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‘Project Hail Mary’ Meets ‘Cast Away’ in Ridley Scott’s 10/10 Sci-Fi Gem

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Matt Damon has gained widespread recognition for starring in numerous successful films, ranging from massive blockbusters to cult favorites across genres, including sci-fi. While some of his lesser-known projects are now being rediscovered through streaming, his more popular titles are also enjoying renewed attention, including, most recently, his biggest sci-fi hit. This film is based on a well-known book and features an ensemble cast that includes Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, and Mackenzie Davis.

Not only does the sci-fi standout boast a stellar cast, but it was also directed by Ridley Scott, one of the highest-grossing filmmakers of all time, and marked his most commercially successful project. Titled The Martian, it was released in 2015 to positive reviews and numerous accolades, including a Best Picture nomination at the 88th Academy Awards. The film is also based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, who also wrote 2026’s most critically acclaimed sci-fi epic Project Hail Mary. The Martian could effectively be called a hybrid of that film and Tom Hanks‘ iconic survival movie Cast Away. Over the years, it has experienced renewed popularity across multiple streaming platforms worldwide—including now. As of this writing, The Martian is trending on streaming and PVOD charts globally, including in the U.S., with strong performance on HBO Max in the Netherlands, as well as worldwide on the Apple TV store and Google platforms.













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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
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Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

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🪙No Country for Old Men

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01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





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02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





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03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





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04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





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05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





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06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





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07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.





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08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.





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09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.





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10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?





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The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

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Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

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Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

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Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

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No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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What’s Next for Matt Damon?

Damon was most recently seen in the Netflix action thriller, The Rip, released on January 16, 2026, which received generally favorable reviews from critics. He stars as Lieutenant Dane Dumars, a police officer in the Miami-Dade Police Department narcotics unit, alongside Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Catalina Sandino Moreno. Next, fans will see Damon in The Odyssey, working with Christopher Nolan once again following the success of Oppenheimer.

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In the upcoming fantasy adaptation, Damon stars as Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, on a long and perilous journey home after the Trojan War, seeking to reunite with his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway). The ensemble cast also features Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron, among others. The Odyssey is scheduled to arrive in U.S. theaters from Universal Pictures on July 17, 2026.

The Martian is available on the Apple TV store. Stay tuned to Collider for more information.


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Release Date

October 2, 2015

Runtime

2h 24m

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Writers

Drew Goddard

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