The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. (imdb)
Cast and Information
Directed By: Nicolas Roeg
Written By: Paul Mayersberg, Walter Tevis
Starring: Rip Torn, David Bowie, Buck Henry, Bernie Casey, Candy Clark, Adrienne Larussa, Tony Mascia, Rick Riccardo, Linda Hutton, Jackson D. Kane, Hilary Holland, Lilybelle Crawford
Country: UK
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The Man Who Fell to Earth belongs to 57 collections
1. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by kozan26 - 234 stars)
2. Criterion Collection (collaborative: moderated by caffe - 167 stars)
3. boobs (collaborative: moderated by Pickpocket - 51 stars)
4. Certified weird (collaborative: moderated by Dreamer - 47 stars)
5. Psychotronic Film and Video Guides (collaborative: moderated by Gregzilla - 40 stars)
6. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2008 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 39 stars)
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8. Netflix Instant (collaborative: moderated by somnivore - 29 stars)
9. Full Female Frontal Nudity (Yes, Bush!) (collaborative: moderated by iceblox - 26 stars)
10. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2012 revision) (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 25 stars)
11. AAA: Empire's five star movies (collaborative: moderated by KasperL - 24 stars)
12. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2017 revision) (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 22 stars)
13. Based on a Book (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 21 stars)
14. Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) (collaborative: moderated by epiphany - 20 stars)
15. The 100 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 19 stars)
16. Intellectual Sci-Fi (collaborative: moderated by BeeDub - 17 stars)
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18. 101 Sci-Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by von krogh - 15 stars)
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21. Films available in HD (collaborative: moderated by kubricksucks - 13 stars)
22. Aliens (collaborative: moderated by td888 - 12 stars)
23. Alternate versions / cuts (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 9 stars)
24. Fantastic and surreal (public: juandr - 9 stars)
25. Male Frontal Nudity (collaborative: moderated by bobyang - 7 stars)
26. Ekşi Sinema "Alternatif" Top 250 (collaborative - 6 stars)
27. Filmsite.org - Sex in the Movies, An Illustrated History (collaborative: moderated by afx237vi - 5 stars)
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39. Female Bath Scene (collaborative - 1 star)
40. Cinemag's Best Sci-fi Films (collaborative: moderated by hristos - 1 star)
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43. British director (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 1 star)
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45. Bong Joon-ho's Top 10 Criterion Collection Films (public: TychoCelchuu - 1 star)
46. toucé (public: rnest - 1 star)
47. Leaving Criterion Channel 4/30/20 (public: owen1218 - 1 star)
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Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 5 |  |
Mentaculus | 81 75th |
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(A true story) Me: “What’d you watch tonight?” Mom: “[Dramatic Ugh] I couldn’t even finish it! It was a pornography!” Me: “Ok, what was it.” Mom: “So, Andy Warhol was walking down a hill.” Me: “That’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. Warhol’s not even in it.” Mom: “Well who was it, then.” Me: “That’s Ziggy. You got to go to a concert when you were high and my age this isn’t fair at all.” Mom: “Oh! I didn’t finish it do you see Bowie’s” “No.”
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| 4 |  |
MartinTeller | 79 64th |
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It's original, for sure. I haven't really loved anything by Roeg, but I have to admit he's got a unique vision. His films always feature striking visuals. This one's a trifle long, though. I was into it and wanted to see what would happen next, but towards the end I started to lose patience. Also, I think Roeg is a bit pervy. Every one of his movies I've seen has included somewhat gratuitous nudity, especially in this case.
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| 4 |  |
Anomaly | 53 21st |
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Runs through a million themes but never consolidates them into something with meat, and the wandering visual aesthetics just further divide any meaning. Bowie gives a good spin on his character, but we can't connect to him, and ultimately the film just ends up an annoying bore.
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| 4 |  |
Noblet | 60 35th |
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There are some great individual scenes, and some great individual shots. But overall, I felt like the film's deliberate alienating tone didn't mesh well with the absurd content of the story. It ends up being both silly and occasionally dull.
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| 3 |  |
Kojiless | 30 32nd |
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Before David Bowie was frightening a generation of impressionable 80s children with the unsolvable labyrinth beneath his goblin-tights, he was waging his androgynously fortified battle of the bulge on a generation starved for LSD-induced forays into the far reaches of fantastically fictitious science. What I learned from this movie: never trust a ginger with patents.
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| 2 | djfntstque | 66 38th |
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Totally frustrating. Roeg's observations on modern life are fine in themselves, but his approach simply too obscure for the film's own good. The best example I can point to is the gun sequence.
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| 2 |  |
Spunkie | 75 90th |
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With the first 15 minutes I felt Roeg hit the spot this time, then I went back and forth dizzied by the experience but always left on the surface. More than half of the movie extraordinary imagery seems like pastoral textures waiting to be explored to their tiniest pieces, but then there isn't any lead. If you're going for the process of alienation and alienization Bowie is your man. The soundtrack goes fine with psychedelia. If only Roeg stepped in and went further with the themes offered...
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| 2 |  |
KasperL | 30 10th |
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Mostly plotless. Occasionally experimental. Really, really bad.
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| 2 | pirateb | 60 10th |
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Most of its potential for brilliance was ruined by the sloppy editing.
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| 1 |  |
djross | 40 26th |
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Seems to be about a man who is genuinely different from others (a creator, let's say) with an interest in facilitating the migration of a small threatened tribe, but who gradually finds himself worn down by conventionality and eventually falls into addiction. Without having read the source material, it seems promising, but the manner of presentation is off-putting and some scenes egregiously poor, with compensations few and far between. Diller's alleged reaction is quite understandable.
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| 1 |  |
Pickpocket | 5 44th |
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Sometimes brilliant, sometimes terrible. A weird movie, but it never felt like they were being weird just for the sake of it which a lot of these films typically do. Bowie was good, can't say the same for the rest of the cast. Has tons of beautiful naked chicks, so if nothing else thanks for that. That entire sequence with the gun was ridiculously bad. Pretty average movie that I won't watch again.
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| 1 |  |
TheDiceman | 70 82nd |
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Excellent.
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| 1 |  |
CinematicESP | 73 26th |
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I like the visual style of this film, and the comments on society, but it seems like it purposely tries to lose its viewer. It makes it difficult to relate to Bowie's character.
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| 1 |  |
Stain | 50 33rd |
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Murky and cerebral. One of those rare movies that, if anything, may be a little *too* different
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| 1 |  |
Icarus | 75 49th |
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Bowie might be the only person on earth who could pull this role off. However, what is essentially a meditation on how we humans have taken the path toward debauchery and dehumanization, and are therefore not the advanced civilization we appear, is too thin to hold up to the 140 minute run-time.
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| 1 |  |
overrated | 54 54th |
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Not much happening here besides unravelling the mystery of Labyrinth and finding out, after all these years, what David Bowie's package looks like.
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| 1 | xacviant | 89 90th |
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David Bowie is the titular alien, who becomes wealthy by patenting his race's technology and intends to use his resources to save his dying family...but the influence of human society may be too much for him to overcome. The elliptical storytelling can be frustrating, and the tone is anything but uplifting, but Nicolas Roeg's direction is beautifully audacious, Bowie is perfectly cast (the entire cast is superb), the visual design is consistently top-notch, and it truly engages the intellect.
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| 1 |  |
bof | 72 64th |
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Nicolas Roeg presents: The Elon Musk Story. (Ironically, it's partly the rise of tech moguls and their algorithms that ensure nobody makes movies as wonderfully weird as this anymore...)
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| 1 |  |
??? | 87 90th |
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It wasn't clear to me on the first viewing, but The Man Who Fell to Earth actually has a story, it's a tragedy about trying to travel and connect alternate realities and crashing in between them. Roeg makes every cut out of fascination with the co-existence of seperate realities, side by side or crashing into each other. It's all a little pretentious, but poppy and fun thanks to a sense of dysfunctional robotic justice, and the hilarious overreactive Candy Clark.
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| 1 |  |
Ag0stoMesmer | 4 91st |
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Willfully difficult and artsy sci-fi, some parts didn't work (that gun scene for instance) but there's a scrappy kind of truth here.
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| 1 |  |
Groovy_Souls | 70 56th |
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I see this movie as one with great ideas that could have used some better execution. To point out the elephant in the room, David Bowie is an absolute star, but the rest of the movie is only just good, which felt disappointing. It often felt overlong and never emphasized the right points, but still, it's definitely worth a watch for its unique perspectives and direction, as well as the late, great Bowie.
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| Average Percentile 52.85% from 1039 Ratings |  |