Movies To Watch If You Loved 'Project Hail Mary'

Project Hail Mary understood something most space movies get wrong — the void isn't the enemy, being alone is.

Ryland Grace wakes up alone, millions of miles from anyone who knows his name, and you can feel his loneliness creep up into you. And then, just as we lose all hope, in the best surprise the genre has pulled off in years, it answers loneliness with something genuinely wholesome.

That's a hard thing to pull off. Most space films aim for spectacle — the explosion, the countdown, the hero monologue. But not Hail Mary; it used the scale of space to show us what it means to be human – afraid, stubborn, trying to get home against all hope.

These eight films carry a little bit of that. Some are about survival, some about grief, and mostly, they’ll make you weep (but in a good way).

Movies like 'Project Hail Mary'

Here’s what you should watch if you loved Project Hail Mary.

The Martian (2015)

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Where to watch: JioHotstar

Andy Weir's novel had one big question — what if the most dangerous place in the universe was actually kind of funny? Ridley Scott, to his credit, didn't mess with it. Matt Damon plays a botanist stranded on Mars with nothing but duct tape, freeze-dried potatoes, and an almost offensive amount of optimism. The film is endlessly watchable precisely because the science is real, the stakes are real, and the humour lands because Damon earns it. If Project Hail Mary left you wishing the credits hadn't rolled, this is your first call.

Interstellar (2014)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Jio Hotstar

Nolan's most emotionally naked film still hasn't gotten the credit it deserves for sheer ambition. Where Hail Mary finds warmth through unlikely friendship, Interstellar breaks you across time and love and relativity. It's messier, more melodramatic, and completely worth it. Matthew McConaughey plays a former NASA pilot who leaves his daughter behind to go find humanity a new home, and the film never lets you forget the cost of that choice. The docking scene alone belongs in a different category of cinema. Bring tissues! You'll need them for a scene involving a bookshelf.

Enemy Mine (1985)

Directed by: Wolfgang Peterson

Where to watch: YouTube Movies

Dennis Quaid plays a human fighter pilot who crash-lands on a hostile planet alongside his alien enemy, and the two slowly, reluctantly, figure out that survival requires trust. It's the film that Project Hail Mary's central friendship owes the biggest debt to, even if Andy Weir never said so. Yes, it's dated — the prosthetics, the sets, the very eighties pacing. None of that matters.

Gravity (2013)

Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Cuarón strips the genre down to its bones — one woman, the void, and about ninety minutes of pure sustained dread. Sandra Bullock has never been better, carrying grief and terror and quiet determination in nearly every frame. The science takes liberties Hail Mary wouldn't allow itself, but the feeling of being utterly, cosmically alone? It nails that better than almost anything else on this list.

Apollo 13 (1995)

Directed by: Ron Howard

Where to watch: Jio Hotstar

Ron Howard's procedural masterpiece reminds you that space movies don't need aliens or wormholes to make your palms sweat. It's all engineers and astronauts thinking their way out of a disaster in real time — which is basically Hail Mary's entire thesis statement. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton are the capsule, and Ed Harris running mission control is the film's true protagonist. The line "failure is not an option" still lands!

Ad Astra (2019)

Directed by: James Gray

Where to watch: YouTube Movies

This one divided audiences, and fairly — it is a little slow. Brad Pitt plays an astronaut crossing the solar system to find his missing father, and the film is less interested in plot than in what loneliness does to a person over years and light-years. If Hail Mary gave you the joy of connection in space, Ad Astra is its shadow self — what it looks like when no connection comes.

First Man (2018)

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong biopic is almost aggressively un-triumphant — and that's exactly what makes it essential. Ryan Gosling plays Armstrong as a man who processes grief by flying further and further from it, until he's standing on the moon. It's a film about the cost of obsession, and how the people who choose the stars often leave pieces of themselves behind on Earth.

Spaceman (2024)

Directed by: Johan Renck

Where to watch: Netflix

Adam Sandler, fully in his unhinged-dramatic era, plays a Czech astronaut on a solo mission who begins talking to an ancient spider creature living in his spacecraft. Yeah, it’s a little weird. It's a melancholy, quiet meditation on what loneliness reveals about us, and the alien presence (voiced by Paul Dano) has more warmth and wisdom than most human characters in the genre.