8 years ago, Ryan Gosling made an underrated space movie that's even better than Project Hail Mary

This isn't Gosling's first time playing a moody astronaut In the Andy Weir adaptations The Martian and Project Hail Mary, novelist Weir and screenwriter Drew Goddard invent sci-fi problems that feel reasonably grounded within the world of the movie. Then, we watch movie stars like Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling attempt to solve those problems. It’s been a durable formula so far, boosted in Project Hail Mary by liberal use of full-IMAX space sequences. But this isn’t Gosling’s first time as a fixer in IMAX-enhanced outer space. In 2018, he reteamed with his La La Land director Damien Chazelle for First Man, a docudrama about Neil Armstrong (Gosling) working his way toward the first moon landing in 1969. Like a Weir story, First Man is full of tech-y challenges and smart professionals working the problem. But there’s emotional power in the film’s acknowledgment of the unsolvable stuff Armstrong encounters along the way. Chazelle’s film could have easily played like a standard biopic, complete with a tragic backstory to give the historical figure greater human interest. Early in the film, Armstrong loses his two-year-old daughter to a brain tumor, a tragedy that lingers with him as he mo