After receiving a distress signal, the commercial spacecraft Nostromo lands on an uninhabited moon, where the crew finds the wreck of an alien spaceship. When a creature attaches itself to a ship’s officer, the crew takes it back on board. The alien turns out to be extremely robust and aggressive. And it continues to grow. One by one, it decimates the crew until only the female officer Ripley survives ... Alien marked the start of modern, “adult” science fiction films. In a counterpoint to the “clean look” of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the film envisaged a dingy, loud and “run-down” future. H.R. Giger’s Oscar-winning design for the armoured and slimy giant reptile was a decisive influence on future film creatures. Alien also broke the glass ceiling on female action heroes. That, along with Ripley’s phallic adversary, male “pregnancy”, and an all-knowing command computer dubbed “Mother” provided fodder for a psychoanalytic interpretation previously unknown in the genre. Since then, extraterrestrial onscreen villains have effectively been considered a reflection of human deprivation and repression. The film itself “gave birth” to three official sequels (1986 – 1997), two prequels (2012, 2017), and numerous unauthorized imitations.