James Cameron, director of sci-fi classics such as The Terminator, T2 and Aliens, is calling Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, the best space film ever done. Those are big words from a man who not only changed the course of sci-fi filmmaking, but also has two of the highest grossing movies of all-time.

Warner Bros. is releasing Gravity on October 4, a bit premature for Oscar season, with serious buzz. The reviews out of Venice are staggering, providing evidence that the OMFG footage shown here wasn’t just a garage sale.

Now, Cameron is getting in on the hype, telling Variety that it’s something special, and the kind of film he personally has been waiting a long time for.

“I was stunned, absolutely floored,” he says. “I think it’s the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done, and it’s the movie I’ve been hungry to see for an awful long time.”

But what he boasts is Bullock’s performance, one that he says is more impressive than the film’s technology that supported it. “She’s the one that had to take on this unbelievable challenge to perform it. (It was) probably no less demanding than a Cirque du Soleil performer, from what I can see.” And of the result, he says, “There’s an art to that, to creating moments that seem spontaneous but are very highly rehearsed and choreographed. Not too many people can do it. … I think it’s really important for people in Hollywood to understand what was accomplished here.”

From a guy who grew up with ’80s action films and saw Bullock break out in Hollywood with Speed, it’s sort of exhilarating to see her return to such a rough and rugged role. While the trailers for Gravity make space-age filmmaking the star, it’s a big exciting to know that the addition of both Bullock and Clooney only add to the experience.

In the film, Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone—tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

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