Pods from outer space land in a small California town and start replicating the inhabitants, replacing them with unfeeling doubles, in this chilling science-fiction tale from director Don Siegel. This classic of the genre (co-scripted by an uncredited Sam Peckinpah from the novel by Jack Finney) reflects the blacklisting hysteria of the McCarthy era, as Siegel tersely piles on the nightmare with pulse-pounding briskness. Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter star as the lovers who try to avoid the fate of their friends and neighbours while desperately attempting to warn the outside world of the threat to mankind. Although expertly remade twice - in 1978 and 1993 - and rather less successfully in 2007, the original is still the most striking, with a justly famous scalp-freezing ending.

A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.