Alien movies always made us wonder if there is another life in the universe? Aliens, also called extraterrestrials, are one of the favorite subjects of science fiction movies. No wonder because they stimulate the imagination. What would they look like? And are they friendly or bloodthirsty? Aliens with their often spectacular spaceships play an important role in a number of legendary films.
What are some awesome alien movies?
In this list, there will be no movies where aliens are the normal course of events. So no Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, and so on.
Independence Day
Independence Day (1996) tells the story of a large-scale invasion by aliens. It soon becomes clear that these visitors have few good intentions. For example, they blow up the White House in a spectacular way. The American president can barely escape and tries to counterattack. The impressive ships of the aliens are protected by a force field so that nuclear weapons have no effect. A ruse has to be devised before they take over the Earth for good.
Predator
Predator (1987) is a fine blend of action and science fiction. The leading role is for Arnold Schwarzenegger who fires a number of classic one-liners in addition to a lot of muscle tone. As a Dutchman, Schwarzenegger has to liberate a captured minister from a camp in the jungle with a commando team in Guatemala.
The mission seems to be successful but the minister nowhere to be found. Dutch and his team retreat through the jungle to be picked up. On their journey through the jungle, they are followed by a mysterious creature. Using a camouflage suit, the alien attacks the soldiers one by one. He seems invincible until they discover that the alien has been wounded. It leads to Arnie’s legendary words: “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
In 1982 Steven Spielberg found a way to tell the now standard story of extraterrestrials. E.T.
It is the touching story of an alien left on Earth. A little boy finds the creature and a beautiful friendship comes to existence. But E.T. can’t last long on Earth and gets sick. He has to make contact with his homeworld. This leads to the famous words: “E.T. phone home.”
This is without a doubt one of my favorite alien movies.
Alien
The title of this grim film from 1979 leaves little to the imagination: this is one of the essential films about extraterrestrials.
A spaceship receives a signal from a planet after which the crew goes to investigate. They find a crashed spaceship. One of the crew members is then attacked by a creature clinging to his face. Back on their ship, it becomes clear that the creature has reproduced itself in its victim and is hungry. Never before has an alien been so ruthless and bloodthirsty as in Alien. The success of the film would lead to a number of interesting sequels.
Arrival
The ‘arrival’ in question involves a dozen or so intimidatingly large spaceships that arrive completely unexpectedly at seemingly random locations all over the globe. The panic is huge as their reason to be on earth is unknown.
Villeneuve, however, does not care about the Big Questions, he searches for answers on a smaller scale. Starting with simple questions like ‘who are you?’ and ‘what do you want here? It’s up to linguist Louise Banks, together with a shooting enthusiast military device and suspicious government agents, to get answers from the aliens. This is a difficult task, because the visitors have neither physical nor linguistic anything in common with humans.
Lilo & Stitch
You might not have expected this one, but it is also one of the best alien movies to enjoy!
Lilo lives on the Hawaiian island of Kauai with her big sister Nani. They lost their parents and Nani now has custody of her sister Lilo. After a not so successful visit from social worker Bubbles, there is more and more pressure on Nani to create a stable environment for her sister, otherwise, Lilo will be placed out of the house.
One day Experiment 626 arrives on Earth, a space creature that escaped the United Galactic Federation and crashed on Earth. Experiment 626 was designed by the extraterrestrial scientist Dr. Jumba and designed to automatically cause as much damage and destruction as possible. The beast ends up in a shelter where he is bought by Lilo, who thinks he is a dog. Lilo lovingly takes Experiment 626 home with him and gives him the name Stitch.
Venom
Strikingly enough, Venom itself, visually speaking, seems to have walked out of the comic books like this. The jet-black monster comes from space, brought by a group of astronauts (including the son of J. Jonah Jameson, in a kind of masked easter egg).
Contrary to the skinny dude from Spider-Man 3, this version of Venom is impressive, slimy, a bit strange, and has a terrifying raw voice. Tom Hardy has already shown his talent for a special or humming voice in The Dark Knight Rises and Mad Max: Fury Road. This time he’s had some help from Venom’s sound designers, but the scenes where Brock and Venom talk to each other are really highlights thanks to his acting and voice work.
Men in Black
Talking about alien in movies, everyone know this one!
K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) are part of a secret organization, better known as the Men in Black, that monitors extraterrestrial life on Earth, but also protects mankind from the imminent danger that is constantly present.
When a giant alien cockroach comes to Manhattan to subdue the world’s population, J and K are called in to stop this dangerous creature.
Movie Review – Men in Black
District 9
Neill Blomkamp quite understandably situated in his hometown Johannesburg in South Africa. The city harbors a mixture of different cultures and therefore lends itself perfectly to the reception of an extraterrestrial company.
And it has to be said: we have never seen science fiction like this before. Whereas large unwieldy spaceships usually only call at metropolises like New York, here we see one floating above a dusty slum.
The question is how we as humans would react if there were suddenly a million alien refugees on our doorstep. sketches an image in which the helpless aliens are transferred to the makeshift refugee camp from the title. It is therefore impossible to overlook the metaphor, because no country is more strongly associated with apartheid and ethnic problems than South Africa.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Five years before Steven Spielberg had a box office hit with the child-friendly ‘E.T: The Extra Terrestrial’, he wrote and directed the much more mature and complex ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. His fascination for the universe, he says, comes from an unhappy childhood. In the biography of Tony Crawley, Spielberg let it be known that he is always looking for ways to escape. With his first great science fiction classic, Spielberg offers the viewer a way to escape from every day worries. The film slowly but surely gets under your skin and has become an intriguing and fascinating piece of art, in which you gradually but irrevocably forget your surroundings.
In ‘CE3K’, as the informal title of the film reads, we are introduced to Roy Neary, an electrician, who is sent out one evening by his employer because of a major power failure. Soon it turns out what caused this, mysterious lights appear in the sky and everything is tilt. Roy sits in his car when he realizes what he is witnessing, he sees several UFOs. Thanks to the meeting with the single mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her son Barry (Cary Guffey), he manages to keep his wits about him – despite being declared a fool by his whole environment.
Some even consider this one to be the best of all the alien movies.
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