Gene Hackman wears an Omega Speedmaster

John Sturges directed Marooned, a space thriller about three astronauts stranded in orbit when their retro rockets fail. Gregory Peck plays Charles Keith, the NASA administrator running the rescue from the ground. Richard Crenna is Jim Pruett, the mission commander. David Janssen is Ted Dougherty. Gene Hackman plays Buzz Lloyd, the most unstable of the three, a man whose fear threatens to consume what little oxygen they have left. The film came out in 1969, months after the real Apollo 11 landing, and won the Academy Award for visual effects.

Lloyd wears an Omega Speedmaster Professional, and a notable one: the example has an orange chronograph seconds hand, the configuration collectors now prize as the "Ultraman" (reference 145.012-67), a nickname the watch would not earn until a Japanese television series two years after this film. NASA had certified the Speedmaster for all crewed spaceflight in 1965, four years before the film, so the watch is period-accurate. The Speedmaster would have been standard equipment for any astronaut in 1969. Hackman plays Lloyd as a man losing his grip, and the watch on his wrist is one of the few things in the capsule still working correctly. Sturges gives the watch no special attention. It is just there, doing its job while the man wearing it falls apart.