Films like Project Hail Mary (2026)

Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars after his crew evacuates the planet, believing him dead. Now he has to rely only on his own ingenuity and wits to contact Earth and hold out for rescue.

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The Martian is especially close to Project Hail Mary in spirit: it is also based on an Andy Weir novel and follows a hero who fights to survive through intelligence, ingenuity, and scientific thinking.

Crop failure and relentless dust storms threaten Earth’s survival. Former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper sets off on a space journey with a team, hoping to find a habitable planet and save the people left on Earth—including his own family.

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Both films share a large-scale space journey undertaken in the hope of saving humanity from extinction, along with a high level of tension and the exploration of the unknown depths of space.

Alien ships arrive at multiple locations around the world. The U.S. government sends a team of scientists, led by a linguist and a physicist, to one of the ships to try to understand the visitors’ true purpose—before supporters of a military solution provoke a war.

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The film is thematically close to Project Hail Mary through its contact with alien intelligence and its attempt to go beyond the known through perseverance and intellect.

Two weeks before the end of his three-year contract on a lunar station, astronaut Sam is involved in an accident. As events unfold, he begins to suspect that something is wrong with the mission and the company controlling it.

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In both films, we follow a hero struggling in isolation in space as he gradually uncovers the truth about himself and about what is happening around him.

In the distant future, humanity faces global cold as the Sun gradually dims. A space mission called Icarus II sets out for the Sun with a nuclear bomb onboard to reignite the fading star.

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"Sunshine", like "Project Hail Mary", shares the same central theme: a threat to humanity caused by the dying Sun and a space expedition as the last chance to prevent it.

During a routine mission on a space station, debris from a destroyed satellite strikes, killing part of the crew and sending the rest drifting into open space. Alone, Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski fight for their lives, hoping to find a way back to Earth.

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The film conveys a very similar sense of isolation, survival in hostile space, and constant tension caused by unrelenting danger.

The film tells the story of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, meant to be the third crewed lunar landing, but instead the crew is forced to fight for their survival and a safe return home.

Astronaut Roy McBride sets out on a space journey to Mars to make contact with his father—a legendary astronaut whose expedition vanished without a trace 29 years ago during a mission to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

After years of searching, a radio astronomer finds convincing proof of extraterrestrial intelligence when she receives a signal from an alien civilization. Embedded in the message are instructions for building a machine that could enable true contact with humanity.

An international team of astronauts sets out for Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, which scientists consider one of the most promising celestial bodies in the search for extraterrestrial life. Their mission is to explore the moon's subsurface ocean, but soon after arrival they encounter a series of dangerous technical malfunctions.

In the near future, a young man named Jim Preston sets out on a journey to a distant planet. The entire trip, which takes decades, is meant to be spent in cryosleep by the passengers, but one day, due to a system malfunction, Jim wakes up and is faced with a terrifying fact: there are still 90 years left before arrival, and returning to sleep is no longer possible.

A crew of three astronauts sets out on a long-term mission to Mars. Soon after departure, they discover that an unplanned passenger is aboard, putting both the mission and the crew's survival at risk, as there will not be enough oxygen and resources for everyone to complete the journey and return home.