We’ve been expecting Project Hail Mary to be a big hit for a while, and it doesn’t disappoint. If you come home and want more emotional sci-fi movies, you have a lot of options.
5 great sci-fi movies that no one talks about
These overlooked sci-fi films will take you on a thrilling journey through unexplored worlds and thought-provoking themes.
The Martian (2015)
Before Project Hail Mary, there was…
Before Andy Weir wrote Project Hail Mary, he wrote The Martian, which was turned into a terrific movie in 2015. This time Matt Damon is playing the relatable everyman astronaut, who is stranded on Mars after a mission goes wrong. His colleagues fight to go back and save him while he struggles to make a life for himself on the Red Planet.
The Martian has a lot of the same positive vibes that make Project Hail Mary such an engaging watch, and the climactic reunion will wring tears from your eyes.
Interstellar
Weepy and confusing
Interstellar is about a pilot (Matthew McConaughey) tasked with flying through a wormhole to find a new planet for humanity to settle, Earth having been rendered nigh-unlivable by a mysterious blight. In the wormhole, he experiences severe time dilation, and is able to see his children grow up without him.
Like Project Hail Mary, Interstellar is an unabashedly emotional movie, but the ending is grimmer and the screenplay more complicated. Director Christopher Nolan is famous for making movies like Inception and Tenet, which have plots that function as puzzle boxes. There’s some of that going on in Interstellar, but it’s still well worth watching.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
KHAAAAAAAN!
The second Star Trek movie pits the crew of the USS Enterprise against the superhuman Khan (Ricardo Montalban), who’s nursing a serious grudge against Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Their battle climaxes with Kirk’s closest friend Spock (Leonard Nimoy) sacrificing himself to save the crew, an act of heroism that will bring a tear to the eye of any sci-fi fan.
WALL-E
Because animated robots have feelings too
WALL-E follows a trash collecting robot who lives alone on an abandoned Earth. When a robot named EVE descends onto the planet, he’s smitten and is inspired to follow her into space, where he finds out what humanity has been doing with itself these past seven centuries.
WALL-E is sweet, beautiful to look at, and impressive in the way it manages to tell a full story with very little dialog. WALL-E and EVE barely speak and aren’t human, but you’ll grow attached to them just the same.
- Release Date
-
June 22, 2008
- Runtime
-
98 minutes
- Director
-
Andrew Stanton
- Writers
-
Jim Reardon
- Producers
-
Jim Morris, John Lasseter, Lindsey Collins
-
Ben Burtt
WALL·E / M-O (voice)
-
Elissa Knight
Eve (voice)
-
Jeff Garlin
Captain (voice)
-
Fred Willard
Shelby Forthright, BnL CEO
Apollo 13
Set in space, rooted on Earth
Project Hail Mary is a sci-fi story, but it’s one that tries to keep itself grounded in actual science, like these series. The bond that forms between Grace and Rocky is grounded in emotional reality; it’s just that one of them happens to an extraterrestrial rock spider.
So if you enjoyed Project Hail Mary, odds are you’ll enjoy some movies that are set in space even if they don’t have any explicit sci-fi themes. The 1995 movie Apollo 13 tells the true story of NASA’s aborted 1970 Moon mission, where things go wrong on the way and the astronauts have to think fast if they want to survive. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton make sure to make each of these men likable and relatable, so you’ll be on the edge of your seat the whole way through hoping that they make it.
October Sky (1999)
For the stargazers
Set even closer to home, October Sky follows real-life NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam Jr. (Jake Gyllenhaal), a coal miner’s son who is inspired by the launch of Sputnik in 1957 to take up rocketry against his father’s wishes. It’s a movie about following your dreams and the power of education, as Homer is also inspired by his teacher, Miss Riley (Laura Dern). Surely Ryland Grace would approve of that.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Not all space aliens are bad
A group of normal people are moved by forces they don’t understand after having close encounters with what may be extraterrestrial life. They are compelled to go to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, where space aliens show themselves to high-level government agents.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of the great movies about extraterrestrials, and is referenced directly in Project Hail Mary. The aliens are not here to scare or hurt anyone. There’s a sense of wonder and magic that runs through the movie, something that would show up in a lot of director Steven Spielberg’s films. He would make E.T., another classic family film about space aliens, just a few years later. His new alien movie, Disclosure Day, looks more intense.
The Iron Giant (1999)
Vin Diesel’s crowning achievement
Another animated movie, The Iron Giant is about the growing bond between Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), an ordinary boy living in the United States in the 1950s, and a massive humanoid robot (improbably voiced by Vin Diesel) who falls to Earth. The bond between Hogarth and the Iron Giant is at the center of the movie and obviously recalls the one between Grace and Rocky. If there was a hall of fame for fantastic, tear-jerking movies about friendships between humans and extraterrestrials, both of these films would be in it.
They should have sent a poet
Contact is an intelligently written sci-fi drama about a scientist (Jodie Foster) who spends her life trying to make contact with extraterrestrials. When she finally receives a message from the stars, her whole life will change.
Contact explores themes of progress, faith, and love in a mature, satisfying way. The movie feeds both sides of the brain.
For All Mankind (2019-current)
The best movie is a TV show
For All Mankind is a TV show on Apple TV+ that takes place in an alternate reality where the U.S. and the Soviet Union never stopped running the space race. Each season takes us further into the future. Technology advances at a rate much faster than it does in our world, and our characters bear witness to it as well as push it forward.
For All Mankind may not be a movie, but it’s got a full heart and a lot on its mind. It’s returning for its fifth season soon, so now is a great time to jump on board.
- Release Date
-
November 1, 2019
- Network
-
Apple TV
- Showrunner
-
Ronald D. Moore
-
-
Michael Dorman
Gordon ‘Gordo’ Stevens
-
-
Sci-fi in 2026
There may not be another sci-fi movie as emotionally powerful as Project Hail Mary coming out this year, but there are some great ones on the horizon. As mentioned, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day looks like a great sci-fi thriller; it’ll be out on June 12. On December 18, director Denis Villeneuve will cap off his splendid Dune trilogy with Dune: Part Three. And just around the corner, the whole family can enjoy The Super Mario Galaxy Movie when it lands in theaters on April 1.
