If you were going to cast anyone to play an alien in 1976, who else could you cast but David Bowie? Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’ novel about a shape-shifting interstellar traveler seeking aid for his dying planet remains one of Bowie’s greatest performances, a devastating accusation about the nature of humanity. Merely being one of us is enough to destroy visitor Thomas Jerome Newton, and Bowie brings all his soulful otherness to the role. – Richard Whittaker
