If you just want to know more about the best (or worst) examples of flying saucer movies, or if you want a deeper understanding of what makes them tick this guide is for you. It is easy to dismiss flying saucer movies as fodder for the undemanding masses or for adolescents, but this guide celebrates how they propel the stories of blockbusters to low-budget cult classics and how they can be used for cheap thrills or profound insights into the state of humanity. Beyond the great saucer movies - like The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing - this guide shows how they reflect the concerns and worries of society at large.

If you are a general film goer this guide will help you appreciate the many types of saucer movies that are available and how they relate to the wider world of cinema. For science fiction and horror fans the guide provides an opportunity to see how saucer movies fit into these genres, and how they have made, and continue to make, their distinctive mark on them. Another aspect to saucer movies is that they often refer to real UFO sightings and experiences. For Ufologists this guide shows how the fictional films and ‘reality’ have been mixed and matched by UFO witnesses and filmmakers. Media students will see how saucer movies often reflect the deepest concerns of humanity (from the threat of communism and aids to the invasion of personal space). For your further entertainment, or for deeper research, the guide provides useful references and web links. For all readers the goal of this guide is for you to keep watching the screens and wonder what is out there....