Film Review: Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Pascal Pictures, General Admission, Lord Miller Productions
In Theaters 03.20.2026

The Oscars for the films of 2025 are this Sunday, and many of the races are tight. If I’m being honest, I’m struggling to care, in part because awards are a poor way to measure art. But mostly because Project Hail Mary is the first major studio release that’s a solid contender for Best Picture of 2026, and I’m far more stoked to see it again than I am to watch a three-hour ceremony.

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling, Drive, Barbie) awakens alone aboard a spacecraft light-years from Earth with no memory of who he is or how he got there. As fragments of his past slowly return, he realizes he’s the sole survivor of a desperate mission to the Tau Ceti system, sent to find a way to stop a mysterious organism draining energy from the sun and threatening to wipe out life on Earth. Armed only with his scientific know-how, stubborn ingenuity and a growing understanding of the stakes, Grace races to solve an interstellar puzzle that could save humanity. Along the way, he discovers he isn’t quite as alone as he thought — forming an unlikely partnership with an alien visitor he nicknames Rocky (voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz), whose own world is facing the same cosmic catastrophe. Together, the two forge an extraordinary friendship while tackling a problem that neither species could solve alone. 

Project Hail Mary is an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, and it’s adapted by the same screenwriter for that film, Drew Goddard. As with The Martian, the script here stays remarkably faithful to the beloved source material, bringing a perfect mix of science, humor and heart. The shadow-drained cinematography by Greig Fraser (Dune, The Batman) is luminous and atmospheric. The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were fired from their gig piloting Solo: A Star Wars Story, finally get the chance to prove that not only can they do live action just as well as animation, they belong among the stars. For a story that is so dependent on making hard science accessible and is predicated on the imminent destruction of the planet and the human race, Project Hail Mary manages to be a joyous crowd-pleaser that should find itself scoring with all audiences. It’s as if the cerebral majesty of 2001: A Space Odyssey were mixed with the warmth of a road trip buddy movie, and they sync together perfectly. Daniel Pemberton’s ethereal musical score is filled with such majesty that it would be worth the price of an IMAX ticket just to hear it on a great sound system, and even at 156 minutes, the pacing never lags.

Gosling is becoming one of Hollywood’s most consistently great actors, and he balances the comic and dramatic elements with equal aplomb. The presence of a practical effect for Rocky gives Gosling a stellar performer to play off of, and I’ll be very surprised if we see a more engaging character relationship all year. Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest) brings both an icy aloofness and piercing sense of humanity to the role of Eva Stratt, a Dutch scientist who is in charge of the project, and she continues to blow me away with the depth that she brings to each performance. 

Project Hail Mary isn’t just a great movie; it’s a cosmic journey of epic proportions, and it’s nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece. These may be lofty words, and I know that I run the risk of being told “you built it up too high for me,” but when a movie comes along that causes me to lose myself in an all encompassing experience – and I look at the silver through the eyes of a kid who is filled with wonder and has traveled to edges of existence and back again – I’m willing to take that risk. —Patrick Gibbs

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