A Trip To The Moon (1902)

In cinema’s salad days science fiction, and therefore aliens, were extremely rare. Georges Méliès’ pioneering ‘A Trip To The Moon’ – made in 1902 - was a glorious exception, as anyone who’s seen ‘Hugo’ (in which Méliès’ work features heavily) will know. The aliens were clearly men in green leotards with masks, but they’re charming nonetheless.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

It wasn’t until the 1950s that aliens invaded cinemas… in a big way. The decade was a golden era for sci-fi thanks to flicks like ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, which referenced the Cold War with peace-loving alien Klaatu and robot enforcer Gort (pictured) visiting earth to talk some sense into humanity.

Devil Girl From Mars (1954)

‘A creature without mercy!’ screamed the trailer for this gloriously trashy b-movie. Made in Britain, it saw Patricia Laffan’s titular ‘alien’ don weird bondage gear.

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)

Aliens began to move away from actors in silly costumes thanks to stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen. He created the iconic flying saucers here, which were based on real UFO sightings. Another film with a clear Cold War subtext.

20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)

Harryhausen also created this reptilian creature from Venus that terrorised the earth and specifically an elephant in our screen grab. Another pioneering project from the animation master.

The Blob (1958)

Totally different was the jelly-like antagonist of this campy effort. Made for just $110,000, the blob eventually made more than $4 million (an enormous sum in its day). One reason is surely Burt Bacharach’s theme tune ‘Beware the Blob’.

Doctor Who And The Daleks (1965)

B-movie alien flicks slowly began to die out in the 1960s, but not before the release of this classic spin-off from the BBC TV show. Peter Cushing played the Time Lord battling the terrifying alien cyborgs that still remain the Doctor’s most famous enemies.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Something completely different here from Stanley Kubrick. A glacial meditation on the creation of the human race, it saw extraterrestrial beings re-imagined as 'immortal machine entities' (i.e. black monoliths). An example of the European-inspired arthouse seriousness that briefly held sway in Hollywood during the late 1960s and early 70s.

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976)

Many people suspected David Bowie was an alien anyway, which is probably why his bonkers performance as an extraterrestrial who crash lands on earth to find water was so convincing. This could only have been made in the 1970s.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) and the sequels

Technically, all the characters in George Lucas’ game-changing sci-fi series were aliens. But Industrial Light and Magic’s (ILM) animation department were set up to create the franchises more other-worldly extraterrestrial cast, including the lovable Chewbacca, tufty-haired Yoda and of course, Admiral Ackbar (who was half-man, half-fish).

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Spielberg's stunning 'Close Encounters' bought us face-to-face with a benevolent alien race. It remains one of the few visions of extraterrestrial life that shows what might actually happen if contact was made, from a military cover up to overcoming the language barrier. The aliens themselves must have been inspired by those famous Roswell photos.

Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott’s ‘haunted house film in space’ was the polar opposite of Spielberg’s cuddly UFO movie. It was genius to let Swiss surrealist HR Giger design the nightmarish sex monster that stalked the Nostromo, killing (almost) all onboard. Scott’s prequel to this terrifying masterpiece, ‘Prometheus’, is released on 1 June.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

We’re into the 80s now and once again it was Spielberg who helped redefine the movie alien with this child-friendly smash hit. According to the DVD, the look of E.T. (designed by ‘Close Encounters’ boffin Carlo Rambaldi) was inspired by Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway. Honestly.

Predator (1987)

After 'Rocky IV' a joke did the rounds in Hollywood screenwriter circles that the slugger from Philly would have to find an alien to beat up for a fifth film. So writers Jim and John Thomas wrote 'Predator': the ultimate testosterone-fuelled 80s action movie. The predator costume went through a variety of design changes right up to the beginning of filming, with Jean-Claude Van Damme at one stage inside the suit.

The Abyss (1989)

James Cameron’s underwater-set shocker is assured a place in film history thanks to the alien water tentacle creature, which was created using the first-ever digital 3D water effects. Another ILM creation, it helped pave the way for the plethora of CGI aliens we’d see in the 1990s.

Independence Day (1996)

Speaking of which, this mega-hit alien invasion film saw giant digital flying saucers gloriously destroy world landmarks. The aliens themselves were less memorable. They’re little-seen in the film and are similar to the xenomorph designs in the ‘Alien’ sequels. Here’s Will Smith punching one in the face. “Welcome to Earth!”

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Remember those 1950s and 60s alien invasion flicks from a few slides back? Tim Burton tried to spoof them with this hit and miss effort, based on the trading card series.

Men in Black (1997)

Sci-fi can be notoriously lacking in humour, so the beginning of Barry Sonnenfeld's trilogy was a breath of fresh air, with Will Smith as Agent J to Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K, operatives in the most shadowy of government departments, the Men In Black. Enter a wealth of wacky and wilfully weird alien creatures for J and K to dispatch without arousing the suspicion of the general public.

Transformers (2007)

We’re into the noughties now with the film that perhaps defines the era. A high-octane mix of ground-breaking special effects, an utterly nonsensical script and lingering shots of Megan Fox’s behind, this was always going to be a smash hit. It sparked two unbelievably lucrative sequels and is the template for modern blockbuster movies.

Cloverfield (2008)

The noughties also ushered in the ‘found footage’ genre (think ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Chronicle’). This flick, which saw a ruddy great alien monster trash New York, utilized the fake documentary stylings brilliantly by never explicitly showing us the critter.

District 9 (2009)

Low-budget sci-fi also returned with a bang in 2009 thanks to Neill Blomkamp’s genre-bending 'District 9', another film that used pseudo-documentary elements. Like ‘Close Encounters’, this imagined what it would really be like if we made contact, but this South African-set fable was rather less optimistic. It referenced apartheid with aliens, or 'prawns', forced to live in a Johannesburg slum after landing on earth.

Avatar (2009)

James Cameron was a technology pioneer again with ‘Avatar’, creating the 10-foot tall Na’vi with state of the art mo-cap technology. It saw actors (like Sam Worthington) don weird skull caps that helped record every nuance of their facial expressions, to be used by CGI boffins later. It was all shot in stunning 3-D as well, which frankly was just showing off.

Battleship (2012)

In many ways this boardgame adaptation was the nadir of the alien invasion movie. Pasting together elements from ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Transformers’, this saw non-descript aliens battle with the US Navy. Extraterrestrials were quote possibly chosen as the antagonists, instead of the Russians or Chinese, because studio bosses didn’t want to upset lucrative international markets.