Movie · 1979 · Adventure, Science Fiction, Action · 1h 38m · PG · English
Curator score: 1.5/10 (50K ratings)
A journey that begins where everything ends.
Overview
The explorer craft USS Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposedly lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering near a black hole. The ship is controlled by Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his monstrous robot companion, but the initial wonderment and awe the Palomino crew feel for the ship and its resistance to the power of the black hole turn to horror as they uncover Reinhardt's plans.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.5/10
IMDb: 5.9/10
Letterboxd: 2.91/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 44%
Metacritic: 52
TMDB: 5.8/10
Director
Gary Nelson
Production
Walt Disney Productions
Cast
Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, Tom McLoughlin, Roddy McDowall, Slim Pickens, Gary Nelson, Steven Banks, Don Lewis
Where to watch
Disney Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually ambitious late-70s sci-fi adventure with striking miniatures, a memorable score, and a genuinely eerie production design, but also stiff dialogue, uneven pacing, and a story that never fully matches its big ideas. It’s worth seeing for the craft and cult-fantasy atmosphere more than for a consistently satisfying narrative.
Best for
fans of retro sci-fi spectacle
viewers who like ambitious but flawed cult films
people drawn to eerie space-station settings
audiences interested in early Disney genre experiments
fans of practical effects, miniatures, and synth-orchestral scores
Skip if
you want tight, modern pacing
you need strong character writing and natural dialogue
you dislike campy or dated sci-fi melodrama
you prefer hard-science realism over pulpy metaphysics
Overview
The Black Hole is one of those movies where the production design does a lot of the heavy lifting, and in this case that’s not a complaint. The miniature work, the Cygnus interiors, and the ominous robot imagery give the film a grand, haunted quality that still lands decades later. It feels like a studio trying to make a prestige space adventure and accidentally drifting into something stranger and more unsettling.
Worth noting
What keeps it from becoming a true classic is the script, which is often blunt, awkward, and oddly inert for a movie about cosmic danger. The cast is strong on paper, but the characters are mostly asked to react rather than drive the drama, and the metaphysical ideas are more intriguing than fully developed.
Bottom line
Still, there’s a real cult-movie pleasure in its contradictions. It’s polished and cheesy, ambitious and clunky, kid-friendly and nightmarish, all at once. If you’re in the mood for a beautiful misfire with serious visual imagination, it’s easy to understand why people keep coming back to it.
Top Letterboxd reviews
matt lynch (3.5★) · 553 likes
All those great miniatures, the cool robots, the laser fights, the dipshit metaphysics, Maximilian Schell's whatever he's doing, and that John Barry score. It's almost amazing that this still sort of sucks.
David Sims (3★) · 241 likes
when I was a kid I had a picture book novelization of this movie I would read over and over again
Ian West · 228 likes
Watched this for the first time in over 25 years with my mom, dad, and fiancé... and all I’m going to say is that cast is insane, space visual effects/models are equally insane, and this might be my favorite score of all time? One of the few times I’m completely baffled to rate a movie... the inner turmoil is driving me insane and I’m emotional torn so yeah... I can’t rate this now—but I will ♥️ it.
Steve Robinson (4★) · 192 likes
I honestly can't believe I am giving this 4 stars... But I am. I have resisted watching this film my whole life. Being a star wars child my parents and my brain would say simply, this is Disney trying to cash in on star wars stay away. Even as a child I was well cynical, or just simply too in love with star wars. Anyway, my wife came home from the sale at HMV and with her came the black… more I honestly can't believe I am giving this 4 stars... But I am. I have resisted watching this film my whole life. Being a star wars child my parents and my brain would say simply, this is Disney trying to cash in on star wars stay away. Even as a child I was well cynical, or just simply too in love with star wars. Anyway, my wife came home from the sale at HMV and with her came the black… more
Will Menaker (3★) · 145 likes
There's a lot that's hokey but also a lot that's very cool in this Disney version of 2001, especially the end when Maximilian Schell and his evil robot merge together going through a black hole and wind up in Hell. We've also got GOD Robert Forster, Ernest Borgnine in a futuristic Coogi sweater, a gay robot voiced by Roddy McDowell and a 19th century prospector robot voiced by Slim Pickens.