Although its belated sequel failed to live up to its legacy (mainly because it was so lazily written that Will Smith chose to do Suicide Squad instead), Independence Day remains a classic of blockbuster cinema. Roland Emmerich’s loud, bombastic, action-packed, effects-laden, shamelessly cheesy sci-fi juggernaut is still the alien invasion movie to beat. There’s only one that has Will Smith punching an alien in the face and saying, “Welcome to Earth!,” but there have been plenty of great movies about the unlikely prospect of aliens invading our humble little planet. Here are 10 Alien Invasion Movies To Watch If You Like Independence Day.
Pacific Rim (2013)
The invading forces in Pacific Rim are technically giant Lovecraftian monsters emerging from a portal in the seabed, not extraterrestrials arriving from outer space. But they’re still alien to humans and they’re bent on taking over our world, so it still counts as an alien invasion movie.
Guillermo del Toro directed Pacific Rim as a monument to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, one of the greatest influences on his own storied career. As a movie that exists purely for the spectacle of some people in giant robot suits beating up a bunch of equally giant monsters, it succeeds admirably.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Aliens have already arrived on Earth and the human race is at war with them when Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow begins. Tom Cruise plays a soldier who is thrust onto the battlefield and forced to battle aliens he’s not prepared to fight. Within moments, he’s killed. But then, like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, he wakes up at the beginning of the day again.
As he finds himself stuck in this time loop, he enlists the help of Emily Blunt to figure out what’s going on — and how to use it to their advantage in humanity’s war against the alien invaders.
Attack the Block (2011)
Although it underperformed at the box office, Joe Cornish’s directorial debut Attack the Block has quickly become a cult classic. Set on a council estate in South London, Attack the Block views an alien invasion from a British perspective in the face of countless Hollywood blockbusters set in New York or Los Angeles.
As a trainee nurse (played by the current Doctor, Jodie Whittaker) joins forces with the street gang that mugged her in the opening scene, the movie posits that in the face of “the other” (i.e. alien invaders), we’re all just human beings with the primal desire to stay alive. This movie made John Boyega known to British moviegoers before there was even a Star Wars sequel trilogy in development.
A Quiet Place (2018)
John Krasinski’s critically acclaimed, immensely popular directorial effort A Quiet Place takes the “alien invasion” trope and puts it into a horror movie. It’s not the first movie to do this — The Thing, Signs, and Cloverfield all did something similar — but this subgenre has never been done quite like this.
The alien creatures rapidly wiping out the human race in A Quiet Place can’t see a thing, but they’re extremely sensitive to sound. If you don’t stay completely silent, you’re as good as dead. Krasinski stars alongside his real-life wife Emily Blunt and a pair of talented child actors (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) as a family simply trying to survive.
The Avengers (2012)
One of the last MCU movies that you could reasonably watch without having seen all the others, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers brought Earth’s mightiest heroes together on the big screen for the first time ever. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk all have to learn to work together after Loki steals the Space Stone from S.H.I.E.L.D. and plans to use it to open a portal in the sky above New York City and let in his alien army, the Chitauri.
In the movie’s final act, as the invasion begins, the Avengers join forces to stop it. It’s primarily a superhero movie, but The Avengers is a great alien invasion movie, too.
Annihilation (2018)
Paramount got cold feet about Annihilation, Alex Garland’s directorial follow-up to his masterfully crafted debut Ex Machina, and declined to give it a worldwide theatrical release. Instead, the studio sold the film’s distribution rights in most territories to Netflix. It’s a shame, because it’s the kind of movie that would be mesmerizing on the big screen.
Earth has been visited by aliens, and they’re a lifeform that we can’t even comprehend. The aliens are slowly consuming Earth with a cosmic blanket called “the Shimmer.” Natalie Portman leads an all-star cast into the Shimmer, where they find legions of unexpected horrors.
They Live (1988)
John Carpenter doesn’t take any movie lightly. If he directs a police thriller, it’s the Alamo transplanted into a contemporary setting. If he directs a horror film, it sets the benchmark for all modern horror films. And if he directs an alien invasion movie, it’s a satirical indictment of consumer culture.
In They Live, when he stumbles upon an eye-opening pair of sunglasses, Roddy Piper discovers that Earth’s society has already been infiltrated by aliens that have brainwashed humans into staying in line through corporate advertising. The movie is gloriously absurd, with slapstick-tinged action scenes, quippy one-liners, and an anti-consumerist message.
The World’s End (2013)
To cap off their “Three Flavorrs Cornetto Trilogy” — a set of three movies connected by recurring actors, genre parodies, a unique visual style, and of course, Cornettoes — Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost delivered an alien invasion movie. Pegg plays Gary King, who reassembles his friendship group from high school to recreate a pub crawl they never finished as teenagers, only to find that their hometown has been taken over by body-snatching E.T.s.
The alien invaders are actually the last thing on the story’s mind. The World’s End is a meditation on nostalgia, alcoholism, and the dangers of trying to recapture your lost youth. It’s also a wildly entertaining, tightly scripted, riveting cinematic ride.
Arrival (2016)
The great thing about Independence Day — the thing that elevates it from being your average workaday Hollywood VFX-fest — is that it’s not about the invading extraterrestrial forces; it’s about the people who have to face them. Arrival, too, is an alien invasion movie (although the aliens invade nothing more than space above some random locations across the globe, as they come in peace) that’s more focused on the human characters than the alien ones.
Amy Adams anchors the movie as Louise, a linguistic expert who is recruited to board the alien pods that have arrived on Earth and communicate with the aliens inside.
War of the Worlds (2005)
H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds had been adapted for the big screen a few times before Steven Spielberg tackled it, but the director made it feel relevant by basing its visual style on imagery of the 9/11 attacks. The book is set in the south of England, but the movie takes that setting to America’s East Coast, for reasons besides simply appealing to American audiences.
Spielberg made the film in 2005, at a time when America was fearing an invasion by a foreign militant force, as an artistic response to those fears. As a result, it’s one of Hollywood’s most interesting post-9/11 cinematic statements, and an alien invasion movie that stands with the greats.
