The Best Books, Movies, Video Games, and Podcasts to Check Out After Watching ‘For All Mankind'

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Joel Kinnaman as Ed Baldwin in For All Mankind. Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

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In a genre dominated by grim, dystopian visions of the future, For All Mankind is a powerful counterweight: an alternate history that imagines a timeline in which the Soviet Union beat America to the Moon, prolonging the space race and laying the foundation for a more egalitarian, tech-forward 20th and 21st centuries.

If you've finished the recently completed fifth season and need more of that kind of sci-fi positivity, you’re probably already excited about the spin-off series Star City, and you’ve probably already made your way through our list of shows with similar vibes to watch. Hence, it's time to explore other media. Here are the best movies, books, games, and podcasts with similarly starry-eyed vibes.

The best books like For All Mankind

For All Mankind is a dense, novelistic series with deep world-building and terrific character work—which means a good book is your best bet for filling that rocket-shaped void in your life.

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

This award-winning novel, the start of a series, is the ideal book to read if you love For All Mankind. It’s an alternate history that imagines a devastating meteorite impact that almost ends civilization and sends the world careening toward environmental disaster. In the desperate effort to recover and save humanity, manpower shortages mean women step into roles they were traditionally barred from, including the race to the stars. Despite the cataclysm that opens the story, this is the kind of optimistic sci-fi that imagines humanity will rise to every occasion, and fans of the show will love it.

The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe

If your favorite parts of For All Mankind involved the terrifying training for, and experience of spaceflight, especially in the early seasons, this legendary work of “new journalism” is the ticket. It recounts the early work in the U.S. on rocket-powered aircraft, Project Mercury, and the first astronauts, detailing the incredibly challenging and dangerous work undertaken by these men. It also delves into the impact their careers had on their families, and offers real-world background that makes the experience of the show even richer.

The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

If you loved the way Mars colonization is depicted in For All Mankind—that grounded, plausible approach that makes it all seem thrillingly possible—check out Robinson’s Nebula and Hugo award-winning series. It shares the same basic optimism, imagining a reality where the world, driven by looming ecological disaster, comes together to terraform and colonize Mars. It’s got a similar scope, spanning nearly two centuries of future history beginning in the year 2026,offering an intelligent view of what a project of that scale would involve.

Singer Distance, by Ethan Chatagnier

One thing missing from For All Mankind is alien life—unless you count the microscopic cells discovered on Saturn’s moon Titan. If you wished there were some E.T.s in the show to spice things up, Chatagnier’s novel will thrill you, revealing as it does in a world where humanity began a laborious communication with Martians in 1894, involving enormous glyphs carved into the Martian surface and some heavy-duty math. When humanity fails to solve the Martian equations, the red planet falls silent for decades, until a brilliant young student formulates a message that reopens the conversation, with world-changing consequences.

Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Part of the charm of For All Mankind is in the characters and their relationships. For more of that vibe, Atmosphere is the right choice. In the early 1980s, astrophysicist Joan Goodwin is thrilled when NASA announces an initiative to recruit female scientists into its space program. Training to be an astronaut is challenging and rewarding—and so are the relationships she forges with her fellow recruits. Not everyone is a friend and not everything is perfect—and a looming disaster in 1984 that puts a shadow on everything—but the story celebrates exceptional people and humanity’s enormous potential in a way fans of the show will recognize.

The best movies like For All Mankind

One of the great things about For All Mankind is the combination of small-scale human drama and the mind-blowing vistas of outer space. For big-screen versions of that, check out these films.

Apollo 13 (1995)

The thrills found in the early seasons of For All Mankind were typically centered on the incredibly dangerous initial attempts to blast off Earth and head to the Moon and beyond. Apollo 13 captures the real-world drama and tension of the 1970 Moon mission that went terribly wrong, stranding three astronauts in a disabled lunar module and prompting a desperate effort on Earth to solve a litany of physics challenges and get them home alive. It’s the perfect choice if you’re jonesing for space race pathos. Rent Apollo 13 on Prime Video.

The Martian (2015)

Space is a pretty dangerous place, as are the other planets in our solar system. The Martian captures both the wonder of exploration and the human drive to survive and triumph over adversity that marks For All Mankind as a special show, telling the story of astronaut Mark Watney, marooned on Mars with insufficient resources for long-term survival. It’s tense, thrilling, and ultimately a celebration of the human spirit, as the world puts aside political differences and comes together to mount a massive rescue mission. Stream The Martian on Fubo or rent it on Prime Video.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

It’s entirely earthbound and has a very different aesthetic—not so much realistic as "computer-generated retrofuturism"—but Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow captures the gee-whiz, let’s do this energy of For All Mankind while also envisioning an alternate history where humanity develops technology along vastly different lines. There are airships, giant robots, and a flying legion of old-school fighter planes in this universe, which is deeply indebted to 1930s sci-fi aesthetics, but under all the CGI flash is a celebration of humanity’s courage and resilience that fans of the show will love. Stream Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow on Hoopla or rent it on Prime Video.

First Man (2018)

Another film exploring the incredible courage and determination of the early astronauts, First Man focuses on Neil Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling), the first man on the Moon. In the early 1960s, Armstrong was reeling from the death of his young daughter and entered the Gemini program at a time when the Soviet Union was perceived to be beating the U.S. in the space race. The film explores the deep personal costs to all the men and women connected to the massive project, from lives lost to serious injury and emotional stress, while accurately depicting just how terrifyingly primitive the technology used to get to the Moon actually was. Rent First Man on Prime Video.

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

While Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was trippy and very Kubrick, its 1984 sequel is a lot more grounded and informed by the Cold War. The result is a human-focused spacefaring story that fans of For All Mankind should enjoy. Nine years after the disaster that saw the U.S. lose astronaut David Bowman and the crew of the Discovery, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are racing to get to Jupiter to find out what happened. The Soviets complete their ship first, but need American help to reactivate the computer HAL 9000 onboard the Discovery before the ship crashes into Jupiter’s moon Io, so a tense joint mission is formed. It’s a surprisingly hopeful story with little of the original film’s cold style. Rent 2010: The Year We Make Contact on Prime Video.

The best video games like For All Mankind

Want a more hands-on, challenging experience similar to For All Mankind? Check out these video games that bring space to your console or computer in different, exciting ways.

No Man’s Sky

You want the stars? No Man’s Sky brings you the stars—a nearly infinite supply of them, procedurally generated and teeming with unexpected challenges and opportunities. You can explore, transact business, and get into existential fights with aliens, and you can keep doing it for as long as you like, as the game comes as close to mimicking the infinite nature of the universe as current consoles possibly can. If it’s the potential for humanity to explore the universe that makes you most excited about For All Mankind, this game is for you.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam

Kerbal Space Program

Love the detailed exploration of the resources, manpower, and problem-solving that goes into managing an enormous space program? Kerbal Space Program and its sequel are the right games for you. The Kerals live on the planet Kerbin, and have just constructed a spaceport. It’s up to you to design rockets and other craft, launch them, and complete missions in the nearby solar system. The physics and planets are modeled on our own and are surprisingly accurate, giving you the opportunity to discover just how hard it is to get a crew to the Moon and back in one piece.

Platforms: Steam

Elite Dangerous

Like No Man’s Sky, Elite Dangerous offers you the chance to explore and interact with the entire universe, fulfilling the implied promise of For All Mankind. Unlike that other game, the universe in Elite Dangerous is modeled on the real one we live in—although the systems you visit are procedurally generated, the data used to create them is taken from legitimate astronomical readings. That means you can explore planets and systems that might actually exist out there, using spaceships and equipment that have the same practical, industrial look and feel as the vessels on the show.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

Starfield

Starfield is another open-world space exploration game that mimics the grounded feel and courageous tone of For All Mankind, set in a universe based closely on real physics and known star systems. If you want all that and a tighter story ine than found in other open-world space games, this one will do it: You play as a member of a legendary team of explorers searching for ancient artifacts that may offer clues to one of the greatest discoveries in human history.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

Surviving Mars

For many fans, the Mars settlement on For All Mankind is the most fascinating locale—a practical, grounded setting where humanity lives a fairly mundane existence despite the harsh conditions. If you want to dig in deeper to the logistical challenges of keeping humans alive on the red planet, check out Surviving Mars, where you play as an overseer in charge of designing, building, and maintaining a colony on Mars—and making sure the colonists survive their stay. The game throws a lot at you, including different colonist personality traits, disease, resource management, and even rebellions, but that’s what makes it so much fun.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

The best podcasts like For All Mankind

For All Mankind has developed a rich, complex fictional universe and cast of characters over the course of its five seasons. If you want a deep dive, more background, or a similar entertainment experience, check out these podcasts.

For All Mankind: The Official Podcast

The official Apple TV+ podcast is the perfect spot to get all the background on every episode, the cast and crew, and the specific influences that shaped each storyline. Hearing about the real-life technology and projects that inspired the events depicted in the series is exciting, and getting all the behind-the-scenes tea is why podcasts were invented in the first place. You'll even hear interviews with actual astronauts and astrophysicists.

Happy Valley: A For All Mankind Podcast

If you’d rather vibe with other fans instead of the corporate-sponsored podcast, check out Happy Valley, hosted by superfans Brian Chaney and Donnie Gordon. Listen in on their fascinating discussions of episode breakdowns, fan theories, and the real-world analogues hiding within the show.

Marsfall

If you’re obsessed with the Mars-based story on For All Mankind, check out this tense, exciting narrative podcast that follows the adventures of colonists settling on the red planet in the year 2047. It doesn’t pull any punches, depicting the constant life-or-death struggle to survive on a planet that isn’t built for supporting human life.

ars PARADOXICA

If you loved the early seasons of For All Mankind for the way they subvert history (and the gender and race attitudes of the times), check out ars PARADOXICA. This is the story of Dr. Sally Grissom, a scientist who is thrown backwards in time to 1943 and recruited by the Office of Developed Anomalous Resources (ODAR) to work on time travel and other technologies that can help America win World War II and defend itself against the Soviets in the Cold War and beyond, rewriting history in increasingly chaotic ways.

13 Minutes to the Moon

Want to know more about the actual 1969 Moon mission and the immense effort required to mount it? This is the podcast for you. Produced by the BBC, it’s a detailed, engrossing delve into the social, political, economic, and technological challenges the effort posed, while illuminating the personalities of the people who fought for funding, developed key tech, or actually sat in the cockpits during dangerous tests and maiden flights during the decade-long, literal moonshot project.