Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary Wins Critics as Sci-Fi Blockbuster of the Year

Ryan Gosling has done it again. Project Hail Mary, the big-budget adaptation of Andy Weir's bestselling novel directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, landed to near-universal critical acclaim on Monday, with reviewers calling it everything from "the first great movie of 2026" to "a miracle of a movie" that distills the best of modern science fiction into a single, exhilarating package.

The film, which carries an estimated production budget of over $150 million and opens in the United States on March 20, is eyeing a $50 million-plus debut weekend. Early review aggregator snapshots place it at 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 70 reviews, with a separate snapshot recorded at 96 percent; Metacritic sits at 80 out of 100.

Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a scientist who wakes alone on a spaceship light-years from Earth, his memory wiped by years in an induced coma. His two crewmates have died en route. As his recollections return, he realizes he is humanity's last hope: stop a mysterious substance that is killing the sun, or watch Earth perish. An unexpected friendship with a rock-like alien named Rocky, it turns out, may be the key to survival.

The setup sounds bleak. The execution, critics agreed, is anything but. USA Today called it "the first great movie of 2026," praising Gosling as "a superb everyman in the excellent space adventure." Empire awarded it four stars and delivered perhaps the review's most quotable line: "Ryan Gosling and an alien made of rocks are the best space-based double-act since R2-D2 and C3-PO."

The BBC's Nicholas Barber, also awarding four out of five stars, captured the film's central paradox well. "They have filled it not with action, but with mind-stretching concepts, painstaking laboratory research and knotty technical puzzles," he wrote. "To do all that and keep things zippily entertaining throughout is an extraordinary achievement." Barber added that the film "is already being tipped for next year's best picture Oscar."

Indiewire called it "enormously entertaining and genuinely inspiring," writing that "Ryan Gosling goes full 'Martian,' and thank the heavens for that." Robbie Collin at The Telegraph described it as "like a medley of all your favourite sci-fi films," with "flashy practical effects and a heart-warming story." Gizmodo was equally effusive: "It's got laughs, it's got stakes, it's got emotions, it's got it all. And all of it is viewed through stunning visuals on every level."

Owen Gleiberman at Variety offered the most expansive praise, calling the film "a miracle of a movie" that "combines the technical awe of Gravity, the problem-solving exhilaration and humor of The Martian, and the sweeping emotion of Interstellar." Gleiberman credited Gosling with "one of his finest performances in years" and singled out composer Daniel Pemberton's score as "immaculate." Elsewhere in his review, however, Gleiberman tempered that enthusiasm, headlining his piece "a lavish but derivative outer-space adventure" and noting the film "wants to be Interstellar meets E.T., but it's too long and too cutely formulaic."

Deadline's Pete Hammond put the commercial stakes plainly: "A movie made for IMAX, Project Hail Mary is mission accomplished; an entertaining and engaging piece of science fiction that suggests even though we may be worlds apart, in order to save us from ourselves we must band together now more than ever."

Lord and Miller, whose filmography runs from The Lego Movie to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, have brought their signature optimism to the darkest of premises. The film runs two hours and 36 minutes and is rated PG-13. At a moment when Hollywood is desperate for original, crowd-pleasing tentpoles that also say something meaningful, Project Hail Mary looks positioned to deliver on both counts.