collection, we’ll almost all agree that no film with characters in the cold, vast, empty vacuum of space would be complete without a juicy dose of airlock. And who can argue? In any of these movies space is always the silent, ubiquitous enemy - threatening to unleash its deadly force on the fragile human crew whose only door between the safe confines of their space vessel, and an agonizing death is…yup, the airlock. So it is no wonder that so many movies use it as vehicle for tension and drama, and more often than not, the airlock saves the day. In honour of this device, here is a list of the top airlock scenes in movie history.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

 

Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece has the main (human) character, Dave Bowman in a small space pod, locked out of the mother ship by HAL, the creepy onboard computer that’s recently gone Windows Vista. Bowman attempts to outwit him by using explosive bolts in his pods door to blow himself out and into the mother ships airlock chamber. It works, and Dave immediately proceeds to load HAL with Windows XP.

Airlock lesson learned: “See!? I told you there was no sound in space! Geez.”

Alien (1979)

 

Sigourney Weaver strips to her panties (sexy) and crawls into a chunky spacesuit (not sexy) in order to rid her spacecraft of a slimy flesh-hungry alien by way of airlock (sexy). Airlock lesson learned: Sorry, I stopped paying attention after the panty scene.

Aliens (1986)

 

Q. What’s better than Sigourney Weaver in panties throwing aliens into space? A. Sigourney Weaver in a giant robot suit throwing aliens into space. James Cameron directs the Alien sequel and oh boy, does he give good airlock! Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finds herself in a death lock with a giant queen alien, and with a little help from a dairy-spewing android she ultimately flushes the nasty beast out into space.

Airlock lesson learned: When up against the immeasurable powerful vacuum of infinite space, hold on with your elbows.

Event Horizon (1997)

 

One of the gorier airlock scenes in cinematic history. After a mental episode triggered by a haunted spaceship, one of the crew members finds himself trapped in an airlock chamber while it’s about to open. The veins in his forearms swell grotesquely and when the airlock door fully opens blood spews from his eyes as he’s sucked out into Lawrence Fishburn’s loving arms.

Airlock lesson learned: Curl into a ball.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

 

In the film adaptation of the Douglas Adams novel, Arthur Dent and his extraterrestrial friend ford are sent into a Vogon airlock chamber for execution. They accept their fate as they watch the airlock door in front of them about to open, but in a purely comedic twist, they instead fall through a trapdoor in the floor and out into space.

Airlock lesson learned: if sucked out an airlock, there’s a 2^2079460347:1 chance you’ll be transformed into a sofa and rescued by the starship Heart of Gold.

Sunshine (2007)

 

Three of the crew members sent to rescue Earth from a dying sun use the airlock from one ship to blast them through the airlock of another ship; the problem: There's only one spacesuit. Not the most original use of the airlock, but at least we get to see the coward freeze solid after he misses his target.

Airlock lesson learned: Don't send a bunch of good-looking twenty-somethings to save the world.