If you just came out of the theater after Project Hail Mary with that satisfying blend of scientific wonder and emotional warmth still buzzing in your chest, you’re probably wondering, what now?
Of course, you could always just watch Project Hail Mary again. I’ve seen it four times now — yikes! — and honestly might go back for a fifth, especially since Amazon MGM is extending the theatrical window and bringing it back to IMAX screens. The film won’t be streaming anytime soon, so if you want to catch it again (or for the first time), theaters are your only option for the foreseeable future. And frankly, Rocky deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
The good news is that there’s a whole universe of films that scratch that same itch. Whether you’re drawn to the survival-against-impossible-odds tension, the joy of scientific discovery, or that peculiar friendship between two beings who should never have met, these 13 films will keep that Project Hail Mary feeling alive.
1. The Martian (2015)
Let’s start with the obvious one, and it’s obvious for a reason. Ridley Scott’s The Martian is Project Hail Mary’s closest cousin, and not just because they share author Andy Weir’s DNA.
Mark Watney’s solo mission to science his way off Mars has that same blend of relentless problem-solving, dark humor in the face of death and an unshakeable belief that the next equation might be the one that saves your life.
Matt Damon brings the charm, the script brings the disco music and the film manages to make watching someone calculate potato yields genuinely thrilling. If you haven’t seen it yet, fix that immediately. If you have, it holds up beautifully on rewatch.
2. Arrival (2016)
Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival tackles first contact from a completely different angle, but it shares Project Hail Mary’s fascination with communication across impossible divides. Amy Adams’s linguist Louise Banks doesn’t have Rocky’s whistles and harmonics, but she’s solving the same fundamental problem: how do you talk to something that thinks nothing like you?
The film wraps its linguistic puzzle in one of the most emotionally devastating reveals in recent sci-fi, proving that stories about aliens can be just as much about what makes us human. It’s quieter than Project Hail Mary, more meditative, but it hits just as hard. Arrival is one of those few adaptations that did better than the source material and won an Oscar on its way.
3. Interstellar (2014)
Christopher Nolan’s space epic shares the “one scientist might save everyone” stakes, plus the emotional core of leaving everything behind for a mission they might not survive. Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper has Ryland Grace’s determination and that same willingness to push through impossible odds armed with nothing but physics and stubbornness.
Yes, the film gets dense with its relativity physics and wormhole theories. Yes, the ending is divisive. But it’s Nolan and it’s worth the price of admission. And Hans Zimmer’s organ-driven score will live in your head for weeks.
4. Moon (2009)
Duncan Jones’s directorial debut is a masterclass in solitary sci-fi storytelling. Sam Bell’s three-year solo stint on a lunar mining base might seem like a quiet character study at first, but it builds into something far stranger and more affecting.
Sam Rockwell carries the entire film (well, him and Kevin Spacey’s unsettling voice work as the AI GERTY), and he makes isolation feel both monotonous and terrifying.
It shares Project Hail Mary’s focus on one person, one location and one mounting problem that requires creative thinking to solve. The less you know going in, the better.
5. Contact (1997)
Robert Zemeckis’s adaptation of Carl Sagan’s novel is Project Hail Mary before Project Hail Mary existed. Jodie Foster’s Dr. Ellie Arroway embodies that same scientist-hero archetype, someone who believes in the data, follows the evidence and refuses to let bureaucracy or politics get in the way of discovery.
The film balances hard science with spiritual questions, first contact with personal loss, and it builds to one of the most awe-inspiring sequences in science fiction cinema. It’s optimistic about humanity’s place in the cosmos in a way that feels increasingly rare and refreshing.
6. Apollo 13 (1995)
Ron Howard’s nail-biter proves that you can make a completely thrilling film about events everyone already knows the outcome of. The real-life disaster-turned-triumph shares Project Hail Mary’s MacGyver-style problem-solving. You have this equipment, these resources, this much time and physics doesn’t care about your feelings.
Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton make the desperation palpable, and Ed Harris’s ground control crew gets just as much heroic problem-solving as the astronauts themselves. “Failure is not an option” could just as easily be Ryland Grace’s motto.
7. Gravity (2013)
Alfonso Cuarón’s survival thriller is Project Hail Mary stripped down to pure survival instinct. Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Ryan Stone faces one cascading disaster after another in the most hostile environment imaginable, and she has to science, improvise and sheer-will her way through each one.
It’s more visceral than cerebral, more panic than planning, but that relentless forward momentum and the central question of “what are you willing to do to survive?” echoes throughout both films. Plus, the cinematography is absolutely stunning.
8. Sunshine (2007)
Danny Boyle’s underrated gem features another last-ditch mission to save Earth from solar catastrophe. The crew of the Icarus II is hauling a stellar bomb to reignite the dying sun and as missions go, it’s just as desperate and just as essential as Grace’s trip to Tau Ceti.
The film takes a hard turn into psychological horror in its third act, which not everyone loves, but the first two-thirds are masterful hard sci-fi tension. The cast (including Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans and Michelle Yeoh) sells both the science and the slowly unraveling sanity.
9. The Right Stuff (1983)
Philip Kaufman’s sprawling chronicle of the Mercury Seven astronauts might seem like an odd pick, but it shares Project Hail Mary’s fundamental belief in human ingenuity and courage. These were test pilots and engineers pushing into the unknown with equipment that barely worked, facing odds that should have killed them and doing it anyway.
It’s long (three hours plus), but it earns every minute. The camaraderie, the gallows humor, the moments of genuine wonder when they first see Earth from above, it’s all there. Plus, Sam Shepard’s Chuck Yeager is iconic.
10. Europa Report (2013)
This found-footage sci-fi thriller follows a crew investigating potential life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s Project Hail Mary if things went much worse and everyone involved was significantly less lucky.
The film takes its science seriously, the crew acts like actual scientists rather than horror movie teenagers and the mounting dread is done with the right amount of scary.
It’s not a feel-good watch like Project Hail Mary, but it shares that fascination with what we might find out there and what we’re willing to risk to find it. Sharlto Copley leads the solid ensemble cast.
Photo: Brad Pitt stars in “Ad Astra”.. Image Courtesy Francois Duhamel. Copyright Twentieth Century Fox
11. Ad Astra (2019)
James Gray’s meditative space film stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut traveling to Neptune to find his missing father. It’s more somber and introspective than Project Hail Mary, but it shares the long, lonely journey into the unknown and the question of what drives someone to go where others won’t.
The film is gorgeous to look at, Tommy Lee Jones brings gravitas to his limited screen time and Pitt’s understated performance anchors the whole thing. It’s not very plot-driven, more about the internal journey, but it’s worth the ride.
12. The Thing (2011)
Wait, hear me out. John Carpenter’s 1982 original is the obvious pick, but the 2011 prequel starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead actually shares some DNA with Project Hail Mary’s central relationship. Both involve humans and aliens forced into uneasy cooperation, communication barriers and the fundamental question of trust when everything is unfamiliar.
Okay, yes, The Thing is actively hostile and definitely trying to kill everyone, so maybe the parallel breaks down. But both films understand that first contact is messy, translation is hard, and sometimes you just have to make the best of an impossible situation. And of course, the practical effects are incredible.
13. Hidden Figures (2016)
Theodore Melfi’s crowd-pleaser about NASA’s Black female mathematicians might seem like an outlier on this list, but it shares Project Hail Mary’s celebration of problem-solvers who refuse to quit. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson face impossible equations and impossible odds, and they solve both with brilliance and determination.
It’s grounded in history but the core is the same: smart people doing hard things, refusing to accept “impossible” and changing everything in the process. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe are all phenomenal.
What ties all these films together, and what ties them to Project Hail Mary, is a fundamental optimism about human capability. They’re stories about people (and occasionally aliens) facing insurmountable problems and deciding that “insurmountable” is only a word.
In an era where so much science fiction leans dystopian, these films remind us why we fell in love with the genre in the first place, because it shows us how far we might go.
Project Hail Mary earned its place in that tradition, and these 13 films are ready to keep that flame burning until the next great science-the-sh*t-out-of-this adventure comes along.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some rewatching to do.
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