From Tetris to Tenzing: must-see movies inspired by real-life record breakers

Philip Kaufman's epic account of the early US space programme begins with one of aviation's defining achievements: Chuck Yeager becoming the first person to break the sound barrier. Sam Shepard plays the legendary test pilot, who flew the Bell X-1 beyond Mach 1 on 14 October 1947, before the film turns its attention to America's original "Mercury Seven" astronauts.

Apollo 13 (1995)

"Houston, we have a problem…" Ron Howard's gripping dramatization of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission stars Tom Hanks as commander Jim Lovell. Although an explosion prevented the astronauts from landing on the Moon, their looping trajectory around it took them farther from Earth than any humans had travelled before - a record set in April 1970 on a mission that became an extraordinary story of survival.

This made-for-TV drama fictionalizes the remarkable story of British brain-tumour patient Craig Shergold, played by a very young Thomas Brodie-Sangster. A worldwide campaign saw Craig inundated with get-well cards: 16.25 million had arrived by May 1990 and 33 million by May 1991. The appeal continued circulating for years, eventually generating an estimated hundreds of millions of cards.

Four Minutes (2005)

Jamie Maclachlan plays British amateur athlete Roger Bannister and Shaun Smyth portrays GWR's founding editor Norris McWhirter in this dramatized account of the first sub-four-minute mile. The film explores Bannister's rivalry with Australian runner John Landy and the intense pressure surrounding one of athletics' most celebrated psychological barriers ever.

The Flying Scotsman (2006)

Jonny Lee Miller stars as Scottish cycling maverick Graeme Obree, whose homemade bicycle Old Faithful famously incorporated bearings sourced from a washing machine. The film charts Obree's obsessive pursuit of cycling records, his battles with the sport's authorities and his struggles with mental health. In 1993, he sensationally broke cycling's prestigious world hour record - and subsequently reclaimed it in 1994.

Amelia (2009)

No, not the quirky French romcom Amelie.... Ths is Hilary Swank playing pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart in Mira Nair's biopic, charting her rise to international celebrity and her disappearance over the Pacific in 1937. Among Earhart's many achievements was becoming, in 1932, the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic - flying from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland in around 15 hours.

The Walk (2015)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt dons the black polo neck of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who on 7 August 1974 illegally rigged a cable between New York City's newly built World Trade Center towers and stepped out into the void. Robert Zemeckis's vertiginous recreation makes full use of Hollywood effects to depict a feat that was, at the time, the highest ground-supported tightrope walk.

For another version of this extraordinary story, seek out the Oscar-winning 2008 documentary Man on Wire.

The 33 (2015)

Spain's leading man Antonio Banderas heads the cast of this dramatization of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster. After the San José mine collapsed, 33 miners found themselves stranded 688 m (2,257 ft) underground. Spoiler alert: all were eventually rescued after 69 days - the longest time survived trapped underground - in an operation watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The Aeronauts (2019)

Eddie Redmayne plays meteorologist James Glaisher in this spectacular ballooning adventure, inspired by Glaisher and aeronaut Henry Coxwell's record-breaking ascent from Wolverhampton on 5 September 1862. Their balloon reached a then-record altitude of around 9-11 km (30,000-37,000 ft). The movie takes considerable liberties, replacing Coxwell with fictional aeronaut Amelia Wren, played by Felicity Jones, but it's still a compelling recount of this dramatic record.

A World Record Christmas (2023)

Can there be many festive romance movies built around competitive block stacking? This Hallmark movie stars Nikki DeLoach and Lucas Bryant and was inspired by autistic Canadian record breaker Auldin Maxwell, whose extraordinary ability to balance Jenga blocks earned him various Guinness World Records titles. Maxwell himself appears in the movie, while the fictional storyline follows a boy determined to become a world record holder, just like the real-world block stacker.

Tetris (2023)

Less about playing the world's most ported videogame than the extraordinary battle to control it, this Cold War thriller stars Taron Egerton as videogame entrepreneur Henk Rogers. He travels to the Soviet Union and joins forces with the game's creator, Alexey Pajitnov - played by Nikita Efremov - in the complicated race to secure international rights to one of history's longest-running, most successful and widely adapted videogames.

Young Woman and the Sea (2024)

Daisy Ridley stars as American swimmer Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle, who battled prejudice, punishing seas and an earlier failed attempt to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. Another spoiler alert: on 6 August 1926, she made it from France to England in 14 hours 31 minutes - not merely completing the crossing, but beating the existing men's record by almost two hours.

Okay, not a dramatization of real events, but competitive arcade gaming has rarely looked this dramatic. Seth Gordon's hugely entertaining documentary follows two men vying to set the high-score record on Nintendo's 1981 classic Donkey Kong. Scores rise, rivalries deepen and videotapes are scrutinized - and, as an added bonus from my point of view, the film features a certain Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief as one of its talking heads!

Indulge me in another deviation: this time, The Man Who Ate the 747, a novel - inspired by real-life record breaker Michel Lotito, aka Mr Mangetout - that I'd love to see made into a movie! Ben Sherwood's wonderfully record-obsessed romantic comedy recounts the tale of (fictional) record adjudicator J. J. Smith, as he travels to rural Nebraska to investigate a record claim. There, a farmer named Wally Chubb is painstakingly eating a Boeing 747 piece by piece to demonstrate his love for local newspaper editor Willa Wyatt. Trouble is, J. J. falls for her too. Hearts, it turns out, can be broken as easily as records.

Main image: Apple