S peaking about his most enduring masterpiece, the director Ridley Scott said he wanted Alien to be an “unpretentious, riveting thriller, like Psycho or Rosemary’s Baby”. It is ironic that perhaps no other film has inspired as much pretentious commentary. Its 40th anniversary today provides a good opportunity to add to the pile. Alien has proved an ideal text for academics, a deep well – or perhaps a totem pole – of Freudian allusion from which critics and theorists have drawn whatever they fancied.

Since it was first released, every frame of the film has been pored over for meaning. James Cameron’s excellent sequel, Aliens, has been studied too. (The other films in the series, not so much.) Most of this attention has been occupied by the character of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and the Swiss artist HR Giger’s terrifying design for the alien, or “xenomorph”. But the androids, the spaceship, the uniforms and even the ship’s cat have come in for analysis. In 2019, the rise of the Alien-academic complex shows few signs of slowing down.

Partly this is due to the quality of the film. Despite many imitators, the original is still the most gripping sci-fi horror ever made. Its pacing, with a slow start building to a frenetic climax, is masterful. Its design has held up where more recent films look dated. For sci-fi, it depends remarkably little on technology. There are spaceships and weapons and androids, but they are not the main focus. The further we get from the time the film was made, the easier it is to see Alien as an artefact separate from its contemporary technology and the less egregious its clunky computer screens, for example, seem.

Harry Dean Stanton has a (violently brief) introduction to the xenomorph (20th Century Fox)

In fact, the low-fi aesthetic is part of the reason it still feels fresh. It was only Scott’s second feature. Coming from advertising, he knew the importance of setting mood and tone in as short a space of time as possible. Although the film is set in futuristic deep space, the Nostromo feels as claustrophobic and real as a basement. In his review at the time, Derek Malcolm wrote that Scott and his special effects team had created “a sweaty little world on its own”. This was very much the plan. John Hurt said that Scott wanted his ship to feel as if it had been drifting around space for “donkey’s years”. The interior of the ship was cobbled together from the skeletons of old planes. For the facehugger dissection, oysters were stuffed into a mould. When the baby alien explodes from John Hurt’s chest, the reaction on Cartwright’s face was real: the actors had not been told what was about to happen. Rather than elaborate CGI, the aliens are rubber suits and puppets. A layer of smoke was blown through the whole set, too thin to be seen but enough to give the film a gritty, murky film. “It’s basically a haunted house film,” the critic David Thomson explained. “The only difference is that the old dark house just happens to be a spaceship.”

Yet it is also true that some of Alien’s themes have grown more pertinent since it appeared. On its original release some critics saw it as a reaction to Vietnam, with the crew of the Nostromo engaged in guerrilla warfare against an unknown and often invisible enemy. Certainly it has some of that intensity, which it shares with other action films of the late Seventies and early Eighties. (It was released in the same year as The Deer Hunter, which confronted the themes head on.) With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq fading from memory, that kind of fighting feels less relevant to the viewer in 2019.

The chestburster scene came as much a surprise to the cast as it did to audiences (20th Century Fox)

These days other elements appear in the foreground. Compared to the aristocracy of Star Wars, where the Force is something you are either born with or not, or the techno-meritocracy of Star Trek, where ships are full of insufferable nerds, the world of Alien is refreshingly blue-collar. These things will eat you regardless of your rank. Their design still inspires revulsion. As Thompson has said, Alien is a rape film in which the victims are male. Using a proboscis to force eggs deep in a host’s body, the aliens mirror human sexual reproduction. The adult xenomorph’s mouth, in which sharp teeth part to reveal another sharp-toothed proboscis, a phallus with a kind of vagina dentata at the end, is all horrors to all people.

Rewatching Alien on an unseasonably hot February, I found it hard not to feel the inklings of a climate reading, too, with the Nostromo as Earth itself; a haven hurtling through a hostile universe, into which humans in their recklessness have introduced new existential threats. When the environment is so hostile, even banding together might not save you: nobody can hear you scream.

The gender politics have never felt more acute, and it’s noticeable that few of the contemporary reviews make mention of it. (In general they fail to identify the film as the masterpiece it is now acknowledged to be, preferring to focus on its cheap thrills.) The film was never intended to be a feminist statement. Famously, Ripley was meant to be a male character until late in the day. Sigourney Weaver was cast just weeks before shooting, apparently after a tip-off from Warren Beatty. Scott built an entire set just to audition her.

Films to watch before you die Show all 35 1 /35 Films to watch before you die Films to watch before you die Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) With this update and upgrade of the 1930s serial adventure, Steven Spielberg turns what could have been pastiche into a practically perfect film. Harrison Ford’s daring archaeologist is almost always out of his depth but has impeccable underdog charm, and Douglas Slocombe’s casually stunning cinematography is matched by one of John Williams's finest scores. Indy is ultimately irrelevant to the entire plot, interestingly, but his indefatigable effort to do the right thing still inspires. HO Rex Films to watch before you die Spirited Away (2001) Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki's films delight kids with their bright colours, imaginative characters and plucky heroines (usually). But there's meat to their bones for adults to digest, especially in this towering fantasy epic. As young Chihiro takes a job in a mysterious bathhouse peopled by spirits in order to save her parents, viewers can explore everything from deeply rooted interpretations of traditional Japanese myth to Miyazaki's fascination with Western filmmaking and the Second World War. And visually it’s unparalleled. HO Toho Films to watch before you die Avengers (2012) Yes, but hear us out: Avengers is a grand experimental film. Marvel risked four popular franchises on this superhero throw of the dice, something never attempted in cinema history. They won, and made the fizzing chemistry of the unlikely gang who must save us from aliens look easy. But the failure of every Marvel imitator since makes clear how impressive this billion-dollar gamble really was, and how difficult it is to tell character-driven stories in blockbuster cinema on this scale. And as a bonus, it has a Hulk. HO Marvel Studios Films to watch before you die The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick’s creep-show classic is remembered for the indelible images of that violent finale chase, but its reputation and influence stem from the slow-winding tension that precedes it. Jack Nicholson is the struggling writer whose sanity frays over a winter season at an isolated and haunted hotel; Shelley Duvall plays his increasingly desperate wife. Touching on questions of domestic violence as well as delivering a ghost story for the ages, this will get under your skin and stay there. HO Warner Bros/Hawk Films/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Films to watch before you die Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) One of those remakes that justifies remakes, Philip Kaufman’s beautifully skilful spin on the McCarthy-era alien-clone thriller translates it wickedly to the psychobabble age of the 1970s, with a bit of post-Watergate panic thrown in. Donald Sutherland’s lugubrious health inspector is a nicely grumpy enemy of the pod people, and the hysteria ratchets up masterfully. PS Films to watch before you die The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Wes Anderson's meticulously mannered and beautifully composed films are not to all tastes, but when combined with a cast of this calibre and a more-than-usually heartfelt script, they are capable of magic. Gene Hackman plays the disgraced patriarch of a family of geniuses, making one last attempt at redemption. With a who’s who of Hollywood in support, it’s a story that is as bizarre, hilarious and moving as family life itself. HO Buena Vista Pictures Films to watch before you die Lawrence of Arabia (1962) David Lean’s First World War epic about TE Lawrence remains a filmmaking milestone, the movie that Steven Spielberg rewatches before starting each new film. 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But it’s also a meditation on the passing of time, and on grief, and on the constant push towards the new that will break your heart every time you watch it. HO Rex Features Films to watch before you die Double Indemnity (1944) If we have learned anything from film noir, it is that murder pacts never work out well for both parties. That’s certainly the lesson when Fred MacMurray’s infatuated salesman offers life insurance to Barbara Stanwyck’s femme fatale Phyllis against her unloved husband. The scheme gives way to a riveting stew of suspicion and paranoia, with Stanwyck’s ruthless determination warping MacMurray’s Neff out of all recognition as director Billy Wilder tightens the screws. HO Rex Features Films to watch before you die Days of Heaven (1978) Terrence Malick’s second, and for many, greatest film is a mesmerisingly gorgeous love triangle set in the Texas Panhandle in 1916, loosely based on an Old Testament parable. Richard Gere and Brooke Adams are the lovers who pose as brother and sister to fool a rich, dying farmer (Sam Shepard). Nestor Almendros’s astounding magic-hour photography rightly won an Oscar, and Linda Manz supplies heartbreaking, plainspoken narration as Gere’s younger sister. PS Paramount Pictures Films to watch before you die Citizen Kane (1941) The problem with calling something “the greatest film ever made” is that it begins to sound like homework. Forget that: beyond all the technical dazzle and ground-breaking filmmaking Orson Welles’s masterpiece has red blood in its veins and a huge beating heart. What’s more, its portrait of a thrusting, occasionally demagogic tycoon and the hollowness at the heart of his success remains as relevant as it ever was, and the suggestion that America might be susceptible to media manipulation all too believable. HO Films to watch before you die Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) Marcel Carné's immortal saga about a 19th-century Parisian theatre company – often called the French Gone with the Wind – has a swooning romanticism but majors in heartbreak, too. Among this ensemble, brilliantly played by some of the best Gallic actors of their day, hopes rise and are shattered, and jealousy mounts among all the acolytes of a courtesan called Garance. It looks back to mime and stagecraft as essential components in the prehistory of cinema, while also being great cinema. Rex Features Films to watch before you die Rear Window (1954) Whether you see it as Alfred Hitchcock’s celebration of voyeurism or simply one of the most nail-biting thrillers ever made, it’s a superb example of the Master of Suspense at work. James Stewart’s photographer, laid up with a broken leg, becomes obsessed with the lives of his neighbours and suspects one of murder. The unusually vulnerable hero – as in Vertigo – increases the stakes and ensures that simple brawn won’t save the day, while Hitchcock ratchets up the tension unbearably by putting Grace Kelly’s plucky girlfriend in the lion’s mouth. HO Films to watch before you die It Happened One Night (1934) Claudette Colbert's eloping heiress and Clark Gable's hack on his uppers warily team up on a Greyhound bus, only to aggravatingly fall for each other. Frank Capra's evergreen romcom all but invented the love-hate formula that's one model for silver screen chemistry, hoicking up Colbert's skirt to flash a leg when they need to hitch-hike, and dismantling Gable's smarmy defences. The biggest hit of its day for a reason, it was also the first ever film to win the big five at the Oscars. 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Paramount Pictures Films to watch before you die Blow Out (1981) John Travolta's Z-movie sound man, out recording one night, accidentally tapes what turns out to be a political assassination. Brian De Palma hit peak ingenuity and gut-punch profundity with this stunning conspiracy thriller, mounted with a showman's élan but also harrowing emotional voltage from its star. It’s one of the most delirious thrillers of the 1980s, with a bitterly ironic pay-off that’s played for keeps. PS Filmways Pictures Films to watch before you die City of God (2002) There’s a deep contradiction at the heart of this acid-bright portrait of the violence in Rio’s favelas. On one hand these child hustlers and teen gangsters have an intense lust for life, an exuberance displayed in dance and play and love; on the other, they value life cheaply and take it without a qualm. Director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Kátia Lund cast a talented band of local kids to give it authenticity and then punctuated their story with Scorsese-esque violence that still shocks. HO Films to watch before you die Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) The diverging romantic fortunes of Hannah (Mia Farrow), Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest, who won an Oscar, as did Michael Caine) provide an ideal structure for Woody Allen to check in on a midway state of adulthood, when there's already a sense of disappointment about squandered promise, but still much to play for. It hits the miraculous sweet spot between all Allen’s modes and tones. PS Moviestore/Rex Films to watch before you die Raising Arizona (1987) The Coen Brothers had already established a ghoulish signature style with Blood Simple, but here they showed us how funny they could be, in a zig-zagging kidnap farce which manages the difficult feat of being both zany and adorable. Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter are the unlikely couple whose abduction of a spare newborn quintuplet, Nathan Jr, causes all hell to break loose. PS 20th Century Fox Films to watch before you die Caché (2005) This looks and acts like a thriller, but in reality Michael Haneke’s exploration of colonialism, guilt, paranoia and privacy cares more about subtext than about scares or mystery. A well-to-do Parisian family are tormented by the arrival of surveillance tapes of their lives, but it’s not clear who could be sending them or why, leading patriarch Georges (Daniel Auteuil, never better) to confront his own past sins. As a subversion of genre and viewer expectation, there are few to match it. HO Rex Films to watch before you die The General (1926) Orson Welles suggested that Buster Keaton’s silent Civil War comedy might be the greatest film ever made, and who are we to argue? Keaton’s Johnny Gray is a key figure on the railroads of the Confederacy, but he and his engine, The General, must go above and beyond to defeat a Union spy. Ignore the dodgy politics and focus on the sublime physical comedy of Keaton’s beautifully composed routines. You’ll come out wondering if movies even need sound. HO Rex Films to watch before you die The Babadook (2014) The Babadook is a black, hunched pop-up book monster who raps on your door three times before paying a visit. And you can’t get rid of him. Widowed mum Amelia (brilliant Essie Davis) can’t remember reading his book to her emotionally disturbed misfit of a son (Noah Wiseman) before. Jennifer Kent’s thoughtful Australian chamber shocker, a feast of inventive design, claws its way into you and leaves scratch marks. PS Films to watch before you die When Harry Met Sally (1989) Is it impossible for men and women to be purely platonic? 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Getty Films to watch before you die True Romance (1993) Disinterred from a script Tarantino wrote in the mid-Eighties called The Open Road – the same screenplay that also spawned Natural Born Killers – Tony Scott's True Romance is a pulpy, hyperviolent twist on a damsel-in-distress fairytale, with a plinky-plonky score that is based on Badlands. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the lovers on the lam, chased by Christopher Walken's suave mafioso. Bombastic, brash – and totally brilliant. Rex

In an interview looking back at the role, Weaver said: “The writers were especially smart in that they didn’t turn Ripley into a female character. She was just a character, a kind of Everyman, a young person who’s put in this extraordinary situation. Believe me, when we did [the sequels], I saw how hard it was to write a woman in a heroic, straight, unsentimental, authentic way.”

Her intelligence and resolve against the bigger threats, in a world full of aggressive, violent men, remain a benchmark in an era of #MeToo. The consensus is that this feminist message was let down somewhat by the decision to have Ripley strip to her underwear in the final act. But within cinema, Alien’s central lesson that competent women will save the day has echoes in everything from Star Wars to Frozen.

To dip into the Alien forums online is to open the door to a room full of people who really don’t like Ridley Scott. It’s true his most recent contributions, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, have been underwhelming, overdependent on CGI. Like George Lucas with the Star Wars prequels, Scott appears to have got bogged down in his own mythology, and lost sight of the tautness that made the original so compelling. As with many great films, Alien was the consequence of a unique and perhaps unrepeatable set of circumstances. In the wake of Star Wars, the studio wanted a sci-fi, and Alien was the only script on their desk. Ridley Scott was not the first choice of director, but the right man in the right place. The other elements clicked. In a retrospective interview, the director said he simply “wanted to scare the s*** out of people. That’s the job.” Forty years on it is clear he did precisely that and much more besides.