Forget those aliens that drop in on planet Earth - or come to invade it - looking like us. That gets boring. We want a bit of creativity in our extra-terrestrial visitors. And I'm not talking taking the human form and simply making the ears and eyebrows a bit pointier. I'm looking at you Spock.

I can understand the idea of a highly intelligent alien being appearing as a light force, such as the one featured in John Carpenter's Star Man (1984) and then taking the form of a human, or even a so-called 'Star Child' like what Dave Bowman becomes in Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

There may be civilizations out in space that have evolved to a point in which they no longer need a 'vehicle' or a 'vessel' such as the one we use to get around in ie. the human body. Well ... in their own environment anyway. But, are then forced to borrow one of ours when visiting Earth.

For our alien creatures on the big screen, whether highly-advanced or not, we usually want something imaginative. Little green men? Probably still doesn't cut it. But, Hollywood and co has certainly given us some interesting takes over the years, the best coming in a monstrous - or just plain ugly - kind of way.

The aliens appearing in this list are those that have made it to this planet - or gotten pretty damn close - for whatever reason, from a desire to hunt us down and kill us to just wanting to check out some flowers and eat chocolate.

And they must be creatures in a sense they are very animalistic in appearance, but very much uniquely extra-terrestrial, meaning they are very different to us and our fellow inhabitants of Earth. They have two legs, two arms and a head (so no Blobs or Things, no matter how great they are), but that is where the comparisons stop ...