MOVIE · 1999

October Sky

DramaFamily109 min

Jake Gyllenhaal is Homer Hickam, a coal miner’s son in 1957 West Virginia who sees Sputnik cross the night sky and starts building rockets with three friends. In Coalwood, where the mine seems to define every boy’s future, Homer’s experiments put him at odds with his father, embodied by Chris Cooper, and draw the attention of a teacher who takes the project seriously. As launches misfire and the boys keep testing, the story stays grounded in a small mining town while Homer reaches for a life beyond it.