‘Project Hail Mary’ review: Dir. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (2026)

It’s been over a decade since Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed a film, which was 22 Jump Street in 2014 – not counting their brief stint on Solo: A Star Wars Story before departing over creative differences. In that time, they’ve written and produced the likes of the Spider-Verse duology, The Mitchells vs the Machines, and even the cult smash Cocaine Bear. But Project Hail Mary is a deft reminder of just why the directing duo are two of the best at cultivating pure movie magic.

Adapting Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary follows school teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who wakes up from a coma only to discover he’s aboard a ship on an interstellar race against time to save Earth. As his memories gradually return, he uncovers the stakes of his mission: Astrophage – an alien micro-organism – has been consuming the Sun’s energy and those around it. The only one unaffected by the extraterrestrial microbial is Tau Ceti, a star 12 light-years away from Earth, where Grace is headed in search of answers.

Weir’s novel is dense and detailed in its science, but Drew Goddard (who also adapted Weir’s The Martian for the screen in 2015) makes light work of it with a script that articulates the physics without ever dumbing it down. Like The Martian, the film embraces that rare niche of optimistic science fiction – one where ingenuity and empathy matter as much as spectacle. It’s also an apt exercise in what nuances from the book to keep and what can be left on the floor; moments are restructured or tightened with the setup being especially efficient, yet nothing ever feels rushed or undercooked. At its core, Project Hail Mary is about Grace’s relationship with the Eridian creature he meets on his travels, Rocky, and this is where the film is at its best: funny and heartfelt in equal measure, grounding the story’s grand scientific stakes in something deeply personal and relatable.

It’s a testament to Gosling’s performance that he remains so commanding and captivating despite often being the only actor on screen for long stretches or acting opposite a CGI character. There are, of course, flashbacks to Earth as Grace’s memory starts to come back (a literary problem also solved well by Goddard’s script and Lord and Miller’s direction), and a supporting cast including Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, and Ken Leung all do well to flesh out the humanity in the film – Hüller, in particular, adds shades of character to the imposing Stratt elevating her relationship with Grace from what it is in the book.

It all looks and sounds immense in IMAX 70mm, too. Greig Fraser’s cinematography is bristling with colour and ingenuity, the shifting aspect ratios adding intimacy to the Earth scenes and scale to the cosmic setting. Meanwhile, Daniel Pemberton’s tender score evokes the spirit of classic science fiction while still feeling distinctly modern and fresh. And Lord and Miller helm it all with deft precision; it’s speculative science fiction at its biggest and most imaginative, with set-pieces that are equally as thrilling and visceral, and yet it’s the intimacy of it all that ties the film together.

Adapting Weir’s dense sci-fi masterwork is no easy feat, but Lord and Miller have done so with grace and aplomb. Project Hail Mary is a staggering epic: big in spectacle and even bigger in heart, emotion and awe-inspired wonder. It’s the kind of film that will go down as one of the defining sci-fi blockbusters of its era – up there alongside contemporary genre masterpieces like Arrival, Interstellar, and Dune. It may have been over a decade since their last directorial effort, but Lord and Miller still very much have the goods, and this is an empathetic comeback in every sense.

Project Hail Mary is in cinemas from March 19th, 2026.