Best Films About Alien Abductions. In this series of sci-fi alien-themed articles, we’ll be reviewing the best films about alien invasions, alien abductions, alien encounters, UFO appearances and government conspiracies involving extraterrestrial coverups. These articles will include both popular and lesser-known films from our collections of Alien Invasion Films, Alien Abductions Films and Thriller Conspiracy Films and we’ll be releasing a new article from this series each month. Many of these films often include various themes of alien invasions, abductions and conspiracies but we’ll do our best to single out the best themed films for each respective list.
In this third article, we’ll look at the best films featuring aliens abducting humans for observation and experimentation. As Alien Invasion Films became increasingly popular into the 1980s, alien abductions became a subtheme of aliens visiting Earth and would eventually become its own subgenre. Some earlier films such as The UFO Incident (1975) and The Return (1980) touched upon themes of humans being abducted (and returned) by aliens, but the tropes and themes of this subgenre were arguably defined later with Communion (1989) and Fire in the Sky (1993). After those films, there was a run of films featuring everything from benevolent alien abductions in Visitors of the Night (1995) and UFO Sweden (2022) to increasing darker depictions of aliens performing grisly experiments on humans in The Signal (2014), Dark Encounter (2019) and the recent, Osiris (2025).
Outlined below is a list of our planned articles and if there’s an alien subgenre theme you think we should also include, let us know in the comments!
- Best Recent Films About Alien Invasions
- Best Films About UFOs & Alien Encounters
- Best Alien Abductions Films
- Best Films About Alien Conspiracies
- Top Films About Alien Abductions You Haven’t Seen
For our rankings we’re going to use some criteria to help define and refine our list. First, the film must have a primary focus on alien abductions. There are quite a few Alien Invasion Films that also feature scenes of abductions from Mars Attacks (1996) and Independence Day (1996) to War of the Worlds (2005) and Cowboys & Aliens (2011). However, these films are first and foremost about aliens invading Earth, so they won’t make this specific list.
Second, one of the hallmarks of alien abduction films is the experimentation aliens perform on humans. So, the more a film shows this theme of the subgenre, the higher it will rank on our list. This will affect certain films such as Night Skies (2007), which isn’t a great film overall, but does have one of the most memorable (and graphic) scenes of alien experimentation on humans aboard an alien ship.
Third, for films that have a backstory on humans abducted by aliens but aren’t truly alien abduction films, we’ll rank these films lower on this list. This includes films such as Heavy Metal (1981), Stargate (1994), Predators (2010) and the Guardians of the Galaxy series of films.
Fourth, we will consider films for this list where humans are abducted by people from another dimension or multiverse, but only if these films have the subgenre themes we’re looking for such as human experimentation, aliens invading a home for abduction, UFOs appearing as the abduction occurs and so on. For films that focus more on abducted humans being replaced with their interdimensional (or alien) counterpart, they will be more suited for our next list of films dealing with alien conspiracies.
And fifth, we had to follow our rule for all of KBZ’s film listings where we only list films that have a 4.0/10 or higher rating and were released after 1970. However, we will extend this date back to 1955 for this list to include one of the first films to feature an alien abduction in This Island Earth (1955).
Our complete list of Films About Alien Abductions features over 93+ films from 1955 – 2025. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to get updated as we release future articles involving aliens and add the latest and greatest subgenre films to our collection.
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Best Films About Alien Abductions
Films that didn’t make our list (and only for completists): The Body Stealers (1969), Liquid Sky (1982), Blue Tornado (1991), Out There (1995), Nowhere (1997), Alien Avengers II (1997), Evil Aliens (2006), Absence (2013), Alien Abduction (2014), The Phoenix Incident (2015), Beacon Point (2016), Rupture (2016), Aliens & Gufors (2017), Phoenix Forgotten (2017), The Recall (2017), Cold Ground (2017), The Rejected (2018), Beyond the Sky (2018), Abduction (2019), Fried Barry (2020), Holes in the Sky (2021), Alternate Ground (2021), Foil (2023), Adventures of the Naked Umbrella (2023) and Jimmy and Stiggs (2024).
Honorable Mentions: This Island Earth (1955), Heavy Metal (1981), Official Denial (1993), Stargate (1994), Specimen (1996), The Shadow Men (1997), The Lake (1998), Progeny (1998), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Dreamcatcher (2003), The Big Empty (2003), The Forgotten (2004), Altered (2006), The Fourth Kind (2009), Skyline (2010), Predators (2010), V/H/S/2 (2013), Almost Human (2013), Skinwalker Ranch (2013), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Circle (2015), Antibirth (2016), Beyond Skyline (2017), Skyman (2020), Journey to the West (2021), The Alien Report (2022), Cosmic Dawn (2022), UFO Sweden (2022), The Missing (2023), Meanwhile on Earth (2024), The Black Hole (2025), Osiris (2025) and The Astronaut (2025).
Rank 20-1:
#20 Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Kinda Feel Left Out (2023) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#19 Xtro (1982) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#18 Dark Encounter (2019) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#17 Visitors of the Night (1995) Where to Stream / Buy: YouTube
#16 The Stranger Within (1974) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#15 Vivarium (2019) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#14 Honeymoon (2014) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#13 Under the Skin (2014) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#12 Flight of the Navigator (1987) Where to Stream / Buy: Disney+
#11 We Are Living Things (2021) Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#10
Night Skies
Plot: On March 13th, 1997, one of the largest UFO sightings ever recorded took place across the southwestern United States…
KBZ’s Take: Night Skies was one of a few films, also including The Phoenix Incident (2015) and Phoenix Forgotten (2017), that used the backdrop of the now-explained mysterious lights that appeared over Phoenix in 1997. Though The Phoenix Incident and Phoenix Forgotten are only recommended for completists of the subgenre, Night Skies appears on this list for its third act alone.
We mentioned earlier in this article that we were grading films on their alien abduction and experimentation scenes, and Night Skies has one of the most memorable scenes of the entire subgenre. Though the film is hampered by its pacing and low budget, it more than makes up for these shortcomings in its gruesome third act.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: Five friends set out to a cabin in the woods for a fun weekend getaway that is, until extraterrestrial visitors turn it into a fight for their lives. The group is pulled from their reverie when a flickering object crashes deep in the woods. As they investigate, the friends stumble across an alien spacecraft, and its inhabitants have not arrived in peace.
KBZ’s Take: Extraterrestrial is another film we ranked higher on this list than usual due to our specific criteria involving abduction scenes. However, it’s a film of two halves.
Though the first half of the film doesn’t break new ground in the subgenre, the second half more than redeems the film overall with a unique, yet disturbing, look at humans abducted on an alien spacecraft.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#8
Communion
Plot: A novelist’s wife and son see him changed by an apparent encounter with aliens in the mountains.
KBZ’s Take: Communion is one of the more well-known films of the subgenre as it details author Whitley Strieber’s ‘believed’ encounter with and abduction by aliens. Christopher Walken (as Strieber) makes the film watchable through its uneven tone and pacing. However, there are some unique human interactions with aliens in the film that make it worth a look by fans of the subgenre.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#7
The Signal
Plot: Three college students on a road trip across the Southwest experience a detour – the tracking of a computer genius who has already hacked into MIT and exposed security faults. When the trio find themselves drawn to an eerily isolated area, suddenly everything goes dark. When one of the students regains consciousness, he finds himself in a waking nightmare.
KBZ’s Take: The Signal is one of those films where the less said about the plot, the better. What we can say about the film is that it has some very unique scenes and themes within the subgenre and a standout performance by Laurence Fishburne.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#6
Descendent
Plot: A troubled man experiences strange visions after a mysterious light appears in the sky. With a baby on the way, he races to face his demons before his growing obsession consumes him.
KBZ’s Take: 2025 was a year with a run of horror-based alien abduction films including Osiris (2025), The Astronaut (2025) and Descendent. Osiris is basically an action film in the vein of Aliens (1986), The Astronaut has body horror and similar themes of The Astronaut’s Wife (1999) and Descendent makes our list for it’s psychological focus on alien abductions.
This is one film on our list that doesn’t have major scenes of alien experimentation on humans. But the true horror in the film is psychological as a man grapples with his life crumbling apart as he’s convinced that he’s been abducted by aliens. The closest film we can compare this to is Jacob’s Ladder (1990), and if you liked that film, we’re fairly confident you’ll enjoy Descendent as well.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#5
Dark City
Plot: A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
KBZ’s Take: Dark City isn’t often thought of as a film about alien abductions as it is most often compared to The Matrix (1999), which was released a year later. While the themes of both films are similar, Dark City falls much more within the scope of this list, and like other films here, the less said about the plot, the better.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: Ruth and Harry decide to take a romantic backpacking trip through the Pacific Northwest, but amongst the beautiful scenery, Ruth makes an unexpected discovery that sets her off on a strange, frightening new path. The couple aren’t alone in the woods, and they might not be the same when they come out…if they come out.
KBZ’s Take: Significant Other is another film on our list that doesn’t quite meet some of the criteria we defined earlier in our list – to a point. We can’t go into detail on explaining why it does meet some of these criteria (in a different way) but that would spoil some of the reveals throughout the plot.
This is a film we didn’t think much of going into, but after viewing, became one of our favorites of the subgenre. There are some surprisingly good performances in the film by Maika Monroe (Ruth) and Jack Lacy (Harry) who help make some of the plot twists very believable.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#3
Dark Skies
Plot: As husband and wife Daniel and Lacey Barret witness an escalating series of disturbing events involving their family, their safe and peaceful home quickly unravels. When it becomes clear that the Barret family is being targeted by an unimaginably terrifying and deadly force, Daniel and Lacey take matters in their own hands to solve the mystery of what is after their family.
KBZ’s Take: One of the creepier alien abduction films on our list, Dark Skies utilizes more horror-based elements in its tale of a family targeted by aliens. There are some genuinely scary moments in this film as the family starts to deal with the increasingly strange occurrences.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#2
V/H/S/Beyond
Plot: Six bloodcurdling tapes unleash horror in a sci-fi-inspired hellscape, pushing the boundaries of fear and suspense.
KBZ’s Take: V/H/S/Beyond is the 7th entry in the V/H/S franchise and the first to solely focus on sci-fi horror. There are a few segments that deal with alien abduction including the wrap around segment entitled “Abduction/Adduction” and a hybrid invasion/abduction segment entitled “Live and Let Dive”.
However, it’s the final segment entitled “Stowaway” which makes our list here. This is a horror-based segment involving a woman who becomes trapped on an alien spaceship. We won’t give more away than that except to say its tense and creepy and one of the more unique experiences of an alien abduction within the subgenre.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: A group of men who were clearing brush for the government arrive back in town, claiming that their friend was abducted by aliens. Nobody believes them, and despite a lack of motive and no evidence of foul play, their friends disappearance is treated as murder.
KBZ’s Take: There’s little doubt that Fire in the Sky would be #1 on our list. This is the film that defined many of the alien abduction tropes within the subgenre – especially with it’s take on alien experimentation on humans. In fact, it’s gruesome scene of alien experimentation came out of nowhere in a film that had been mostly drama-based up until that point. It’s a scene of horror which even made #5 on our list of The Creepiest Scenes from 1990s Horror Films.
Though most of the drama-based portions of the film might seem familiar and mundane to current audiences, we would encourage any viewer to make it to the third act of the film. This third act is what the film is known for and why it’s our top pick for this list.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
