Andy Weir’s 2021 novel gave cinema a specific problem: a story whose central dramatic relationship cannot be revealed in any trailer without destroying the thing that makes it matter. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller - Spider-Verse, 21 Jump Street - solved this by committing fully to withholding. The Project Hail Mary campaign has been, deliberately, almost uninformative.
Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, an astronaut who wakes alone on an interstellar spacecraft with no memory of why he’s there. The first act is puzzle-solving; the rest is something else. Released in US theatres 20 March 2026, UK from 27 March. Early responses from critics emphasise craft - practical effects, sound design, a score built around a specific emotional register - rather than scale. After two years of franchise machinery, this is a film that earns its emotion through problem-solving and earns its feeling through patience. See it before the internet explains it.