Aliens

The approach has felled others since, but James Cameron’s scaled-up 1986 sequel to Ridley Scott’s shocker makes brilliant work of a brusque formula: preserve what works and multiply. A subtle, spooky movie with teeth becomes a subtlety-bashing war movie.

With Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and motherly themes thrust forwards, Cameron also aces the horror, using a flashed-up ‘proximity alert’ as his inspired cue for various shockingly sudden accurate encounters. Factor in some ageless model work and no-flab scripting, and it’s like the man says: state of the terrible-ass art.