I would like to believe that if stuck on a planet some 130 million miles away from Earth, I would be as resourceful, adept with my surroundings, and accepting of my situation as astronaut Mark Watney seems to be. After realizing he is alone on Mars, after a mission with his crew goes terribly wrong and he is presumed dead from an accident, Watney awakens to find his crew gone, their supplies in tact, and a desperate need to figure out how to prolong his life on Mars for as long as potentially possible to find a way to get back home.

The Martian, adapted from the wildly popular best-selling novel by Andy Weir, gives us a brilliant performance from Matt Damon as the astronaut left behind, and serves as director Ridley Scott‘s newest science-fiction epic, almost erasing the sting from his polarizing 2013 crime drama The Counselor and his ridiculous Biblical epic from last year, Exodus: Gods And Kings. Quite frankly, for both director and star, this is the best film each have delivered audiences in a long, long time.