Film: Alien

Alien

Astonishing and terrifying landmark of science-fiction horror that signalled science-fiction movies were no longer just for kids.

Where the British are concerned, science fiction is never far from horror, as amply demonstrated in Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking interstellar shocker. Bloodthirsty, brilliantly designed and uncompromisingly tense, Alien remoulded how the future looks - and feels. It’s visually sumptuous - though not in the gleaming, optimistic technophilic mode that had gone before. Instead, Scott depicts a barely functional, decrepit vision of a corporatised future full of cynical employees and creaking freight ships.

Using an ensemble of character actors rather than a clutch of big names, Scott’s film denies the audience the comfort of knowing who will next fall prey to the vicious, shape-changing extraterrestrial. The film was a huge success, turning Sigourney Weaver into a star, spawning three sequels (as well as the comic book, video game and movie franchise for the Alien vs Predator cross-over) and establishing science-fiction horror movies as a significant subgenre. It also boasts one of movie history’s most famous scenes, involving acute indigestion and a terrible case of the space worms.