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Best Alien life-form Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of alien life-form cinema — measured across 1,336 indexed frames from 16 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Alien life-form films over-index on spacecraft, astronaut and alien — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Moonfall (2022)

    Roland EmmerichDP Robby BaumgartnerIMDb 5.2TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler is convinced she has the key to saving us all - but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman believe her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find that they just might have prepared for the wrong mission.

  2. 2

    Alien: Romulus (2024)

    Fede ÁlvarezDP Galo OlivaresIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 2142, at the Jackson colony, Rain Carradine lives with her synthetic "brother" Andy that was reprogrammed by her father with the prime directive to protect her after the death of her parents. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation that administrates the colony forces the colonists to stay in Jackson prolonging the contracts of miners and farmers keeping them like slaves. When Rain's ex-boyfriend Tyler has his contract extended by the corporation, he convinces Rain to join his team, formed by his sister Kay, who is secretly pregnant, their cousin Bjorn and his sister Navarro, who is adopted, to travel to an abandoned station to flee to the planet Yvaga. They need Andy to interact with the computer system and they also need to recover the stasis chambers of the suspended animation for a nine-year trip to Yvaga. They go to the station and Andy and Bjorn realize that the chambers need cryogenic fuel for the trip. They go with Andy and accidentally unleash alien creatures, and there is a lockdown of the section. Rain uses the chip of the synthetic Rook that is damaged to update Andy to have access to all the functions of the station, but he becomes loyal to Weyland-Yutani Corporation and Rain is relegated to a second plane. But soon the creatures attack one by one of the Rain's friends. Will someone survive the alien creatures?

  3. 3

    Alien: Covenant (2017)

    Ridley ScottDP Dariusz WolskiIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 2104, almost eleven years after the ill-fated expedition to the distant moon LV-223 in Prometheus (2012), the deep-space colonisation vessel USCSS Covenant is on course for the remote planet Origae-6. Carrying over 2,000 colonists in cryogenic hibernation, they seek to build a new world. Instead, a rogue transmission entices the crew to a nearby habitable planet that resembles Earth. But nothing can prepare the ambitious crew for another disaster in uncharted territory. As the peaceful exploratory operation turns into a frantic rescue mission, biological foes beyond human comprehension threaten the future before it has even begun. In the depths of space, terror reveals its hideous face. Has anyone ever set foot on the mysterious planet and lived to tell the tale?

  4. 4

    The Fifth Element (1997)

    Luc BessonDP Thierry ArbogastIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the twenty-third century, the universe is threatened by evil. The only hope for mankind is the Fifth Element, who comes to Earth every five thousand years to protect the humans with four stones of the four elements: fire, water, Earth and air. A Mondoshawan spacecraft is bringing The Fifth Element back to Earth but it is destroyed by the evil Mangalores. However, a team of scientists use the DNA of the remains of the Fifth Element to rebuild the perfect being called Leeloo. She escapes from the laboratory and stumbles upon the taxi driver and former elite commando Major Korben Dallas that helps her to escape from the police. Leeloo tells him that she must meet Father Vito Cornelius to accomplish her mission. Meanwhile, the Evil uses the greedy and cruel Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg and a team of mercenary Mangalores to retrieve the stones and avoid the protection of Leeloo. But the skilled Korben Dallas has fallen in love with Leeloo and decides to help her to retrieve the stones.

  5. 5

    The Abyss (1989)

    James CameronDP Mikael SalomonIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    A civilian oil rig crew is recruited to conduct a search and rescue effort when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. One diver soon finds himself on a spectacular odyssey 25,000 feet below the ocean's surface where he confronts a mysterious force that has the power to change the world or destroy it.

  6. 6

    Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

    James CameronDP Russell CarpenterIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, learn the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.

  7. 7

    Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

    Steven SpielbergDP Vilmos ZsigmondIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Two parallel stories are told. In the first, a group of research scientists from a variety of backgrounds are investigating the strange appearance of items in remote locations, primarily desert regions. In continuing their investigation, one of the lead scientists, a Frenchman named Claude Lacombe, incorporates the Kodály method of music education as a means of communication in their work. The response, in turn, at first baffles the researchers, until American cartographer David Laughlin deciphers the meaning of the response. In the second, electric company lineman and family man Roy Neary and single mother Jillian Guiler are among some individuals in Muncie, Indiana who experience some paranormal activity before some flashes of bright lights in the sky, which they believe to be a UFO. Roy becomes obsessed with what he saw, unlike some others, especially in some form of authority, who refuse to acknowledge their belief that it was a UFO in not wanting to appear crazy. That obsession both for Roy and Jillian is ratcheted up a notch when they begin to have a vision of a mound with vertical striations on its side as a key to what is going on. While the obsession negatively affects Roy's life as he knows it in its entirety, Jillian knows she has to find the answer as to its meaning, especially as it relates to her only child, three year old Barry Guiler, who may be more attuned to what is happening than the adult figures around him. These two stories have the potential to intersect if Roy and Jillian can discover where they've seen that mound before, and if they can overcome what they believe to be the lies perpetrated by those in authority in covering up what is going on.

  8. 8

    Fantastic Planet (1973)

    René LalouxDP Boris BaromykinIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Slaves and masters dominate the narrative of the faraway world of Ygam. Set around the lifespan of Terr, a minute human shaped Om slave, and pet, of the giant blue alien Draags. Escaping into the wilderness and with a device used for intellectual advancement of the Draags, Terr finds refuge and support from fellow Oms and using the learning tool, he finds that knowledge is power and then sets to use the new found knowledge to revolt against the Draag masters...

  9. 9

    The Thing (1982)

    John CarpenterDP Dean CundeyIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    A US research station, Antarctica, early-winter 1982. The base is suddenly buzzed by a helicopter from the nearby Norwegian research station. They are trying to kill a dog that has escaped from their base. After the destruction of the Norwegian chopper the members of the US team fly to the Norwegian base, only to discover them all dead or missing. They do find the remains of a strange creature the Norwegians burned. The Americans take it to their base and deduce that it is an alien life form. After a while it is apparent that the alien can take over and assimilate into other life forms, including humans, and can spread like a virus. This means that anyone at the base could be inhabited by The Thing, and tensions escalate.

  10. 10

    Venom (2018)

    Ruben FleischerDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Investigative journalist Eddie Brock attempts a comeback following a scandal, but accidentally becomes the host of Venom, a violent, super powerful alien symbiote. Soon, he must rely on his newfound powers to protect the world from a shadowy organization looking for a symbiote of their own.

What alien life-form films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a alien life-form frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — spacecraft is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • spacecraft32.0×
  • astronaut30.8×
  • alien25.9×
  • flight suit23.6×
  • creature11.3×
  • metal wall9.1×
  • control panel9.0×
  • headset8.7×

How alien life-form films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate alien life-form from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 26%dayvs 43% baseline
  • 31%naturalvs 44% baseline
  • 54%low keyvs 39% baseline
  • 56%nightvs 42% baseline
  • 25%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,336 frames from 16 films carrying the alien life-form label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/alien-life-form

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used