Ash, that transmission... Mother's deciphered part of it. It doesn't look like an S.O.S.
-Ripley

When you get right down to it, Alien is a "B Movie" made with "Triple A Movie" sensibilities. The story in one broad stroke is a crew of people on a ship getting killed off one at a time by a creature. A story doesn't get more "B Movie" then that. I think the problem ended up being that every single person involved with the film wasn't interested in making a "B Movie".

I'm tempted to describe so many things about this movie with the word "genius", and I still feel that way after watching it yet again for the umpteenth time. Everything that expands the simplified plot I mentioned is now stuff of sci-fi legend. How, where and why the alien is found is truly inspired writing. How the alien ends up on the ship is one of the most iconic scenes in sci-fi/horror history.

Having H.R. Giger design everything to do with the alien and nothing else was another brilliant stroke. At no point would you mistake anything from the alien ship, space jockey or alien eggs as something man made. It was like going into a different world. And how iconic did the alien design end up being? I know I use "iconic" a lot, but there are too many things in this film that are truly iconic to the genre not to use it.

The ensemble cast combined with the directing is just perfect. There are scenes that feel like documentary footage where you're eavesdropping on a conversation. It feels like you're watching real people that had full lives before what you're seeing and considering it's a sci-fi film set in a spaceship that's pretty remarkable. It causes the horror and tension to seem all the more real when it finally comes. Ridley Scott doesn't rush anything in the film and it causes the passing of it to be perfect in my opinion. From the reveal of the Nostromo in the opening shot to the closing lingering scene of Sigourney Weaver, it's just a perfectly shot film.

Did I mention I love this movie?