What would Sci-Fi be without aliens? At best, it would be just okay. But it would be okay in the way the last season of ‘House of Cards’ was okay.
We gathered up the top 50 best alien movies we love in this article so that you can love them too. These movies are either ABOUT aliens, or involve alien characters. With apologies to UFOnatics, we’ll be excluding documentaries from this piece (sorry Bob Lazar.)
Also, before you probe us- this list is not in any particular order.
Initiating data download.
50. Phoenix forgotten
First up though, is art that’s BASED on true events.
In the late 90s, the ‘Phoenix lights’ were spotted in the Arizona desert. An occurrence hooking enough for Mr Alien Ridley Scott to produce Phoenix Forgotten- a theatrical continuation of this event, set 20 years later.
Phoenix Forgotten is a nice little 'switch your brain off' type of movie
Discovering unseen footage of her brother’s related disappearance, Sophie (Florence Hartigan) sets out on a crusade to discover what happened to him and his buddies. Plenty of twists and turns along the way make for decent 90-minute spectating.
49. Earth To Echo
Earth to Echo is a lot less foreboding than most alien-themed flicks. Being a Disney production, think like Wall-E meets E.T and you’re there.
A bunch of ordinary kids begin receiving encrypted messages on their phones. They take them to various responsible adults and of course, none of them takes the children seriously.
Kids will LOVE Echo....And you probably will too.
Decoding the messages themselves leads them to the eponymous creature Echo, a cybernetic alien in dire need of help.
Family- friendly and decent storytelling. Those with kids- have at it!
48. Aliens In The Attic
A gang of young -uns discover a tiny species of evil-yet-likeable aliens dwelling in their vacation home. When adult Ricky is enslaved using hi- tech mind control gadgetry, it falls to the kids to stop the aliens from claiming more brains.
Smiling like we all did in our first school photo
Discovering that the aliens’ mind control only works on grown-ups, an all- out war breaks out between the two bands of little people. The future of Earth depends on not letting their parents find out what’s going on!
Aliens in the attic is just cartoonishly goofy enough for the whole family to get a kick out of.
47. The Day The Earth Stood Still
Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) has a hard time almost as soon as he lands on Earth. Immediately being captured and interrogated, all he tells the hapless humans is that he’s been sent to help ‘save the earth’.
Klaatu, of the 'impossibly photogenic' race.
Turns out, he wants to save the earth FROM humans, not FOR it. How will he do this? By killing them all! This spurs journalist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) on a mission to sway Klaatu from his genocidal goals. Will she succeed?
46. Jiu Jitsu
Every 6 years a portal to earth allows an alien species to step through. Usually, they’re beaten back by the world’s top hand-to-hand combatants. Except he’s half- dead and in no shape to save the planet. Earth is knackered until Jake (Alain Moussi) is fighting fit.
Squarin up
So it’s up to Wylie (Nic Cage) and Co. to kill alien commander Brax, or at least hold him off until the champ is here (no, not YOU Mr. Cena.).
Jiu-jitsu is good, clean (kinda) martial arts fun. Picture it like Mortal Kombat meets The Predator- lite!
45. Life
A collection of specialist astronauts discover a sample of pure alien DNA. So they do what any of us would do- they take it back to their space lab and electrocute it. Repeatedly.
Mistake #1!
Face to face-like thing with death.
Eventually, the penny drops- this benign cluster of cells is the vicious, ancient lifeform that probably wiped out all life on Mars. And now it’s awake.
It’s cruel, relentless and unforgiving. Yet still fascinating to observe.
That’s Life.
44. Men In Black 2
Agent J (Will Smith) discovers an evil plan by lingerie sex bomb/shapeshifting ET Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) on a ‘routine’ job. What J thinks will be just another day at the office turns into a high stakes battle to save Earth.
He knows only one man who can help him- the now- retired K (Tommy Lee Jones). All they need to do is…?
K and J baby- WOO!
Recover K’s since-wiped memories, gather their equipment, rescue the MIB building and end the sexy shapeshifter’s plans for global conquest.
New viewers of Men In Black 2 can look forward to cameos from two legendary entertainers:
Michael Jackson
Frank the Pug.
43. Star Trek Beyond
Idris Elba is amazing. So is Simon Pegg. Toss in Zachary Qquinto and you’ve got a ‘geeky’ concept with acting so good, it converts cynics.
Lifesucker Krall (Elba) needs an ancient artefact that’s aboard The Enterprise. Because he’s a bad guy, the odds of asking nicely are pretty slim.
Star Trek Beyond revitalized the franchise for a whole new generation.
Eventually, the big guy gets his way and creates a deadly weapon with the intent to destroy the federation of planets.
With countless lives on the line, the Star Trek squad uses all the tools at their disposal to thwart Krall. Among said tools is a creative use of the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage’.
And what a terrific moment that was!
42. Alien: Covenant
What at first feels like a settler’s dream swiftly becomes a nightmare for the crew of the Covenant.
Luck quickly runs out as the ship gets damaged by a strong solar flare, the pilot gets burned alive and fellow survivors are infected with an unknown illness. On top of all that, anybody venturing outside is prey for a frighteningly aggressive new breed of Alien species.
Praise be for Michael Fassbender
When the Covenant passengers meet android survivor David (brilliantly played by Michael Fassbender), what happened to Prometheus becomes terribly clear.
A unique spin on an already atypical fight for survival.
41. A Quiet Place
Once upon a time, everything was fine. Then the Deathangels came and nothing was fine.
This John Krasinski acted/directed movie is GOOD. A race of extraterrestrial predators hasve landed on earth. Completely blind, they hunt with sound. A bit like bats. Unlike bats, they can rip an average man apart in two seconds flat.
Totally not suffocating a child
An average, suicidal old man. But a man nonetheless.
This isn’t a movie with complicated characters-there’s MAYBE three minutes of spoken dialogue in nearly four hours. Watching how far a man will go to protect his kids and pregnant wife is a gripping yank of the heartstrings.
Shhhh. They can hear you
40. The 5th Wave
Cassie (Chloe Moretz) is an unusual teenager living in unusual times. By ‘unusual times’ we mean ‘near-hopeless apocalypse’.
And as for ‘unusual teenager’.....well, we’re pretty sure most teens haven’t killed anyone.
Let's all pretend that they're cuddling.
That is, unless they get possessed into it by ‘The Others’- evil attacking ET’s that have launched four merciless attacks upon Earth. Add in the consequential tsunamis and earthquakes and the planet’s casualties are in the millions.
Gearing up for The 5th wave (don’t you love relevant film titles?) of alien attacks, Cassie’s on a mission to find her brother. Working with fellow survivor Evan (Alex Roe) might be her only chance to see her family again.
39. Knowing
The more time passes, the more people are changing their mind about Knowing . OG film connoisseur Roger Ebert has claimed it to be one of the best Sci-Fi’s he’s seen.
A half-century- old scrap of paper finds itself in the hands of MIT Astro-prof John Koestler (Nic Cage), scrawled with nothing but a sequence of numbers. Eventually, our man John discovers the numbers correspond to dates of every major calamity since the paper was written. With three yet to happen.
All glowing, all....Knowing
The mastery of Knowing is how tension comes not from ‘if’ something happens, or even ‘when’. It’s the ‘what’. The ET’s are hinted at as part of the plot without being confirmed, making this film less ‘an alien movie’ and more ‘a movie featuring aliens’.
But still- it’s a goodun!
38. How To Talk To Girls At Parties
En (Alex Sharp) and his mates are looking to gatecrash a party. The lads are in luck- turns out a bunch of intergalactic human-posers are celebrating the end of their universe-wide tour.
Bearing in mind this movie was set in the late 70s. Back when people wanted to be in Croydon. How times have changed.
A romance written in the stars
Anyway, En stumbles across the human-looking Zan (Elle Fanning), kicking off instant interspecies attraction. The two spend a whirlwind 48 hours of boundary- pushing, system F@#£ing romance.
A charming little movie, once accurately described as ‘Sci-Fi Romeo and Juliet.’
37. Avatar
It’s 2154 and humanity has stopped our pillaging of mother Earth. Mostly because there’s nothing left.
So now we’re looking to plunder the pristine planet Pandora.
Home to the beautifully blue alien race the Na’Vi, humans need their ‘unobtanium’- a valuable mineral not found in our neck of the woods. Pandora is poisonous to humanity but our sneaky scientists have found a workaround- genetic hybrids known as…
Big blue and view-tiful.
Avatars.
When Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is despatched on a recon mission aboard the Na’Vvi homeworld, he finds himself falling in love with one of their women.
There’s so much that could be said. But the fact Avatar is the world’s #1 grossing film ever?
That says more than we ever could. Watch it.
36. Star Wars Ep. V- The Empire Strikes Back
On to another true-blue-classic.
We could put the entire Star Wars franchise here. Our first of two is the one most people call ‘the best’: Empire Strikes Back.
Back In Black
As the evil empire steps up it’s retaliation against the rebel alliance, our culture-wide phenomenon Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) goes on a quest to seek master tuition to prepare himself to take the fight to the dark side.
Famous for the introduction of Yoda and arguably the most misquoted plot twist in movie history.
‘Luke Skywalker, I am your father'
Sorry- ‘No, I AM your father!’
35. District 9
An alternate reality where, 30 years back, aliens landed.
Except in a unique premise we’ve not seen elsewhere, they come as refugees. Rapidly bundled into a South African internment camp known as District 9, it’s degraded into more of a ghetto by the modern- day 21st century.
Conflict de-escalation 101. Point and shoot.
Governing body multinational utd are enlisted to reassign the near 2 million strong alien population. When agent Wikus (Sharlto Copley) contracts an unexplained virus, it forces a conflict between his job and his ever- growing empathy for the creatures he’s working with.
34. Pacific Rim
Earth has been breached. The breach is open.
What's the breach?
It’s an interdimensional portal at the bottom of the ocean. From this portal comes humanity’s worst nightmare- no not another Coldplay album
Mecha-monster-masher
The Kaiju. Under the control of the mysterious ‘precursor’ aliens, these Kaiju monstrosities were sent years ago to decimate humanity. Now they’re back for round two.
With mankind now equipped with giant Ppsy-tech cyborgs we call ‘Jaegers’, the war is on to send the Kaiju back to where they came from and close the breach in the Pacific Rim.
Oh and this film also has one of the best action movie soundtracks there’s been in a looooong time.
33. Justice League
Yep, the bad guy is an alien- it counts!
Millenia ago the evil alien Steppenwolf invaded earth with his army,on a quest to conquer all life forms with the help of the three ‘mother boxes’- powerful, physics-altering artefacts. He and his army were too bold in their arrival and so the ancients beat them back.
Teamwork makes the dream work in Justice League
Cut to modern day.Superman bit the bullet and Steppenwolf is returning. It’s up to Batman and Wonder Woman to build an all-star powerhouse team to secure the mother boxes and put a stop to Steppenwolf’s plans once and for all.
To get Justice League at its full potential, true superhero fans are going to want to twatch the four-hour ‘Snyder cut’.
32. Transformers-Dark Of The Moon
We chose Dark Of The Moon for this list. Partly because it’s the objective best of the franchise.
Also, because it reminds us of Shia Lebouf, in happier times.
The autobots learn of a cybertronian spaceship that crashed on the moon in the 60s, an occurrence kept from them by the US. Government. When our main man-machine Optimus Prime learns said craft holds his predecessor, it’s decided to reanimate it on Earth.
Locked, loaded and ready to roll (out merch)
Reviving Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) leads to a series of grave consequences that once again put Earth in jeopardy. Working alongside Sam (Shia) and the human military the Autobots battle their Decepticon enemies one final, glorious time.
31. Space Jam
If some of your earliest cinematic memories involve cartoon rabbits and 3 point dunks, then congratulations! You’re a nineties kid.
Bugs Bunny and co make a wager with a gang of alien slavers known as the Nerdlucks- If the tunes can win, they earn their freedom. Noticing these invaders are incredibly small, Bugs and the gang reckon they’ve got the game in the bag.
Welcome to the Space Jam, Space Jam, Space Jam!
Until the ETs absorb the talent of half the NBA. Which at that point was Charles Barkley and Larry Bird. The Nerdlucks are no more- they’re MONSTARS!
Not wanting to be otherworldly slaves for the rest of their lives, our cartoon pals ‘persuade’ the legendary Michael Jordan to come out of retirement and play for the fate of the (their) world.
Treat yourself to everything great about being a kid-rewatch this one.
30. The Invasion
Starring Nicole Kidman and then-brand new 007 Daniel Craig as a couple of Washington-dwelling psychologists.
A catastrophic pandemic has engulfed the world, with the epicentre being a crashed shuttle. People are being ‘taken over ’ by..something. Usually, in the victims’ sleep.
As more and more extreme personality ‘removals’ are reported, Carol (Kidman) and Ben (Craig) work to discover what exactly is going on.
Nicole Kidman wearing her usual chirpy expression.
These efforts lead to a frightening discovery.
Originally conceived as a modernization of classic ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’, Invasion is dissimilar enough to feel like it’s own original movie.
The virus possessed victims might not show much heart, but Invasion does.
29. IT, Chapter I
Fun fact- Pennywise is an alien!
One of Stephen King’s best stories, adapted for the silver screen. Set in late-eighties smalltown Derry, Maine is the tingly tale of IT- a shapeshifting kiddy-feeding monstrosity. Once every 27 years, it slinks out of the sewers to feed.
And tick tock- it’s time for IT to tuck in.
In life, there's winners.....And then there are the losers
Kids rapidly begin vanishing, leading seven self-styled ‘losers’ to investigate what is going on. Their eventual meeting with the clown-faced evil (BRILLIANTLY played by Bill Skarsgard) leads to a series of physical and psychological battles that tells us two things.
1)We’re better together
2) Nobody likes clowns.
28. IT, Chapter II
We won’t choose between chapters 1 and 2 of IT- you can’t make us!
Just as amazing as it’s prequel- the Derry Main(e) attraction returns 27 years after his last rampage.
The year is 2015 and Mr. Pointy-teeth is feeling peckish. Vengeful, spiteful and peckish. When the white wonder gets up to his old tricks again, the now fully grown Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) attempts to get the band back together to fulfill the promise they made 27 years ago…
Available for weddings and children's birthdays.
‘If IT comes back… we kill it.’
The mission is simple, but not easy. Remembering the bitter taste of defeat last time around, Pennywise will stop at nothing to petrify and consume every last one of the club.
27. Extinction
Family man Peter (Michael Pena) is your average joe,
Foreshadowed early on in Peter’s violent nightmares are violent nightmares of an alien invasion. Time after time he tries to get his wife (Lizzy Caplan) to see his dreams as premonitions. When the invaders in his nightmares attack, he’s vindicated!
Looking like the ghost of a deepsea diver
So now he can crack on with what matters most. Which, now the apocalypse is starting, turns out is saving his wife and kids from an utter vanquishing.
Think of Extinction as Independence day with elements of The Predator and you’re there. This straight-to-Netflix doomsday flick does a good job in pushing the ‘humanity is lost’ vibe.
26. Invader Zim- Enter The Florpus
Invader Zim: Enter The Florpus is a nickelodeon short movie centring around the constantly squabbling evil alien Zim (Richard Horvitz) and goody-goody Dib Membrane (Andy Berman).
Zim’s evil plot for world domination is entering phase two! So what’s his evil plan?
Err….We don’t know. Neither does he. But it’s gonna be good (or bad?). Wait….can he even remember what it is?
Stare into the eyes of pure evil. Scared yet?
So allegedly depressed is Zim at his incompetence, he surrenders to the squeaky-clean Dib.
Too easy? Of course!
One for the younguns if there ever was one. Those that enjoy comeuppance and resolution in their movies, get those thoughts out of your head here.
All that awaits is goofy, mindless entertainment and a feeling of light- hearted doom!
25 Dune Drifter
Armed with a shoestring budget and a...not much else, director Marc Price made a movie that bumps the expectation of pricey special effects and costuming.
All things considered, Dune Drifter is actually pretty good. If star wars had these resources, it’d probably feel similar to this. In fact, remember the original Yoda doll?
That moment you realise it just got real.
Anyway... A trainee pilot crashes onto an unknown planet, in desperate need of assistance. Stranded and unable to communicate, bad gets even worse when a hostile alien presence attacks.
It’s the ultimate 1 v 1-man vs alien, in space.
For such a simple premise, it’s pretty incredible the amount of competent mileage gotten from this movie.
24. Venom
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a reporter on the tail of tech golden boy/subliminal scumbag Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Suspicious of Drake’s possible symbiosis experiments with live test subjects, Brock pledges to investigate.
This sets off a chain of events where the hard-hitting journalist bonds with space parasiteVenom and starts hitting even harder.
Your (Dentist's) worst nightmare
As the monstrous alien Venom seduces it’s host by displaying its power, Eddie needs to find a way to co-exist with his dark associate...or be consumed by it.
These days marvel movies set a high standard. Venom doesn’t disappoint.
23. Independence Day
A film so successful that it TRIPLED the take that Space Jam did at the box office.
The aliens have arrived and are deploying giant spaceships and a broadcast frequency over the world’s major cities. (Which FYI is possibly the most well done alien intro/contact sequence in cinema history.
David (Jeff Goldblum) decodes the frequency to be a coordinated attack and sets out to alert the US president.
But it’s too late. Millions of lives are lost.
Size doesn't matter. Unless you're conquering earth. Then you bring your biggest ship.
A series of reactionary events lead to the formation of a crack team (Judd Hirsch, Will Smith, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid) to counterattack the ET threat.
Together these specialists devise a plan to beat the wannabe-oppressors over the 4th Jjuly weekend.
Equal parts awe-inspiring Sci-Fi and kicking-ass action, Independence Day is one of the big boys of the genre.
22. Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2.
Wow...so many characters, so little time. OK….
Thanks to the events of #1, the dazzlingly colourful crew of the Benatar now claim full status as saviours of the universe (although they’re known by another name- we’re building to it).
And when queen Ayesha of the sovereign race needs a job done, is she going to go to any old mercs?? No.
She’s gonna turn to the Guardians Of The Galaxy (payoff)
The lovable rogues return for more space-faring action.
Tasking them with protecting powerful batteries from an interdimensional behemoth, the Sovereign attack the guardians’ ship when they discover they failed. How did they know?
Because raccoon Rocket forgot the first lesson of merc school- don't steal the inventory. Or at least don’t be seen.
On the run from bounty hunters, our lovable rogues confront alien slavers and their own messed up family dynamics in their journey through this MCU space opera.
21. Mars Attacks
Easily the most star studded- alien/Sci-Fi movie EVER- Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Jack Black, Glenn Close, Natalie portman...we need to stop there for space!
When the Martians land on Earth, the first thing their ambassador does is claim his race comes in peace. The second thing he does is shoot a dove and massacre a bunch of people.
So mixed messages.
Sure, let the aliens into the capitol building. What could go wro--oh.
Ambassador Mars (as he shall as of now be called) reveals his hand when, after being granted an audience with the US congress….promptly massacres them all. When the military learns of this attack, they demand all- out nuclear war.
Spoiler: The Martians do not come in peace.
20. The Predator
A Predator ship hits the dirt on Earth, prompting the military to collect it’s captain and armour samples as proof of alien life.
All imaginably standard procedure as far as the ‘when aliens land’ handbook goes. Except for the part where one of the soldiers’ kids wears the armour to go trick or treating, inadvertently sending a homing signal back to the mothership
'Stop posing and shoot!'
Meanwhile, Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) is assigned to study the kidnapped alien and makes an unsettling discovery- this creature is a hybrid with human DNA. But how?
It’s when The Predator breaks out of captivity that the movie picks up. Slaughtering all but our unarmed biologist/heroine, Mr. Grumpy goes on the hunt for his stolen equipment.
Layered in this sequence of events is one primary mission:
Survive.
19. Lilo & Stitch
Everybody’s favourite Disney alien!
Experiment 626 is the most diabolical, chaotic and destructive specimen known to the galaxy.
Like, worse than a drunk Mel Gibson.
So bad is the little blue fur ball that it was ordered to be imprisoned for the sake of interplanetary security. That lasted for about five minutes before he escaped, crash landing somewhere in Hawaii.
Has it really been almost 20 years??
A chance encounter with lonely Lilo begins to transform both their lives. Lilo instantly falls in love with what she believes is her new dog. Dubbing him ‘Stitch’ and taking it into her life, Lilo and her sister Nani struggle to house train their alien pet.
Especially when the pet discovers his fellow ET creator has come to earth to capture and reimprison it.
18. The Fourth Kind
With the creation of The Fourth Kind was a highly underrated found footage style narrative centring around the small town of Nome, Alaska.
Abigail Tyler (Miss Mila Jovovich of Resident Evil fame) is a psychologist treating a variety of patients reporting bizarre symptoms. When all three patients recount the same white owl watching them, Abbie conducts a series of hypnotherapy sessions with them.
Quote of the movie? 'IT'S MY CHILD NOW!'
With unsettling evidence of alien encounters becoming harder to ignore, Abbie sets out to get to the bottom of the strange goings-on around town.
The 4th kind gets respect for acknowledging itself as a dramatization of true events, rather than lazily labelling itself as ‘true’ for cheap scary points.
17. Meet Dave
This is Dave. Meet Dave. Full legal name: Dave Ming Ching. Dave just smashed into the NYC water supply.
What looks like a human is actually a spaceship posing as a man. And doing a top- notch job of being a believable human being we might add…..
Dwelling inside are ETs that came to drain the Earth’s oceans of salt, to be used to rescue their home planet from a pending energy crisis.
After learning the subtle art of moving like a real person is mission number 2- reclaim misplaced alien tech posing as an innocuous metal ball.
Just find one metal ball. In New York City. How hard can it be?
16. Home
Captain Smek (Steve Martin) is the leader of the snivelly-coward race the Boov. When he discovers our little blue planet, he begins a lightning- quick takeover in an attempt to hide from their mortal enemies- the planet- destroying Gorg.
In the blink of an eye, human beings are relocated to the emptiest parts of the planets as the Boov live in our houses!
Spaceboy meets girl
When Boov member Oh (Jim Parsons) meets human girl Tip (Rihanna) it kicks off a friendship that carries them around the world and through a series of dumb mistakes.
Most notably, Oh sending Earth’s GPS details to a race known for exploding planets.
Oops.
15. Fantastic 4- The Rise Of The Silver Surfer
When an unknown silvery object enters the atmosphere and begins making huge craters around the Earth, the US government approaches Mr Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) to work out what’s going on.
During Mr Fantastic’s wedding to Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), he learns what’s going on pretty quickly,
because said silver object crashes a helicopter into the wedding guests. Prompting a 1 vs 1 showdown between Human Torch (Chris Eevans) and the named enemy- 'The Silver Surfer'
Cosmic and cool, The silver surfer is a visually stunning villain
Chaos abounds as the surfer swallows whole rivers, plays havoc with the team’s molecular structures and even frees the team’s nemesis, Dr .Doom.
Forced into an uneasy alliance with the leader of Latveria to unite against a common enemy, they play nice for the fate of all mankind.
But there’s a bigger threat lurking in the cosmos.
14.War Of The Worlds
A Spielberg smash-hit, based on the H.G Wells book of the same name.
Tom Cruise does a good spin as Ray Ferrier. Divorced, dockworking dad. On a routine drop off from his ex-Mrs, a freak lightning storm sets off an EMP in the area.
Rendering all electronics useless, he goes to investigate what happened. His world and THE world are shaken upside down by the emergence of giant underground war-machines, waking from their dormancy.
This is not a drill. This is a war machine. Run.
Rendering all electronics useless, he goes to investigate what happened. His world and THE world are shaken upside down by the emergence of giant underground war-machines, waking from their dormancy.
Single-dad problems swiftly change from ‘how do I give my kids emotional support’ to ‘how do I make sure my kids don’t get vaporized ’.
As Ray fights to survive and reunite his kids with mommy, a strange, moss-like alien compound begins growing everywhere. Things just go from bad to worse.
But on the plus side, it’s not too often anybody can relate to anything involving Tom Cruise the way we can here.
13. E.T The Extra-Terrestrial
Typically we’ve kept our selections fairly modern. But to omit one of the most famous movie aliens from this list would reduce it to a joke.
E.T, The Extraterrestrial was the world’s highest- grossing movie until Jurassic Park came along.
Young Elliot (Henry Thomas) first stumbles across the gentle, physically underwhelming alien. When he throws a baseball into a shed.
And something throws it back.
E....T.....Phone......Hoooome....
Later that evening, Elliot comes face to face with the alien visitor, deciding to entice him back to his bedroom with a trail of sweet treats.
Pulling a sickie from school the next morning, the pair become fast friends. Building a bond enhanced by ET’s near-superpowered empathy, all is great until the pair come down with a weirdly symbiotic illness and the US Government starts poking around.
12. Under The Skin
Good ol’ Sco-Jo plays alien-in-human-form Laura, in what is a solid candidate for the best acting of her career.
Laura’s mission on Earth is to select and mate with human men to send them to an alternate dimension and be a dietary supplement for an unknown species of alien.
It's not kerb-crawling, it's art!
Coming to consciousness somewhere in Glasgow, she swiftLy gets to work on this. Buying makeup and a van, she cruises the streets looking for victims, an occurrence that would be a lot more morbid-feeling if not for our alien’s sultry sweet looks.
The standout aspect of this movie is the blending of reality and story- some of the footage is of men that are not paid actors- director Jonathan Glazer squatted in the back of the van to capture these completely real interactions!
11. Star Wars Ep VII. The Force Awakens
The other Star Wars entry.
Quoted as the best of the JJ. Abrams trilogy, introducing a slew of new characters nearly 35 years after the civil war.
A new faction has risen from the empire to challenge the republic. The resistance meets this new order full- on, led by now general Leia Organa (RIP Carrie Fisher).
The Force Awakens rebooted the franchise with a fresh coat of paint and a legion of new fans
One hero suspicious in absence is the reclusive Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who nobody has seen or heard from.
As the order steps up their attacks, Leia desperately looks for her brother Luke. She’s not the only one- a mysterious new threat has his nose to the ground for the jjedi master. The race is on to find the one man believed to have the power to influence the decision of the long -waged war between good and evil.
10.Man Of Steel
Young Kal-el (Henry Cavill) is a war refugee sent from Krypton, where the traitorous Zod (Michael Shannon) staged a murderous coup for control of the codex- a Kryptonian arteifact that can ‘read’ the DNA of every Krypton IVF baby.
With it, a person could engineer the whole race anyway they wanted to. Why, an evil man could even enslave them completely!
The (Super)man, the myth, the legend
To stop Zod from getting this info, Superman’s father (Russel Crowe) places the codex in his son and rockets him to Earth.
Zod gets arrested and imprisoned, Kal-El becomes Clark Kent, everyone’s safe. Right? WRONG. .
Krypton explodes and Zod breaks free of his prison. Remembering that Superman has something he believes belongs to him, he makes it his mission to get it back.
And he’s willing to kill our hero to get it.
9. Edge Of Tomorrow
In 2015 an asteroid hit Germany, carrying a hostile race of aliens the media dubs ‘Mimics.’ That was the beginning of a war with a nigh-unbeatable alien race that has since been waged for 5 years.
Fast forward to 2020 and the mimics have spread worldwide, as well as a global military counterforce known as the united defencse force (UDF). The allies have created hi-tech mechanical war suits that have finally allowed them to take the fight to the mimics.
The 2020 war suit- for all your alien slaying needs
Enter fresh recruit William Cage (Tom Cruise).
Demoted by his commanding officer for daring to refuse combat before training, Cage’s saga takes him around the world on a mission to prepare himself to end the alien threat once and for all.
8. Alien vs Predator: Requiem
Two great titans of Sci-Fi, battling it out in the pouring rain- what’s not to love?
Set after the events of the first. The predator ship thunders back down to earth after a scuffle with the new breed of xenomorph- the Predaliens.
How to do a crossover-101
Landing in the middle of Colorado, the crash kills all but one lone predator, who manages to send a distress signal back home to veteran thing-killer, Wolf.
Wolf takes on the task of reaching Earth and slaying every last living xenomorph in the area in an attempt to honour his fallen comrades. As the Xenos wreak havoc amongst the small town of Gunnison, the townspeople find themselves in a desperate fight for survival.
7. Captive State
Set in Chicago town. A decade ago hostile contact was made by a violent alien force that changed the course of history. Not only did the aliens attack our societies, but cut to 10 years later and we learn they’ve also reorganised our relationship to the planet entirely-
We’re not top dog anymore.
In a parallel universe, David Icke was right and aliens DO rule us all!
Within the bleakness are the rumblings of an uprising and Gabriel (Ashton Summers) can feel it. Whispers of an old resistance group known as ‘Phoenix’ are shared with him by the suspicious Mulligan (an on-fire John Goodman).
Setting in motion a high stakes game of chase, it’s do or die for humanity’s chance at freedom.
6.Attack The Block
When you think about all the potential cities aliens could attack….
You’re probably thinking New York...Washington… London...
Nar mate. They chose Brixton. Probably because they saw how easy it was for Ziggy Stardust to take over (joke for the locals.)
Roadman vs alien pagans.
A routine gang mugging goes wrong when a meteorite falls from the sky onto a nearby car. Upon a quick *ahem* inventory take of the car, they chase and kill a small furry creature that came from the meteorite.
Thing is, there’s more where that came from. Bigger too.
Wanted by police for attempted mugging AND by the aliens for attempted snacks, the mandem are out on the streets, just trying to survive the night.
5. Paul
Graeme and Clive (Simon Pegg/Nick Frost respectively) are a couple of dorks that fly stateside to attend the annual comic-con, making a spontaneous choice to start a UFO hotspot tour.
Things get a little too real once they come to the aid of a crashed driver- an alien lifeform named….Paul. (Seth Rogen)
A discovery that causes Clive to collapse into a puddle of his own urine.
Spot the odd one out
Letting the diminutive ET hitchhike with the pair, Paul clues them in to the reality of the whole ‘aliens on Earth’ thing. All the while, the trio are blissfully unaware the feds are hunting them down.
When their paths collide, the race is on to get Paul back to the mothership before the government can get their paws on him. Everybody can find something enjoyable in Paul- a perfect Sci-fi entry for teenagers.
4. Arrival
Arrival bucks the trend of Sci-Fi movies of aliens with clear motivations. Indeed, the hook of Arrival isn’t in surviving them, or fighting back- it’s in communicating with them.
Linguist Louise Banks and physicist Ian Donnelly (Amy Adams/Jeremy Renner) are recruited by army Colonel G.T. Weber (Forest Whitaker) to initiate contact with an unknown alien species that landed in Montana and understand their language.
Miscommunication could cost the Earth itself in Arrival
Progress is complex- the Heptapods speak through each other’s physical contortions rather than words.
When miscommunications start to give China an itchy trigger finger global tensions mount to the point of military action.
3. Dark Skies
The Barrett couple seems fairly average on the surface- they live in a quiet slice of suburbia, have two kids and are just trying to get by financially. All things considered, pretty normal stuff.
Until a squadron of a thousand birds kamikazes into their house.
Pretty much unheard of in human history. Combine it with strange night-time occurrences and you’ve got a pretty spooky mystery.
'Dude, where's my son?'
When one of the boys starts talking about ‘the Sandman’ and rocking marks on his body by the pool, Mumma (Keri Russel) starts looking into UFO phenomena.
Enlisting the help of a local expert (J.K.Simmons) reconfirms what she already suspected- aliens have marked her family. She knows they’re coming.
She just doesn’t know when....
2. The World's End
If we can expect anything from this who’s-who Britfest, it’s that it’s probably going to be really REALLY funny.
Gary King (Simon Pegg) is an alcoholic pining for his glory days. So desperate is he to be the man again, he contacts his old school friends to get the band back together.
#UWOTM8
Together the five mates reunite for an almighty pub crawl, 23 years after their failed attempt to drag themselves through 12 of their hometown pubs.
It’s around about pub #4 where the penny drops amongst the brews that the guys are surrounded by synthetic androids and the whole town is in danger of being taken over.
But nothing’s going to stop Gary from finishing what he started.
1. Muppets In Space
Gonzo’s been different for as long as he could remember. It never really used to bother him much.
But lately, it’s getting to him. When he has a dream about being denied on board Noah's ark, it drives home just how lonely he feels.
A freak accident leads him to believe he’s an alien, but trying to convince his fellow muppets gets him nowhere.
Never trust anybody who doesn't have a favourite muppet.
Setting out with his rat buddy Rizzo, Gonzo begins a perilous journey to discover his roots. Travelling far and wide, he crosses paths with some not-so-nice government agents.
And, for some reason, Hulk Hogan. This is a good movie brother!
That's it for our list of top 50 best alien movies we love.
But don’t worry, we got more content. Don’t thank us. It’s what we do.
You may also be interested in:
- The 31 Best Sci fi Horror Movies To Watch Right Now
- Top 17 Best Sci fi Movies of 2018
- All the Alien Movies, And Our Rating for Each
- Top 50 Best Alien Movies We Love
- How to Host the Perfect Movie Night
- 10 Best Alien Invasion Games You Should Play
- Do Aliens Really Exist? Here's Proof They Are Among Us
- Top 10 Aliens That Were Spotted In Real Life
- Top 10 Alien Evidence That Show Us They Really Exist
- [Top 20] Alien Shooter Games With Great Gameplay
