Aliens are never far from the pop culture hive mind. It makes sense that audiences would turn to the skies in the 21st century: a time of existential ennui that’s left many screaming for escape and wondering “What else?” But where the enduring nostalgia of “E.T.” or the effortless charm of “Earth Girls Are Easy” might have made emotional contact in the past, a burning need to really feel something has festered.
The scariest alien movies terrify in many of the same ways the scariest earth-bound horror movies do: building (and sometimes killing) likable characters; producing otherworldly visual displays with seriously grim implications; getting the jump scares, if applicable, timed just right; and daring to put the unimaginably terrible on screen. Alien flicks further distinguish themselves through the subgenre’s unparalleled ability to explore the unknown, conjuring up heinous fates for humans so sweepingly sadistic few other films can attempt them.
Director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s “The Fourth Kind” enumerates the taxonomy of human-alien interactions well: “They have different categories for these types of things, different levels. An encounter of the first kind, that’s when you see a UFO. The second kind is when you see evidence of it: crop circles or radiation. The third kind is when you make contact. But the fourth kind: there is nothing more frightening than the fourth. That one is when they abduct you.”
John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, M. Night Shyamalan, James Gunn, and Jordan Peele are among the Hollywood heavyweights who have set their twisted imaginations to actually creating these encounters for the big screen. Along the way, these filmmakers have made salient points about human nature, questioning what we owe to one another in the face of certain doom.
Ranging from the disturbingly goofy (“Bad Taste,” “Slither,” “Mars Attacks!”) to the menacingly mean (“Alien,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Nope”), here are the 27 scariest alien movies ever made. To keep things interesting, two restrictions apply: (1) only one movie per franchise and (2) it’s the remake or original.
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27. “The Faculty” (1998)
Image Credit: ©Dimension Films/Courtesy Everett Collection If you’ve ever thought your high school teachers weren’t from planet Earth, “The Faculty” is here to confirm your suspicions. Robert Rodriguez’s underrated horror film stars an extremely ’90s cast of ringers (Jordana Brewster! Clea DuVall! Elijah Wood! Josh Hartnett! Usher!?) as a ragtag group of students of Herrington High School who become the last resistance against an army of alien parasites taking over the school’s teachers and principals. Said faculty is played by another absurd cast of ringers, including Bebe Neuwirth as the principal, Salma Hayek, Piper Laurie, Famke Janssen, and Jon Stewart. The film’s smartass dialogue (Kevin Williamson of “Scream” fame was behind the screenplay) makes it more funny than scary. However, the film still has plenty of scares and is smart about how it uses its central parasitic villains as a vehicle to explore teenage isolation, conformity, and alienation. —WC
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26. “Attack the Block” (2011)
Image Credit: ©Screen Gems/Courtesy Everett Collection Before John Boyega was palling around with Chewbacca in a galaxy far, far away, he was fighting aliens in an apartment building very, very close by. Joe Cornish’s acclaimed directorial debut “Attack the Block” stars Boyega as teen gang leader Moses, whose stoic demeanor masks a heart of pure gold. He gets the chance to showcase that heart of gold one night when — during a mugging of nurse Samantha (Jodie Whitaker) — a meteorite falls from the sky containing a dog-like alien with glowing green fangs. What first seems to be one easily killed pest turns into many others, as more meteorites hit, and Samantha and Moses become the unlikely first defense against a full-blown alien invasion. “Attack the Block” has a simple premise, but it’s uplifted by the movie’s lived-in South London trappings, Cornish’s thrilling and suspenseful direction, and Boyega’s charismatic, star-making performance. —WC
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25. “District 9” (2009)
Image Credit: ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Humans are the real monsters in “District 9,” director Neill Blomkamp’s sobering sci-fi imagining of crustraceous aliens rounded up and placed in rundown encampments in the filmmaker’s home country of South Africa. It’s a hamfisted (hamclawed?) metaphor for Apartheid, yes. But it’s also a bleakly realistic consideration of what could plausibly happen should aliens make themselves known to our historically volatile species: one that tragically flips the script and seriously consider Earth as a threat to the universe.
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24. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Spoiler alert: Steven Spielberg’s alien visitation classic isn’t ultimately scary in context, instead telling a peaceful tale of exploration. Still, the legendary director’s beautifully rendered 1977 alien drama — starring “Jaws” actor Richard Dreyfuss as a man who witnesses a UFO — is intensely immersive, and includes some particularly scary scenes for younger viewers. Yes, it’s mostly flashing lights and silhouettes of little alien dudes. But a certain toddler sucked out of a certain dog door also comes to mind.
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23. “Mars Attacks!” (1996)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection Tim Burton brings a zany, noto-for-everyone, B-movie touch to this colorfully crafted Ed Wood knockoff-turned-cult classic, featuring a star-studded cast with Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Jack Black, Sarah Jessica Parker, Danny DeVito, and more. The “Mars Attacks!” Martians are abjectly offputting in their apperance, with that, uh, exposed brain situation going on. But beyond that, they’re freaky for the fiendish enjoyment they seem to get from our demise, like goons just out for laugh. “Nice planet, we’ll take it!”
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22. “Save Yourselves!” (2020)
Image Credit: © Bleecker Street Media / Courtesy Everett Collection There’s an almost sea-urchin like menace to the unassuming pouffes that descend on Earth in co-writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s zippy “Save Yourselves!” The perfectly cast John Reynolds and Sunita Mani star as a Brooklyn couple, who at first mistake the alien invaders — with the ability to levitate, spear-like tongues, and more at their disposal — for furniture. Big mistake.
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21. “Starship Troopers” (1997)
Image Credit: TriStar Pictures/Everett Collection Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” is disturbing, sure, but biting satire remains the movie’s main selling point. Casper Van Dien stars as Johnny Rico, a soldier fighting for all of humanity’s military in an epic battle against an alien foe known as The Arachnids. This 1997 flick kicked off a five film franchise.
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20. “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” (1988)
Image Credit: Everett Collection “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” will be most irksome to viewers with a fear of clowns — or “coulrophobia.” But rest assured, there’s something to make everybody squirm in Stephen Chiodo’s sickeningly silly 1988 horror comedy about circus performer-esque aliens landing on planet Earth. “What are you gonna do with those pies, boys?”
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19. “Village of the Damned” (1960)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Boasting one of the more interesting premises in alien horror, Wolf Rilla’s “Village of the Damned” is a black-and-white thriller that starts with 10 women miraculously conceiving a batch of alien babies. The pale blonde creatures they give birth to anchor a petrifying invasion plot and one of horror’s most illustrious hidden gems.
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18. “Predator” (1987)
Image Credit: 20th Century/Everett Collection Arnold Schwarzenegger goes toe-to-toe with the titular apex antagonist in director John McTiernan’s original “Predator.” While on a rescue mission in Central America, Major Dutch Schaefer must outmaneuver a guns-blazing alien hunter despite still being surrounded by human enemies on all sides. Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Shane Black, Richard Chaves, and more also appear.
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17. “10 Cloverfield Lane” (2016)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection Dan Trachtenberg’s claustrophobic “10 Cloverfield Lane” stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle, a young woman who wakes up in a bunker after having been saved by a man (John Goodman) and his son (John Gallagher Jr.) during the alien apocalypse. That’s what they told her, anyway.
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16. “They Live” (1988)
Image Credit: Universal/Everett Collection In John Carpenter’s “They Live,” aimless drifter-turned-action hero Nada (Roddy Piper) acquires a pair of sunglasses that let him see alien invaders hiding among humanity’s highest ranks. Nada’s quest to unmask these brain-washing parasites fuels both searing political commentary and some of the funniest Carpenter lines ever written. (“I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass — and I’m all out of bubble gum.”)
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15. “Under the Skin” (2014)
Image Credit: A24/Everett Collection Scarlett Johansson stars in Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” an eerily understated sci-fi flick from A24. Set in Glasgow, the meandering drama may not be scary in the traditional jump-scare sense, but its melancholy portrait of humanity is one of the bleakest outings in alien cinema to date.
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14. “Prince of Darkness” (1987)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Everett Collection A spiritual successor to “The Thing,” this 1987 John Carpenter movie infuses religious horror with alien elements to produce a one-of-a-kind nightmare. When a canister of mysterious liquid is found by a Catholic priest (Donald Pleasence) in a monastery, he recruits a professor (Victor Wong) and his students to help. “Prince of Darkness” isn’t traditional alien horror but creates a biblically inspired story world too unsettling to not include.
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13. “A Quiet Place” (2018)
Image Credit: Jonny Cournoyer/Paramount Pictures/Everett Collections Directed by and starring John Krasinski, alongside wife Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe, “A Quiet Place” imagines a world in which vicious extraterrestrial predators come to Earth to hunt humans only by sound. The film follows one family’s fight to survive.
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12. “Species” (1995)
Image Credit: MGM/Everett Collection Natasha Henstridge makes her feature debut as Sil, a perilously seductive alien humanoid looking to mate with a male host in Roger Donaldson’s “Species.” This 1995 sci-fi horror is basically “Fatal Attraction” combined with “Alien” (assuming you swap bunny boiling for a relentless desire to harvest genetic material). Be sure to at least check out the jacuzzi kill in this one.
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11. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978)
Image Credit: United Artists/Everett Collection Previously adapted by Don Siegel for his black-and-white film from 1956, Jack Finney’s “The Body Snatchers” novel gets a surge of chilling new scares in director Philip Kaufman’s 1978 horror heavyweight. Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, and more appear in this surprisingly fantastic remake about parasitic hosts who first arrive looking like flowers, before taking on the apperances of the ones we love.
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10. “Signs” (2002)
Image Credit: Frank Masi/Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collections M. Night Shyamalan delivers one hell of a jump scare in “Signs.” (You know the one.) Centered on a small family living in rural Pennsylvania, this slow-burn invasion thriller goes from the mysterious appearance of crop circles around the globe to the merciless destruction of humanity’s home as we know it.
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9. “War of the Worlds” (2005)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection Tom Cruise and 10-year-old Dakota Fanning ground Steven Spielberg’s sweeping remake of the original 1953 film, based on the 1938 radio drama that changed science fiction forever. When the first Tripod lands in Brooklyn, you won’t know what hit you. “War of the Worlds” was nominated for Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects at that year’s Oscars.
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8. “V/H/S/2” (2013)
Image Credit: Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection A nasty brother-sister prank war turns into a night of otherworldly terror in the last act of “V/H/S/2,” the first sequel in the found footage horror anthology series. Directed by Jason Eisener (“Hobo with a Shotgun”), “Alien Abduction Slumber Party” would feel familiar, if it wasn’t framed as having been filmed almost entirely by a camcorder strapped to a dog. Brace yourself for the ending on this one.
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7. “Bad Taste” (1987)
Image Credit: Everett Collection If you haven’t yet fallen for the goofy-gory charm of “Bad Taste,” then you’re missing out on one of the better Peter Jackson deep-cuts available. When an entire town goes missing, special agents discover a race of aliens harvesting humans for an intergalactic fast-food chain. Sloppy and slapstick, Jackson’s debut is lovably low-budget and famously features the filmmaker fighting himself in a scene on a cliff.
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6. “The Fourth Kind” (2009)
Image Credit: Simon Vesrano/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection Starring Milla Jovovich as an actor reenacting the self-reported abduction of psychologist Dr. Abbey Tyler (Charlotte Milchard), “The Fourth Kind” is a fake documentary that makes clever use of found footage tropes, jump scares, and intentional ambiguity. The scariest element of writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s 2009 horror outing: the possibility that a person could be abducted without knowing it.
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5. “Slither” (2006)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Everett Collection Michael Rooker, Elizabeth Banks, and Nathan Fillion lead James Gunn’s repulsive and ridiculous “Slither.” Easily the grossest title of this ranking, the 2006 horror comedy unleashes mind-altering alien parasites on a South Carolina town. Goop and guts are splattered across a lot of this body horror-heavy movie, but it’s the implications that come with those injuries that will really bother you.
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4. “Nope” (2022)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Everett Collection The experience of seeing Jordan Peele’s nail-biting spectacle of a film is best captured by its title: “Nope.” When Hollywood horse rancher OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) spots something strange in the sky, his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) begins a mission that drives the rest of this delightfully disgusting, stupidly scary, generally excellent horror hoedown. Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott also appear.
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3. “The Thing” (1982)
Image Credit: Universal/Everett Collection John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is kind of like an espionage drama if you swap the international intelligence community for a remote research post in Antarctica and the search for a mole with the hunt for an alien parasite. Kurt Russell stars in what’s arguably his best role (sexy Santa notwithstanding) as pilot R.J. Macready, a cunning hero almost overwhelmed by terror. From freaky practical effects-fueled mutations to that blood test scene, this 1982 flick is a staple of sci-fi excellence with the scares to match.
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2. “Alien” (1979)
Image Credit: 20th Century/Everett Collection All eight installments of the infamous xenomorph franchise are scary in totally different ways. (You can read IndieWire’s complete franchise ranking here.) Still, nothing beats the chest-bursting anxiety of Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” Aboard the spaceship Nostromo, warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the rest of her crew pick up an unwelcome stowaway. The 1979 film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and includes one of the most ominous cliffhangers in sci-fi film.
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1. “Fire in the Sky” (1993)
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection Featuring what is hands down the scariest alien abduction scene ever made, Robert Lieberman’s “Fire in the Sky” examines the quintessential sci-fi kidnapping from two angles: the tortured worry of the those left behind, seen in family man and devoted friend Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick); and the unbelievable agony of the one taken away, captured in this harrowing adaption of Travis Walton’s (D.B. Sweeney) real-life claimed abduction account from 1975.
