Ryan Gosling has taken plenty of big swings over the years, but few have connected quite like this one. Nearly five months after its theatrical release, “Project Hail Mary” is still being talked about as one of the best studio films of the year, and the numbers back it up. The film has settled at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 400 reviews, with a matching 95% audience score, according to a detailed breakdown from Bamfuzzle.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and adapted by “The Martian” screenwriter Drew Goddard from Andy Weir’s 2021 novel, the film follows Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist turned middle school science teacher who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there, or that his actual mission is to stop the sun from dying. Sandra Hüller plays Eva Stratt, the mission’s architect, and James Ortiz voices Rocky, an alien companion Grace picks up along the way. Rocky was built as a practical effect rather than rendered in CGI, a choice multiple critics singled out as a highlight, according to Koimoi.
Critics have been close to unanimous that Gosling is the reason the film works as well as it does. Rolling Stone called it a genuine star vehicle, arguing that few actors could carry a blockbuster’s existential ambitions the way Gosling does here while still delivering the “old-school snap, crackle, capturing the excitement and larger-than-life feel of a classic Spielberg-style adventure in its full review. Screen Rant’s roundup of early reactions found a similar throughline, with critic Kristin Lopez describing the film as essentially a one-man showcase for Gosling, according to Screen Rant.
The praise wasn’t purely about star power. The Wall Street Journal’s Kyle Smith placed the film alongside “The Martian” and “Interstellar” and said it channeled the wonder of Spielberg’s “E.T.,” while other reviewers pointed to the cinematography and Daniel Pemberton’s score as reasons the film plays best on the biggest screen available, per Koimoi. By the time full reviews rolled in, one critic called it “2026’s first great blockbuster,” with others ranking it among the standout science-fiction films of recent memory, according to IMDb.
Not every reaction was glowing. Loud and Clear Reviews came away more conflicted, arguing the film strays from the tonal and thematic complexity of Weir’s novel in favor of something closer to a buddy comedy, calling the finished product “a bit of a mess” despite crediting Ryan Gosling and the film’s technical craft for elevating it, in its full review. Elsewhere, the most common critique was structural: at two hours and thirty-six minutes, several reviewers felt the middle stretch loses momentum before the third act pulls it back together.
None of that dented the film’s commercial performance. “Project Hail Mary” opened to $140.9 million worldwide, the biggest March opening ever for a film not built on an existing franchise and Amazon MGM Studios’ largest debut to date. It went on to gross $677.3 million globally, according to figures compiled on Wikipedia.
Between the reviews, the box office and the scale of its ambitions, “Project Hail Mary” has landed in rare territory for a big-budget sci-fi movie: something critics and audiences actually agree on. Whether or not you’ve read Weir’s novel, the consensus points to one conclusion — this is a must-watch.
