Don Cheadle wears an Omega Speedmaster

Omega built the Speedmaster X-33 specifically for space professionals. Launched in 1998, two years before Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars, the X-33 was a titanium quartz multifunction watch developed in collaboration with NASA astronauts who wanted something more practical than the mechanical Speedmaster Professional for actual EVA operations. It featured digital and analog displays, multiple time zones, mission elapsed time counters, and alarms. Don Cheadle wears one as Luke Graham, the commander of the first manned mission to Mars.

Graham leads his crew to the surface, where they encounter an unidentified structure that triggers a catastrophic event, killing most of the team. Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, and Connie Nielsen play the rescue mission crew sent to find out what happened. De Palma brings his usual visual precision to the material, and the set pieces work, even if the third act veers into territory that divided audiences. Cheadle plays Graham as a scientist first and an astronaut second, which gives the character a specificity that the script doesn't always support.

The X-33 on Graham's wrist is the right watch for the right job at the right time. In 2000, Omega was the only watch brand with a genuine NASA pedigree, dating back to the Speedmaster Professional's certification for all manned space missions in 1965. The X-33 was the modern evolution of that relationship, built to be worn inside a space suit where a traditional mechanical watch would be unreadable. On Graham, it's not a prop choice — it's what a mission commander in 2020 (the film's near-future setting) would actually wear.