Solar eclipses are, in addition to occasions of human fascination with the cosmos, deeply cinematic. So it’s no wonder they’ve been repeatedly used as inciting moments or climactic happenings in a variety of films – but it is a little bit funny how often movie-world eclipses happen either as a conduit for supernatural ritual (as in horror movies like Bloody Birthday and Darkness) or as a dramatic turning point in a final, fantastical battle/mystical unlocking (as in Avatar: The Way of Water, Dragonslayer, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider).