"Houston, we have a problem."

Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell Jr. didn't say that, exactly. But it's one of the all-time great movie lines, nonetheless, and as uttered by Tom Hanks —who played Lovell in Ron Howard 's 1995 nail-biter about the harrowing 1970 lunar mission of the same name—it swiftly transcended the film and became a catch-all phrase for any issue, however major or minor.

But the problem that drives the action in Apollo 13 was a real life-or-death turn of events for the three astronauts onboard. And the inherent suspense in how their pile-up of seemingly impossible problems got solved is what made the movie so good when it came out in June 1995—and still so watchable (and somehow still suspenseful) 30 years later.

"There are people who dare, who dream and wh

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