10 of the best films to watch in March

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9. Project Hail Mary

If you want a deeply researched story about a scientist stranded alone in space, Andy Weir is for you. His debut novel, The Martian, was made into a hit film written by Drew Goddard and directed by Ridley Scott. Ten years later, Goddard wrote the script for another film based on one of Weir’s novels, Project Hail Mary. Directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (directors of The Lego Movie and producers of the animated Into the Spider-Verse), this sci-fi adventure stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a biologist turned schoolteacher called in by the European Space Agency to discover that energy-sucking microbes are dimming the light between the sun and Earth. With no trained astronauts available, Grace is sent on a solo mission to investigate, but encounters friendly aliens. “The great thing about this movie is that there are a lot of elements that make it difficult to make,” Miller said at San Diego Comic-Con. As reported in Gizmodo. “All the zero-G, all the centrifugal gravity, there has to be a wall between the characters because the atmosphere is different. That difficulty is what makes it interesting and what makes it special.”

Released in cinemas worldwide on March 18th, 19th, and 20th

Mandarin & Company/ Kaloosh Cinema/ Fracas Productions

10. Alpha

Julia Ducournau, the French writer-director of Law and Titans, returns with a typically dark, visceral and challenging drama that divided critics when it premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. This is a movie that you either like or are confused by, rather than whether you like it or not. Its titular heroine, Alpha (Melissa Boros), is a 13-year-old high school girl who surprises her mother (Golshifteh Farahani) with an amateur tattoo at a party. A deadly virus is trying to turn its victims to stone. A mother, a nurse, fears that her daughter and her drug-addicted brother (Tahar Rahim) will contract the virus. Despite a skeptical review from the BBC, Ducournau’s post-apocalyptic film is certainly a unique and unforgettable experience. “Alpha continued to implant the right kind of anxiety in my brain.” Donald Clarke said in the Irish Times:. “Few people would endure that attack without acknowledging that they had endured extraordinary circumstances.”

It will be available in the US and Canada on March 27th and in the UK on April 17th.

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