The best alien movies of all time

After over a decade, Avatar will finally get a sequel later this year with The Way of Water. But James Cameron’s original movie remains a wonder to behold, especially in 3D. Sam Worthington headlines the film as Jake Sully, a crippled Marine who gets a second chance to serve as part of the Avatar program on the planet Pandora. In his new remote-controlled body, Jake is sent to earn the trust of the native Na’vi people. But through his relationship with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Jake comes to the sobering revelation that he has been on the wrong side the entire time. And it may be too late to save Pandora from his superior officer, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

In his feature film debut, Neill Blomkamp crafted one of the most enduring alien movies of the 21st century. The film imagines a world where an alien spaceship hovered over Johannesburg during the late stages of South Africa’s era of apartheid, presenting issues such as segregation and xenophobia. Blomkamp’s film approached the subject matter through the lens of found footage, and this may be the best use of the technique ever. It puts viewers on the ground, allowing us to experience the best and worst of humanity without being able to withdraw from the moment. Many of the best alien films come from the 20th century — this might be the best one from the 21st.

Director Edgar Wright began his Cornetto Trilogy with a send-up of the zombie genre (Shaun of the Dead), continued it with an action parody (Hot Fuzz), and surprised everyone by finishing it off with The World’s End which, while certainly having a lot of fun with alien-invasion movies, doesn’t have quite as high a parody percentage as the earlier films. For a significant chunk of The World’s End, the film works as nothing more than a funny but poignant dramedy. Stuck in the “glory days” of his youth, Gary (Simon Pegg) recruits his four old friends to return to their hometown of Newton Haven in order to complete the Golden Mile — a visit to each of the town’s 12 pubs with at least one beer downed at each stop, concluding at The World’s End. All of Gary’s friends have moved on with their lives, especially Andy (Nick Frost), who went sober years before. Just as they’re all about to abandon Gary’s fool’s errand, a fight in a men’s room reveals almost all of Newton Haven’s residents have been replaced with aliens, and the movie turns into an entirely different animal. Just as brilliant and funny as Wright’s other films, The World’s End is mandatory viewing.

The line that tells us exactly what’s at the heart of Men in Black is when Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) tells Jay (Will Smith), “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe, 500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Men in Black was one of the most anticipated films of 1997, and with good reason. The movie turns the infamous villains of UFO conspiracy theories into heroes, plucked from the ranks of soldiers and cops who are not only good in combat but who know how to look at the world in unexpected ways. Jones and Smith have perfect chemistry, coupled with gorgeous special effects that still stand up today. Men in Black‘s growing number of follow-ups gave fans not quite as much quality, but the first chapter is pretty much perfect.

The 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the most unnerving alien invasion stories ever told. Instead of taking humanity out by force, the aliens strike while people are sleeping and replace them with seemingly perfect duplicates whose only defect is that they cannot fake human emotions. Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is among the few who realize the truth far too late to stop the aliens. Regardless, Matthew and his friends do their best to survive. The film’s ending is legendary for its final twist, and horrifying for its implications.