Spoiler Alert- Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary: The Best Movie of 2026?

While this year has seen the continuation of several franchises like Toy Story and Spider-Man, it has also seen several new ideas. Films like “Obsession,” “Disclosure Day” and “The Odyssey” prove that Hollywood can use original ideas or adapt books and still achieve great success.

One of the best movies released this year is “Project Hail Mary.” Based on the sci-fi novel released in 2021, the book is written by famed author Andy Weir.

Adapting books to the silver screen is nothing new to Weir, as one of his other books, “The Martian,” was turned into a global box-office sensation. Almost a decade after the release of “The Martian,” Weir’s book “Project Hail Mary” made its grand debut in the pictures.

The audience begins with Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, who wakes from a coma aboard a spaceship. Grace has no recollection of who he is, why he is on a spaceship or what his mission is.

As the movie progresses, Grace’s memories slowly come back to him in flashbacks. In these flashbacks, Grace remembers he is a middle-school teacher who was a leading scientist until his theory about a different type of life form had him ridiculed by the community.

Eva Strauss comes to the middle school and recruits Grace to study a different type of life form. Normally, flashbacks in movies are brash and blunt for the audience, but this movie does it differently.

The parts of the movie that take place in the present, in space, are in full screen. The flashbacks, however, are in a different aspect ratio.

This makes the transition back and forth between the present and the past easier for the viewer. It is less confusing and makes the flashback scenes on Earth special.

Space is endless and vast, hence the full screen for all the space scenes, but Earth has an end, and this makes the flashbacks feel more intimate.

As Grace’s memories start trickling back, he remembers why he is in space. The sun is dimming because of an alien microorganism named astrophage.

The astrophage gathers its energy from the sun and then travels to Venus to reproduce. This forms what is called the “Petrova line,” which is a bright pink infrared light showing the travel of the species. The astrophage has cooled several suns in the galaxy, except one, which it appears to have skipped.

Grace was sent with a crew of two others, who died before Grace woke up, to the Tau Ceti system to see how it avoided the astrophage takeover. As he observes the astrophage, he sees that this system also has a “Petrova line,” which confuses Grace because this means Tau Ceti was not skipped but had stopped the astrophage.

While looking at Tau Ceti, an alien ship from another system parks next to Grace. After a hilarious few minutes of Grace trying to avoid the ship, then trying to communicate with it, the two ships dock.

This is where the audience meets the best character in the film, Rocky. Rocky is a rock-type alien species who is also the sole survivor of his ship. Together, Grace and Rocky team up to try to solve the problem for both of their planets before it is too late.

Grace develops a system that translates what Rocky is saying into English. The two quickly form one of the most iconic movie duos of all time.

While the acting and writing for this movie are phenomenal, the best part is easily the cinematography. The space scenes have awe-inspiring visuals filled with colors.

A good example of this is when Rocky and Grace are near the planet in the Tau Ceti system. In this scene, Grace is outside the ship collecting samples in the Petrova Line, when the screen switches to pink to show the line.

It is one of the most gorgeous scenes I have ever seen, and there are several other scenes in the movie like this, such as when it shows the planets.

The writing in the movie is fantastic, as it has tones of comedy, drama, action, heartbreak and love. Rarely does a movie show this much range in its writing and remain good, but all these tones help it be great.

The music in this movie is also superb, with the song of the movie being “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles. While the song only plays once in the movie, it fits the movie extremely well.

Shown to the audience in a flashback, the song is sung by Strauss at karaoke at basically a going-away party for the crew. The song is beautiful. One of the opening lyrics says that this is the final show.

The chorus says, “Stop your crying, baby, it’s a sign of the times.” Then a few lines later, “They told me that the end is near, we got to get away from here.”

The song is heart-wrenching in the movie because it is Strauss and the others enjoying their last time together, because the astronauts are not supposed to return, while recognizing that if the crew fails, which seems to be expected because of several factors, humanity will go extinct.

This movie is perfect on so many levels. When Oscar season arrives, I expect this movie to be nominated and to win a lot of awards.

Ryan Gosling deserves Best Actor for his performance in this movie. His performance was out of this world, pun intended, with him showing what it truly means to be human, both the good and the bad.

This is one of the best sci-fi films I have seen in a long time. Normally, I would say if you like action movies or something, you will like this, but not for this one.

If you like movies, you will love this one. “Project Hail Mary” is possibly one of the greatest movies of all time.