It’s easy to be uncreative and unoriginal when it comes to alien films. The formula is simple — Alien = Bad.

The mind-bending thing about sci-fi is that there’s room for nuance. Just as we humans are rarely a binary of good or bad, aliens ought not be depicted in that light in film and literature.

In this wildly subjective and biased list, I’m sharing what I think are the top five alien movies worth your time.

1. Arrival (2016)

Adapted from Ted Chiang’s short story Story of Your Life, I love how the film plays with temporal displacement, and breaks from the well-worn alien invader tropes. It stays relatively true to Chiang’s story, and retains the spirit of the heartbreaking plot.

2. Starship Troopers (1997)

It’s a glossy, ridiculous movie, with a darkly rich undercurrent of anti-authoritarian sentiment. An allegory on the futility of war, the power of state-run media, wrapped in satire and gratuitous alien violence.

3. Ender’s Game (2013)

Based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card, I feel like this is an under-rated film. It’s a deeply unsettling watch, which speaks to the demonisation of the other, and the manipulation of a child soldier in the fight against an unseen alien force.

4. The Fifth Element (1997)

The aliens are a force for good in this vivid and dream-like film by Luc Besson. Following the Fifth Element , personified by Leeloo, it’s an adventurous story that is filled with well-written characters, and a fun plot. I don’t know if the 90s would have been the same for me without this film.

5. District 9 (2009)

Set in an uncannily familiar world, District 9 features the Prawns, an alien species who are refugees in modern Johannesburg. This unapologetically violent film is a cutting critique of race relations in both South African, and broader western societies. With a wonderfully ironic plot twist, this movie is unforgettable.

I'm Shaun Hughston, and Recursive Thread is a space for my original writing, essays, and reviews of novels, short stories, movies and TV shows.

My main interest is in speculative fiction, but I'll read just about anything with a great story. I'm not tied to any genre, period or author. By far, my favourite writer is Ted Chiang, but I'm (almost) just as happy reading Thomas Hardy, Arundhati Roy, or John le Carré.

My own work tends towards the speculative, and I enjoy writing about familiar times and places that have elements of the uncanny, and uncomfortable. I'm not religious, but I am interested in religion, so it's something that comes up in my writing, alongside technological, and dystopian themes.

I work in tech, so have real word experience with software development, AI, and automation. This has a strong influence on my writing.

I have an undergraduate English degree, and I'm starting an MA in Literature and Creative Writing at Western Sydney University in 2026 - with the goal of sharpening my literary criticism and writing skills. The end goal is a novel, which I'm developing in the background.

I'll be publishing every week. It may be a review, some flash fiction, or a short story. I'll be posting on Instagram, and there's a subscribe form on this site to receive content by email.

Welcome to Recursive Thread - I'd love to hear from you if you have a reaction or thoughts to share about my work.

On a sunny November day, Jacob’s wife Claire died after being struck by a near-silent electric car on a slippery street in Melbourne. When he phoned me, I rejected the call, and he sent a blunt message:

Claire died in a traffic accident today. Will send details of the funeral. I’m devastated.

I was relieved not to have spoken with him because I didn’t want my horrible emotional tumult to force me into an admission that I caused his wife’s death.

Aside from a weak 'I’m so sorry' at the funeral, we didn’t talk. We’d exchanged short messages, but I cancelled our planned video calls. We’d been friends for thirty-two years, but I couldn’t look him in the eye without feeling a selfish, crushing guilt.

After the funeral, I told his sister that I had to hurry back to Sydney. He’d understand, she said.

My youngest child, a joyful eight-year-old called Finn, had an exceedingly rare gene mutation that resulted in him developing clusters of brain tumours that were stealing his life, minute by painful minute.

Six months before Claire died, I called Jacob to share Finn’s diagnosis. Claire answered his phone, and I exploded into a mess of loud sobbing and scalding tears. She quietly consoled me, without the hollow words I’d heard from so many in the past days. Claire had always been special in that way.

It was Jacob who suggested I make a plea to The Tribunal of Religious Affairs for leniency. The Tribunal wasn’t known for compassion, despite being composed of Angels as God’s emissaries. The eternal decisions they handed down were based strictly on the concept of corporeal equilibrium – in practice, a soul for a soul.

I made the application to The Tribunal to spare Finn’s life, and was quickly rejected. No reason given. I tried again, submitting my own life in return, and was denied. It was not enough to balance the scales.

I prepared for my final appeal, my lawyer advising that I offer up a loved one’s life instead. The risk of doing this was that I couldn’t specify which loved one, except to ask that they weren’t from my immediate family. This type of petition was rarely granted.

There was silence for months until I received a curt email from the Registrar of The Tribunal on the ninth of October. It read:

The final decision has been handed down. Claire Smith will be taken and judged on the Ninth Day of November 2029, in consideration of the life of Finn Lawson. Disclosure of this determination to any party will render it unenforceable.

True to The Tribunal’s decision, I was faced with Claire’s funeral casket being rolled away into the inferno of the crematorium, and seeing Jacob in his own form of hell.

As for Finn, they say the miracles of The Tribunal aren’t instant, they can take weeks to come to pass, but they always manifest as promised. I sit in silence and pray this is true.