7 & 6. Alien & Aliens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhax9_d2yqo Truckers in space and a plot cribbed from American B-movies (It! The Terror from Beyond Space and such), Ridley Scotts career-making jaunt to legendarily scream-ignoring space daubs 70s grime atop 50s influences. Stoically gored thespians John Hurt and Ian Holm aside, youd never guess that the entire production was mounted at Shepperton and Bray Studios (former home of horror-purveyors Hammer Films). When James Cameron took over the reins and pumped up the ammo for Aliens, he went with our old favourite Acton Power Station (as a side note, when the Batman crew popped in two years later, they found Aliens green gunk left behind). But if you wanted to re-enact that famous Its right on top of us! Theyre everywhere! scene, be warned that the power station has been demolished. What philistinesI bet thatll never happen to Downton Abbey.
Give-away British character actors: Hurt and Holm have already been mentioned, and Aliens directors cut reveals Mac McDonald, master of jowly slobbiness who appears as one of the Jokers henchmen in Batman, and more notably as scruffy Captain Hollister in BBC2s Alien-aping space sitcom Red Dwarf (1988-99).