15 Movies Like ‘Ave Maria’ You Should Watch Next
Amazon MGM Studios scored a huge hit with The Ave Maria Project , a sci-fi adventure based on the book by Andy Weir, whose novel The Martian was also a resounding success when it was adapted into a film about ten years ago (pun intended). It’s a fun and rather clever popcorn flick, starring the charming Ryan Gosling as his best friend, a spider-like rock, who saves two worlds using science and the power of interspecies friendship.
While Weir’s book stands on its own, there’s already talk of turning the film into a franchise . Even if I’m not at all drawn to the idea of creating a larger “Hail Mary” universe, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more films like it. In that spirit, here are a few more clever, action-packed stories that show us the promise and perils of literally reaching for the stars.
The Martian (2015)
This film is a given. Also based on the book by Andy Weir and the screenplay by Drew Goddard, The Martian follows a handsome middle-aged man—a little nerdy, but not too outlandish for mainstream audiences—who finds himself alone in a near-future space world. Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a member of the 2035 Mars expedition who finds himself stranded on the red planet after an accident leaves the rest of his crew presumed dead. With his best chance of rescue four years away, he’s forced to improvise with the only resources left, employing his scientific knowledge to, for example, extract water from old rocket fuel and grow potatoes in his own excrement. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and became one of the biggest hits of director Ridley Scott’s career. Rent The Martian on Prime Video and Apple TV .
Silent Running (1972)
Douglas Trumbull, fresh off the special effects work for 2001: A Space Odyssey , directed this environmental parable ( don’t tell Andy Weir ), in which Bruce Dern takes on the task of saving Earth’s last plants and animals. After the complete deforestation of Earth’s forests, specimens were preserved aboard a fleet of ships orbiting Saturn. When the company that owns them decides that maintaining the multitude of plants is unprofitable, they order everything to be discarded and destroyed, leading to a rebellion by botanist and ecologist Freeman Lowell and three reprogrammed service robots. Lowell fakes the destruction of a single biosphere and sets out on a solo voyage, hoping to survive long enough to save the trees and plants before he is discovered. Dern is superb, and the screenplay is by the impressive trio of Derick Washburn and Michael Cimino ( The Deer Hunter ) along with Steven Bochco ( Hill Street Blues , NYPD Blue). Rent Silent Running on Prime Video .
Apollo 13 (1995)
A star-studded docudrama that is also considered Ron Howard’s finest directorial work, Apollo 13 chronicles the doomed (almost) 1970 lunar mission, which was filled with no less drama and far more pathos than the more often dramatized Apollo 11 moon landing. Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris lead the cast, playing the astronauts and ground crew involved in what might have been the third moon landing if not for a short circuit on the third day, which altered the mission and made it solely focused on returning everyone home alive. The film is gripping in how it builds tension not only from the perilous situation itself but also from the many clever decisions and scientific tricks used to overcome it. Watch Apollo 13 on Prime Video .
Contact (1997)
Based on scientist Carl Sagan’s only novel, Contact follows Dr. Eleanor Arroway, a SETI researcher played by Jodie Foster. She tracks an extraterrestrial signal containing a sequence of prime numbers and tens of thousands of pages of encrypted data, which ultimately turns out to be a set of blueprints—but for what purpose? As the message stirs political and religious upheaval, the film emphasizes the importance of science while acknowledging the perspectives of people like Palmer Joss, played by Matthew McConaughey, a well-meaning religious leader who nonetheless clashes with Ellie over the signal’s broader meaning. Watch Contact on Prime Video .
Interstellar (2014)
In the near future, Earth is on the brink of extinction due to epidemics and dust storms, but Christopher Nolan’s epic film offers a tiny glimmer of hope: a wormhole discovered near Saturn leads to a system with a dozen potentially habitable planets orbiting a massive black hole. A volunteer mission has already made it there and achieved favorable results. Former NASA pilot-turned-farmer Joseph Cooper agrees to fly on the next mission, along with Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway). Their goal: colonizing the world with human embryos as a backup plan for humanity’s survival. It’s a story of survival on both the individual and species level, grounded in impressively rigorous science: theoretical physicist Kip Thorne developed the film’s black hole concept, and it has become a benchmark; One of the most heartbreaking moments in Interstellar hinges on the complexities of gravity and time dilation, which most other space movies simply ignore. Watch Interstellar on Paramount+ .
Sunshine (2007)
It’s literally about saving the Sun, so we’re on the right track in terms of premise. In the near future (2057), the Sun is dying, and a crew heads toward it to deliver a kind of stellar bomb that could reignite the star. They’re not the first to attempt this, and a distress signal from the original crew changes the mission’s direction, with the members (led by physicist Robert Capa, played by Cillian Murphy) hoping that information and resources salvaged from the previous ship will improve their chances. This turns out to be a bad idea, as they suffer near-catastrophic damage in the process. With resources scarce, they must confront practical and existential questions of life and death before true chaos erupts. Director Danny Boyle reteams with 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland for this brooding (until it isn’t) film, also starring Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, and Michelle Yeoh. Sunshine is available to rent on Prime Video .
Oxygen (2021)
In this French psychological thriller, a plot similar to “The Ave Maria Project” leads to a very different outcome. A woman (Mélanie Laurent) wakes up in a sealed capsule; suffering from profound memory loss, she quickly realizes that her oxygen supply is rapidly depleting. An artificial intelligence assistant nicknamed MILO helps her, but only to a point—it won’t open the capsule, though it does help her contact a mysterious woman who tells her that if she opens it, she will die. She must figure out where she is, how to survive, and how to escape… if that’s even possible.Watch “Oxygen” on Netflix .
Gravity (2013)
Alfonso Cuarón won the Oscar for Best Director for this space thriller with a relatively simple plot so elegantly and impressively executed that it became one of the year’s best films. Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, an engineer embarking on her first space mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Everything seems to be going well—until space debris collides with her shuttle during a spacewalk, stranding her and the sole survivor, team commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), in low Earth orbit. If they can make it to the International Space Station, they might have a chance at survival. This is a film about characters adrift in space, gripping from minute to minute and believably (though not entirely) accurate in its physics. Watch Gravity on Prime Video.
Cosmonaut (2024)
“Spaceman” is much darker than “Ave Maria,” which is a bit surprising considering it stars Adam Sandler, but still. He plays Jakub Prochazka, who embarks on a six-month mission to investigate a strange particle cloud near Jupiter. It’s also a convenient escape from his personal life, which includes an unborn child and a crumbling marriage. As his mental state deteriorates, he encounters a spider-like creature he names Hanush—a creature that, unlike Rocky, may just be a figment of his imagination.Watch “Spaceman” on Netflix .
Europe Report (2013)
A stylish, realistic space thriller that presents the mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa in a near-documentary style. Director Sebastian Cordero and cinematographer Enrique Chediak employ found footage techniques in a film that, despite its limited budget, achieves a great deal. Six months into the journey, a solar storm cuts off communication with Earth, putting the crew in mortal danger and setting off a cascade of disasters. Even though the film has the feel of a space horror film, it possesses a sense of realism (Europa, after all, could very well harbor life) and the crew’s determination to complete a mission that could change everything. Watch “The Europa Report” on Prime Video , Hulu , and Tubi.
Enemy Mine (1985)
Enemy Mine hints from the start that it will be more aggressive with its sci-fi elements, but ultimately it tells the story of two very different people learning to work together. In the year 2092, during a space battle between humans and reptilian Draks, fighter pilot Willis E. Davidge (Dennis Quaid) and Drak “Jerry” Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.) crash-land on a hostile planet. After a near-death encounter, they realize they’ll have to work together to survive… especially after “Jerry” becomes pregnant (call the political correctness police). Enemy Mine is available to rent on Prime Video .
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Superficially similar, 2001: A Space Odyssey nonetheless serves as a kind of counterprogram: both it and The Hail Mary Project focus on astronauts embarking on lonely space missions, but while the latter focuses on the benefits of science and the importance of making friends, 2001: A Space Odyssey offers an equally relevant message about the dangers of artificial intelligence and the existential threats to evolution. (The onboard computer in Hail Mary is less menacing than HAL in 2001 : A Space Odyssey, but just as frustratingly literal.) The advancement of technology in Kubrick’s film is merely a stop on a journey that began with the first act of mammalian violence and that may end among the stars. Watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on HBO Max.
Moon (2023)
The film has echoes of other space survival films (especially The Martian ), but the South Korean film Moon is so captivating that it’s not particularly worrying. In 2029, Korea embarks on its second manned lunar mission after a disastrous attempt five years ago—and this time, things don’t go much better. A powerful solar storm causes a malfunction that kills two of the three crew members, leaving only Hwang Sung-woo (Do Kyung-soo), who is forced to survive and traverse the lunar surface to reach the only point of rescue. There’s plenty of human drama among the team planning his rescue, but the film’s true highlight is its beautifully realized and, at the very least, believable journey across the moon. Watch Moon on Prime Video and Tubi .
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
The film’s science may be a little (okay, a lot) questionable by today’s standards, but War of the Worlds director Byron Haskin’s 1960s sci-fi adventure attempts to get it right—no small feat, considering Mars 4’s first flyby of Mars took place in the future. In the film, Mars has life, but it’s sparse, and it has an atmosphere, but it’s much thinner than Earth’s. The desolate landscape that Commander Kit Draper, played by Paul Mantee, finds himself in after crashing (co-pilot Adam West sadly doesn’t survive, but test monkey Mona does) feels more believable than the chaotic planetary landscapes of many earlier films. The first half, before things take a turn for the worse, focuses on Draper’s attempts to survive using whatever he can salvage from the unknown planet. This is a captivating, if little-known, sci-fi classic and a thrilling journey to Mars, crafted by a collective imagination destined to be radically transformed. Rent Robinson Crusoe on Mars on Prime Video and Apple TV .
Arrival (2016)
Arrival , the film that truly established director Denis Villeneuve as a creator of grand sci-fi adventures, is based on a story by award-winning author Ted Chiang. In the film, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) desperately tries to establish contact with seven-legged aliens who suddenly appear on Earth. The key connection is interspecies communication: Rocky and Ryland’s relationship in The Hail Mary seems overly simple, while Arrival suggests that dialogue with another species will be far more complex, strange, interesting, and at least equally rewarding. Watch Arrival on Paramount+ .