10 Great Sci-Fi Movies For People Who Don't Like Sci-Fi

While better known for his cold and creepy horrors, John Carpenter proved his immense versatility as a director with Starman, a swooningly romantic curio from 1984 with Jeff Bridges playing decidedly against type as a wide eyed innocent, a shape shifting alien who intercepted a message of peace left on NASA’s Voyager 2 and took it as an invitation to visit Earth.

While Bridges usually plays a cooler, more hard boiled or knowing type, here he’s pure goodness in humanoid form, an alien sent to our planet to make first contact who is immediately met with hostility by the US government.

Shot down, he meets Jenny (Karen Allen), a recent widow, and takes the form of her late husband. The two bond, and the film unfolds as a road movie, with Jenny and the Starman cutting across America to reach a rendezvous point so that he can return home.

Bridges and Allen share terrific chemistry, and while Starman isn’t afraid to go to strange places (intergalactic reproduction is explored heavily), it’s ultimately built around their connection, impossible but ultimately hopeful.