The Best Movie of 2026 Is Now Streaming on Prime Video (& It’s Perfectly Timed)

Now that we’re over halfway through 2026, we feel pretty confident in already calling it in terms of the year having a best movie already. Sure, there are some major blockbusters still on their way that are certainly going to vie for the title of “biggest” movie of the year—Spider-Man: Brand New Day coming out in just a few weeks, Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three coming out in December are all major contenders for that distinction. But in terms of the actual best movie, the movie that was not only a great story but brilliantly shot, acted, and well, everything, we got that movie on the big screen in the spring of this year and now it’s finally streaming on Prime Video, just in time for the July 4th weekend.

Now on available on Prime Video as of today, July 3rd is Project Hail Mary. The film, which stars Ryan Gosling and is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is not only the biggest sci-fi movie of the year, but third biggest movie at the worldwide box office for 2026 so far. It absolutely dominated when it opened in theaters back in March, not only because of it’s thrilling story of survival and hope but because of it’s fantastic characters—we’re looking at you, Rocky—and with it hitting Prime Video over the holiday weekend, fans can enjoy all that same hope and wonder again.

Project Hail Mary Perfectly Balances Solid Sci-Fi and Great Story

Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) a former molecular biologist and middle school teacher who ends up being pulled into a high stakes project trying to solve a genuinely existential problem when it’s discovered that something is dimming the Sun, putting life on Earth in danger. It’s a project that leads him to distant space on a one-way mission to hopefully save the world and to something entirely unexpected: an alien who happens to be working on solving the same problem to save his own world.

What makes Project Hail Mary so great is that it does everything it attempts well. As an adaptation of Weir’s popular and well-received novel of the same name, the film is a faithful adaptation. It’s not exact—there are some changes from page to screen so we’re not looking at a literal adaptation here—but it’s a movie that genuinely and beautifully preserves much of the detail and all of the heart and core of the story. As a science fiction film that leans towards the “hard” category with real, functional science, the movie does a great job as well, delivering some seriously difficult concepts with accuracy and in a way that you don’t have to be a scientist or a molecular biologist to understand. The way the film approaches the technical aspects of the story are remarkably human. You never feel like the film is talking down to you.

And then, of course, there’s the story itself. Grace is on an impossible mission with no happy outcome, but once Rocky enters the story what could otherwise be a very grim story becomes a buddy adventure, just one with the highest of stakes. You not only are invested in Grace’s story, but you very quickly fall for Rocky, a faceless, expressionless alien, and you want him to succeed, too. The movie is, in many respects a love story, just not the one you think. It’s about the love for one’s world and about the love between friends and exactly what that love will lead you to do. It’s stunningly beautiful, absolutely hilarious, and brilliantly done and now, you can watch it at home this holiday weekend on Prime Video.

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