5 Sci-Fi Movies Like Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary

Ryan Gosling is back on the big screen with "Project Hail Mary," a massive sci-fi epic directed by "21 Jump Street" and "Spider-Verse" visionaries Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and here's the good news: it's pretty great. Looper's very own Reuben Baron gave the film a stellar review and other critics apparently agree with him, so whether you already love Andy Weir's novel that serves as the source material or you're totally new to the story of Gosling's Dr. Ryland Grace — a middle school science teacher who ends up shot into space to save the world — you'll probably have a great time watching the movie. From Gosling's gripping central performance to his character's incredibly sweet friendship with a rock-shaped alien he dubs "Rocky" (puppeted and voiced by James Ortiz), there's a lot to love in "Project Hail Mary," but what should you watch after you leave the movie theater?

We've got some ideas. From other movies based on Weir novels to other sci-fi adventures that take place in the stars — or happen to feature communicative and strangely lovable aliens — here are five movies you should check out after you've watched "Project Hail Mary."

Obviously, if you like "Project Hail Mary," you should watch the first adaptation of bestselling writer Andy Weir's work: 2015's "The Martian." Ridley Scott helmed this particular movie, but Drew Goddard also wrote the script, so hey — there's even more connective tissue! Like Ryan Gosling's Dr. Ryland Grace, Matt Damon's Mark Watney ends up in the wilderness of space, but the way everything unfolds is pretty different. During a mission to Mars, a crew on board a ship called the Ares III encounters a dust storm in their vehicle traversing the hostile planet, and Mark, hit by debris during the accident, is presumed dead by the rest of the crew. They move on, and Mark is left to survive on his own.

Just as Ryland wakes up on the titular Hail Mary with no idea how he got there and aware that he's fully alone, Mark is stuck by himself as, incredibly, the Ares III crew goes back to Earth without him. From there, he does his best to survive in the habitat they left behind, eventually figuring out how to grow crops (he happens to be a trained botanist, which helps). The crew, seeing movement on satellite images, realize that Mark is alive, and everyone tries to figure out how to get him home. Like "Project Hail Mary," "The Martian" is a stunning story of survival ... based on one of Weir's beloved books.

In "Project Hail Mary," after meeting Rocky, Dr. Ryland Grace realizes he has to find some way to communicate with the clearly intelligent alien from Erid ... and using a computer system he devises, he's able to translate Rocky's native language into English and give him a voice. (The funniest outcome of this is that Rocky simply won't shut up.) If Denis Villeneuve's 2016's science fiction film "Arrival" was heartwarming instead of emotionally devastating, it might feel exactly like the scenes in "Project Hail Mary" where Rocky and Ryland figure out how to talk to each other.

Based on Ted Chiang's 1998 novella "Story of Your Life," "Arrival" centers around Louise Banks, a linguist played by Amy Adams who is asked to try and communicate with mysterious aliens by the United States Government after several ships are spotted in the Earth's atmosphere. Alongside her colleague Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise is able to figure out how to speak to these aliens, only to make a truly stunning discovery: when humans learn this particular alien language, they're able to view events at different points in time.

We won't spoil the genuinely gut-wrenching twist of "Arrival," but suffice to say this isn't just one of Adams' best performances; it's one of the most emotionally resonant and striking sci-fi movies ever made. "Project Hail Mary" almost certainly took inspiration from "Arrival" during its big emotional moments, and it was right to do so.

Do you love the close bond Ryland and Rocky form throughout "Project Hail Mary" and wonder what it might be like if a weirdly cute alien crash-landed on Earth and became your bestie? Even if you've already seen it, it might be time to revisit Steven Spielberg's 1982 hit "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." When some small and honestly pretty peaceful aliens decide to quietly visit Earth, one of them sees twinkling city lights and wanders off ... and that alien, who's later dubbed E.T., ends up meeting a young boy named Elliott Taylor (Henry Thomas, who's spent his time lately working alongside modern horror master Mike Flanagan). Though Elliott is understandably very freaked out by E.T.'s appearance and general deal at first, the two become fast friends, and he lets his brother and sister Michael and Gertie (Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore) in on the secret while their single mother Mary (Dee Wallace) is distracted.

Sadly, E.T. and Elliott have to part ways when the government starts trying to capture the little alien, and Elliott helps him pull off a truly daring escape ... but their friendship is one of the best we've ever seen on-screen while it lasts. E.T. and Elliott rode a bike together so that Ryland and Rocky could "run," so to speak.

Even though "Project Hail Mary" is ultimately a really heartwarming story of a man who finds purpose far away from his home planet, it still has some truly tense and even terrifying moments, especially a sequence where the Hail Mary is damaged with Ryland and Rocky inside. If you're looking for more of those nail-biting moments, you'll definitely want to add Alfonso Cuarón's space masterpiece "Gravity" to your watchlist. Released in 2013, the movie stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as Dr. Ryan Stone and astronaut Matt Kowalski, who find themselves in a frightening situation while they're in the wilderness of outer space.

Working together to do relatively minor repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope, Ryan and Matt are thrust into a genuinely frightening situation when debris hits the telescope and cuts off their communication to Earth. In the aftermath, Matt decides that they should try and reach the International Space Station before the debris circles back around and strikes them again, but the journey proves to be incredibly treacherous. "Gravity," which was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards in 2014 and won Cuarón a trophy for best director, is one of the most intense space movies ever made, and it pairs perfectly with "Project Hail Mary."

When it comes to great space movies, "Project Hail Mary" is definitely joining the hall of fame ... but if you're looking for an even more cerebral experience, definitely go for 2014's "Interstellar." This landmark film, directed by Christopher Nolan and co-written with the eventual Oscar winner and his brother Jonathan Nolan (who's also known for "Westworld," among other projects), "Interstellar" shows us what would happen if Ryland and Rocky didn't figure out how to stop the sun from dimming and cause widespread famine across the Earth.

As former NASA test pilot Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is chosen to travel through a wormhole to try and find a place that humans might actually be able to inhabit, "Interstellar" takes several twists and turns involving time itself, which we won't spoil here just in case you haven't watched Nolan's space epic just yet. With a supporting cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Nolan regular Michael Caine, "Interstellar" is a movie about the survival of humanity, but it's also a movie about family, which makes it a perfect companion to the arguably much more optimistic "Project Hail Mary."