Alien (1979)

The Alien film series was characterized by the tagline "No One Can Hear You Scream in Space." While Alien is a "monster in the house" horror feature, here the house is a spaceship and the monster is a mouth-tongued beastie that lays eggs and uses people's chests as doors, it was Ridley Scott's film that first pitted Warrant Officer Ripley against the acid-bleeding xenomorph.

The joy here is that science fiction is more realistic than Star Trek or Star Wars, which makes the horrors feel more urgent and real. In the future, ships resemble oil derricks rather than Enterprise. Putting a blue-collar crew in the heart of our first truly great "monster in space" film spawned a new subgenre of the genre, which Hollywood has milked with mixed results ever since.

Both the filmmaker and the main lady's careers were revolutionized by Alien. It introduced one of the best creatures ever seen in a film. It also reminded us how fantastic the genre can be when it blends superb narrative with novel ideas. And tongues in the mouth.

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt
Runtime: 117 mins