Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is an animated coming-of-age story set in the Houston suburbs during the summer of 1969, as the Apollo 11 moon landing approaches. It follows Stan, a ten-year-old boy growing up near the NASA facility, whose ordinary days of school, family life and neighborhood play unfold against the backdrop of the space race. The film moves between two vantage points: the astronauts and mission control during the historic moment, and the child's view of the event, which he, like most people, watches on television while dreaming of traveling into space himself. The screenplay, written and directed by Richard Linklater, is inspired by his own childhood.

The cast includes Milo Coy as Stan, with Jack Black voicing the grown-up Stan, alongside Lee Eddy, Bill Wise, Natalie L'Amoreaux and Josh Wiggins. The film was produced by Detour Filmproduction and Submarine, with Linklater producing alongside Tommy Pallotta and Bruno Felix. It runs 99 minutes.

Released in 2022, it is the eighteenth of twenty-two films Linklater has directed, following Where'd You Go, Bernadette and preceding Hometown Prison. Reception is favorable across measures: a critics' rating of 7.9/10 from 144 reviews, an IMDb rating of 7.2/10 from over thirteen thousand votes, and a TMDB rating of 7/10 from a few hundred votes. The audience scores sit close to one another, while critics rate the film somewhat higher.