• 166.879 movies
  • 10.787 shows
  • 31.045 seasons
  • 624.791 actors
  • 9.130.084 votes
Avatar
 
banner banner

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Scifi | 139 minutes
3,21 273 votes

Genre: Scifi / Drama

Duration: 139 minuten

Country: United Kingdom

Directed by: Nicolas Roeg

Stars: David Bowie, Rip Torn and Candy Clark

IMDb score: 6,6 (29.318)

Releasedate: 18 March 1976

The Man Who Fell to Earth plot

"Power, space, time and a visitor."

As his planet suffers from a serious shortage of water, Thomas Jerome Newton travels to Earth. However, his spaceship is lost on landing, forcing him to set up a business to finance his return. Until he has collected enough money, he is forced to stay on Earth, with adjustment problems playing tricks on him.

logo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimage
Full Cast & Crew

Actors and actresses

Thomas Jerome Newton

Nathan Bryce

Oliver Farnsworth

Self (Commander of Apollo 13) (as Captain James Lovell)

Reviews & comments


Guest

  • messages
  • votes

Let op: In verband met copyright is het op MovieMeter.nl niet toegestaan om de inhoud van externe websites over te nemen, ook niet met bronvermelding. Je mag natuurlijk wel een link naar een externe pagina plaatsen, samen met je eigen beschrijving of eventueel de eerste alinea van de tekst. Je krijgt deze waarschuwing omdat het er op lijkt dat je een lange tekst hebt geplakt in je bericht.

* denotes required fields.

Pay attention! You cannot change your username afterwards.

* denotes required fields.
avatar van otherfool

otherfool

  • 18487 messages
  • 3397 votes

Meandering, sometimes fascinating and at times also incomprehensible Roeg. The highlight of the film is undoubtedly Bowie, who infiltrates Earth as a mysterious spaceman in order to pay for a return trip through business success to the unnamed planet home.

An angle that is as curious as it is amusing, but not fully exploited: after the first hour, the story is relegated even further to the background than it already was and the film becomes a trip of image and sound. Not bad at all, but the exorbitant length does kill The Man Who Fell towards the end, and Clark's acting also gets on my nerves...

More interesting than good.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van Onderhond

Onderhond

  • 87365 messages
  • 12283 votes

Nah.

I do appreciate what Roeg tried to do here. It is clearly a film that likes to ignore the plot and plays on atmosphere. Those are the movies I like to watch the most. But the elaboration of Roeg really disappointed me that I never really got to enjoy it, and I can't give a high mark for good intentions alone.

Bowie's casting is not a bad example. Somehow smart to cast him as an alien, otherwise very cheap, easy and not very efficient. Not least because humans can't act. Thanks to Flight of the Conchords, I also just had Bowie's in Space in my head for half a movie

It's the 70s kitsch that I absolutely couldn't appreciate here. Roeg makes it interesting enough that I remained curious about what was to come, but that always turned out to be a disappointment. And the more he played on atmosphere, the more painful I usually found it.

Still more interesting than a lot of old, purely narrative cinema like that, but this 140 minutes long wasn't exactly my favorite movie experience. Looking at Eureka I might like the 80s Roeg a little better.

1.5*

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van james_cameron

james_cameron

  • 6339 messages
  • 9334 votes

Crazy science fiction film that can hardly be described in words, with David Bowie perfectly cast as a man-shy alien who came to Earth due to a shortage of water on his own planet. Or something. Initially, the film is quite intriguing and atmospheric, but gradually things get bogged down in posturing and experimentation. Everything becomes less and less interesting towards the end. Visually, however, there is a lot to enjoy here and there, especially due to the beautiful camera work.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original