10 Alien Invasion Movies Where Humanity Loses

The original and the best.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers broke away from the established sci-fi norms of the first half of the 20th century, throwing off the constraints of its 1956 namesake, and serving up something cold and creepy and at home amongst its New Hollywood contemporaries.

From across the other side of the universe, tentacled beings arrive and begin duplicating people on Earth. Health inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland), lab scientist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams), and spa owner Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartwright) find themselves swept up in an unfolding catastrophe as more and more people around them are swapped out for alien doppelgangers, and they don’t know who to trust.

The pod people pursue Matthew, Elizabeth, and Nancy at every turn, betrayed by their lack of emotions and eerie, high-pitched screams, while our leading trio try their very best not to fall asleep and succumb to their seemingly inevitable duplication. While pretty much all seems lost, Nancy and Matthew manage to get away, and though we never quite assume their safety, nothing can prepare us for the film’s closing moments.

In those final moments, Nancy, who has only pretended to be a pod-person, calls to Matthew outside his workplace, prompting him to point and scream. Alas, Matthew has been body-snatched himself, and the aliens have truly taken over.