What is the most convincing screen alien?

I was thinking about this today, and I expect one example to dominate, but let's see what happens.

It doesn't have to be little green men, either. Just whatever you think is the most convincing alien in film or on television.

Has to be the Xenomorph from Alien (1979). Nothing else comes close.

Alien (1979) no doubt

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Not sure if this counts or not as I believe it is from a documentary ....

Very pleased to see Jeff Bridges' Starman get a mention. I haven't seen the film properly for a long time and I'd like to listen to the commentary as well. The Keanu Reeves version of The Day the Earth Stood Still was on yesterday so I was thinking about the human alien in popular culture, to the extent that Alien didn't enter my head until I was writing the original post! Starman was at the top of my thoughts, because the genesis of the character is frightening and eerie and Jeff Bridges is utterly convincing as a being who is in not only a foreign landscape but a foreign physical form.

So I think although the Alien is the best non-human extraterrestrial, Starman is the best human alien.

Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast!

This is from the movie Paul,He would be my choice as most convincing alien.

An interesting question, but it's kind of based entirely on a point of reference (and there's much debate over whether there are any actual points of reference or only those presented by a little more than a half century of media.)

So, based on the most common reports of encounters or abductions, probably the aliens at the end of Close Encounters would be convincing.

Based on the idea of life-forms that may be similar to different types of biology on Earth, but which followed different evolutionary paths, then I'd have to go with the aliens from the Alien franchise (or virtually any other popular aliens that seem somehow insectoid, crustacean, fish-like or reptilian).

If we buy the idea of "panspermia," then aliens could look very similar to or just like humans - so take your pick from any humanoid aliens from Star Trek or other sci-fi series that feature human-looking or humanoid aliens.

The aliens from the Predator series were a nice hybrid of humanoid & unknown other.

My guess is there are probably many different aliens that we might not even immediately identify as "alive," such as huge gas clouds, beings consisting of pure energy, microscopic or gigantic things that resemble bacteria, immobile beings that might look to us like rocks, or even living planets or stars. So on that note, a creature like that depicted in The Blob may be one of the most convincing looking aliens.

So with so many different types of aliens, which do you think might be the most accurate if aliens exist?

Hard to say because if alien life is a diverse (or even more so) than life on Earth, then the possibilities could be endless and anything we can dream up may resemble something out there.

The OP was probably searching for which aliens looked most realistic, feasible or technically well-done on-screen.

There've been so many... and you know how I feel about CGI (the only good CGI is that which you don't know is CGI). So I'd still say that most of the aliens from the Aliens movies (in all their forms, from eggs, to face-huggers, to hatchlings, to drones, to queens) were some of the best - a lot of thought went into how they moved, how they reacted, etc. And, of course, they were based on the bizarre and brilliant artwork of H.R. Giger, which made they more than just movie props, but art as well.

I'm not sure which aliens looked the most realistic, feasible or technically well-done on-screen, but I'd like to think that if there are aliens out there, they're not as violent or deadly as most of the on-screen aliens. I'd like to believe that they're friendly aliens like in CE3K or E.T.

Contact.

The Aliens use the main character's father as their Avatar. Never showing their true form to the audience. Indeed, we cannot imagine how Aliens would look like, they probably will be extremely different from anything on earth, since all life on earth is very similar in its basic biology aliens will probably differ from us more than insects or plants would.

Close Encounters? I thought the aliens at the end were a total let down tbh.
Great movie, bad reveal.




For me... Predator, or Carpenter's The Thing.

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That would be nice, but you're probably familiar with the warnings of Steven Hawking in recent years.

Best bet is there are probably a diversity of aliens, both good and bad (like us.)
On one hand there's the argument that to be intelligent enough to achieve interstellar travel (by whatever means) it means a species has had to most likely mature beyond the stages of conquest, environmental destruction, self-destruction, genocide or ideas like manifest destiny.

On the other hand, we could argue that we are pretty impressive ourselves - we have the intellectual & emotional capacity to fully realize how dangerous our failings; prejudices, ego-centrism, or undisciplined emotions could be to ourselves and all other life, yet there are huge quantities of those among us with the same intellectual capacity who would love to destroy everyone else, either for their own desire for power or in the name of some evil ideology or both.

Yeah, I know that my version has no basis in reality, but sometimes I like to live in a fantasy world where everything is good, including the aliens. They come here to learn from us and help us, not to conquer us or destroy us.

Let's just hope there are more like Klaatu and less like the ones from Independence Day.

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I always thought the alien races in Babylon 5 were the most successful from the different TV shows.