Cillian Murphy wears an Oris Big Crown

I like it when an actor just wears his own watch into a role instead of getting handed a prop. Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007) is set in 2057, aboard a ship called the Icarus II hauling a stellar bomb toward a dying sun in a last-ditch effort to restart it. Cillian Murphy plays Robert Capa, the one crew member who really understands the bomb, and he prepped by shadowing the physicist Brian Cox around CERN in Geneva, soaking up the speech and mannerisms of working scientists. Cox later called the performance brilliant.

You never get a clean look at the thing on Murphy's wrist, which is the honest reason the ID took some detective work. It is an Oris BC3 Chronograph - black dial, three sub-dials, rubber strap, from the brand's Big Crown family. Wrist Enthusiast spotted it on screen, guessed a BC3, then dug up a separate photo of Murphy wearing the exact same watch off set. No prop after all. It was his own, worn quietly into the part.

And when is the design from? 1938. Oris named the Big Crown line for an oversized, fluted winding crown a pilot could grab and set without stripping off his gloves. So the one bit of genuinely period hardware on a voyage set in 2057 is a Swiss pilot's chronograph with roots in open-cockpit flying - and it only made the trip because Murphy wore his own watch.