8 sci-fi movies like Project Hail Mary for the perfect movie night

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary was a critical and commercial hit. It earned a gushing review from Brandon Sanderson and performed so well in theaters that Amazon MGM gave it an encore IMAX run. Now the feel-good sci-fi movie about reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) working with an alien to save the Earth is available to watch at home through Amazon, Apple TV, and other VOD platforms.

The adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 novel is a deeply satisfying film, combining a goofy buddy comedy, realistic science, and gorgeous visuals. But if you want to make your rewatch or first viewing more of an event, you can also rent another sci-fi movie for a weekend double feature. Whether you’re most interested in stories of interspecies communication, high-stakes missions, or lonely men in space, these eight movies provide a perfect companion to Project Hail Mary.

8

Sunshine

Like Project Hail Mary, Danny Boyle’s 2007 thriller Sunshine is set in a near future where the Sun is dying and an international crew of astronauts are humanity’s only hope of survival. The stakes may be the same, but Sunshine uses them to set the stage for a horror movie. The crew of the ominously named Icarus 2 learn just how dangerous flying too close to the Sun can be when they come across the first ship launched to try to restore Earth’s star. The film is psychologically tense, packed with stunning visuals, and has an impressively stacked cast including Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, and Michelle Yeoh.

One of the most successful and influential sci-fi films of all time, Steven Spielberg’s 1982 masterpiece set the standard for cute alien puppets that Project Hail Mary leaned into for Rocky. The family-friendly film follows 10-year-old Elliott (Henry Thomas), who encounters a lost extraterrestrial he dubs E.T. The two bond through some goofy antics, and Elliott and his friends work to help the alien escape government agents and get home. If you loved Stranger Things, you should definitely watch the classic that inspired its nostalgic kids-on-bikes adventures.

6

Moon

Gosling is alone in many scenes in Project Hail Mary, and Duncan Jones’ 2009 film Moon captures the same feeling of isolation. Sam Rockwell gives one of the best performances of his career as Sam Bell, a miner working a three-year contract alone on the Moon. As he counts down the days until he can return home, Sam begins having hallucinations that cause him to question his circumstances and the motivations of his AI assistant (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Watch this dark and twisty film first and then use Project Hail Mary to lift your mood.

5

Annihilation

Sunshine and 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland directs the deeply unsettling and visually stunning Annihilation, an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name. The cosmic horror film follows a mission to Area X, the site of a mysterious phenomenon that seems to twist everyone and everything inside. Natalie Portman and her crew are met with a mix of hauntingly beautiful landscapes and disturbing monsters as they have to confront their inner demons to unravel the mystery behind the psychedelic forest.

4

Ad Astra

James Gray’s 2019 film has a lot in common with Project Hail Mary. Ad Astra is a very grounded work of science fiction following an astronaut played by Brad Pitt on a lonely mission to investigate a mysterious cosmic phenomenon that threatens all life on Earth. Both films even show the astronauts trying to cope with their isolation by immersing themselves in virtual environments. But Ad Astra is a far moodier film, providing a bleak look at what humanity’s colonization of the Solar System might look like and reckoning with the horror of being truly alone in the universe.

3

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Spielberg’s first sci-fi hit, the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind follows a group of people who witness UFOs as they try to understand their experience. The film also focuses on humans trying to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, but the far more limited technology of the time means the solutions the characters come up with in Close Encounters are a lot more complicated than Grace using a laptop’s voice-recognition software. With Spielberg’s latest UFO movie, Disclosure Day, releasing this summer, it’s well worth watching this classic to see where his career-spanning obsession began.

2

Arrival

Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 adaptation of Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life” helped renew interest in highly cerebral sci-fi movies. When a dozen spacecraft appear around the Earth, nations race to figure out how to communicate with the aliens. Soon, international tensions rise as the rival teams can’t agree on their visitors’ intentions, while America’s linguist (Amy Adams) wonders if she’s falling apart under the strain as she begins experiencing strange visions. Arrival has a phenomenal score, eerie visuals, and a tense but thoughtful story about the power of language.

1

The Martian

The most obvious pairing combines Project Hail Mary with Ridley Scott’s 2015 adaptation of Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian. Both are highly faithful translations of Weir’s work, combining hard science, dry wit, and likeable protagonists who are stuck in space alone. The Martian is more of a survival tale, following Mark Watney (Matt Damon), a botanist stranded on Mars who has to use all his potato-growing and engineering skills to avoid starving to death before he can be rescued. Like Project Hail Mary, The Martian is a highly optimistic film about extraordinary people coming up with creative solutions to dire circumstances.