#4: Alien (1979)
Nobody needed to say space was dangerous after Alien (1979). Ridley Scott made sure we could feel it in the walls. The commercial ship Nostromo is not shiny or heroic. It is industrial, shadowy, tired, and full of people doing a job. Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and Sigourney Weaver form a crew that feels like workers, not space knights. Then the alien arrives, designed with the unforgettable influence of H. R. Giger, and suddenly the ship becomes a haunted house with no front door.
