Alien

Rating ****/*****, or 9/10

Disturbing and claustrophobic space horror. The crew of the commerical towing space vessel Nostromo is sent to answer a distress call originating from a barren world, where they find a derelict extra-terrestrial vessel inhabited by a lone alien corpse long dead that ought to be a warning of the terrors to come. One of their party is subdued and impregnated by an alien parasite, after which a monstrous creature hatches from his chest in a graphic bloody manner and starts picking off the crew one by one. To make matters worse, there's a corporate agent in their midst who has been ordered to keep the alien alive and take it back to Earth for scientific study. Ridley Scott's breakthrough science fiction chiller is as powerfully scary today as it was over three decades ago. Also the movie that launched Sigourney Weaver to stardom thanks to her performance as the 'last man standing', except she's a woman, which at this time was still mostly unheard of in this type of film. The bizarre Alien creature (dubbed a 'xenomorph' in following sequels), a courtesy of master of grotesqueries H.R.Giger, still rules on an unsurpassed design level all its own, as do the evocative, sexually charged environments of the derelict and the iconic dead Space Jockey, as well as the realistic, claustrophobic 'used future' corridors of the Nostromo vessel.

Starring: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm

Directed by Ridley Scott

USA: 20^th Century Fox, 1979