Alien (1979)

Curiosity can be a deadly thing when no one tells you what you're really looking for. Ridley Scott's "Alien," written by Dan O'Bannon, follows the seven weary crew members of the Nostromo, a grimy commercial towing ship hauling ore back to Earth, who are awakened early from deep sleep by the ship's computer after it picks up a mysterious signal from a nearby planet. Bound by company rules to investigate, they make a rough landing, and the captain (Tom Skerritt) leads two officers (John Hurt and Veronica Cartwright) across the storm-swept surface to a vast derelict alien spacecraft, where they find a giant fossilized pilot and a chamber filled with strange eggs. Meanwhile, Sigourney Weaver's warrant officer, Ripley, realizes the signal is not a distress call, but a warning. When one of the eggs hatches and a creature attaches itself to the face of Hurt's character, Ripley insists on keeping the explorers outside under quarantine, but the ship's science officer (Ian Holm) overrides her and lets them in. It's the start of a terrifying nightmare, leading to an infamous dinner scene and a creature that grows rapidly and hunts the crew one by one through the ship's dark corridors and air vents, with acid for blood that makes it nearly impossible to fight. As the crew dwindles, Ripley discovers a shocking secret about the company's real orders and must fight to survive, with only the ship's cat for company. Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton co-star, and Jerry Goldsmith supplies the eerie score. H.R. Giger's nightmarish creature design and the film's visual effects won an Oscar, and it launched a long-running franchise.