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David Bowie, Candy Clark, Rip Torn, Buck Henry, Bernie Casey ... see more see more... , Jackson D. Kane , Rick Riccardo , Tony Mascia , Linda Hutton , Hilary Holland , Adrienne Larussa , Lilybell Crawford , Richard Breeding , Albert Nelson , Peter Prouse , Capt. James Lovell

Space alien (Bowie) crash lands on Earth, seeking help for his drought-stricken planet. By securing patents to advanced technology, he becomes a fabulously wealthy industrialist. However, money and it... read more read more...s attendant decadence ultimately exert a stronger gravitational pull. Bowie seemed perfectly cast as the space traveller, and the film further cemented director Roeg's status as one of the most unique filmmakers of the 1970's. Originally cut by 20 minutes in its 1976 US release, this anniversary presentation is the complete version.

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70% liked it

11,231 ratings

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84% liked it

38 critics

R, 2 hr. 20 min.

Directed by: Nicolas Roeg

Release Date: March 28, 1976

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DVD Release Date: July 5, 2000

Stats: 969 reviews

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The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth David Bowie The Man Who Fell to Earth Just plain Handsome. David Bowie & Candy Clark The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth David Bowie in The Man who Fell to Earth Bowie as The Man Who Fell to Earth Bowie as The Man Who Fell to Earth Thats pretty maad! David Bowie in The Man who Fell to Earth David Bowie The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth
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Flixster Reviews (969)

  • romy861
    February 26, 2012
    romy861
    Not sure I entirely understood this, but it's the type of movie you just sit back, watch, and then try and work out what it was all about later!
    As it turns out, it wasn't about a whole lot, and the ending is slightly unsatisfying, but I could forgive this quite a lot as I loved... read more David Bowie here, perfect as an alien, and there is a type of 70's sleaze all through this that works for its time. Very interesting movie.
  • fb1664868775
    October 27, 2011
    fb1664868775
    An odd film that features a decent performance from one of my favorite artists (Bowie) but the real star is Roeg's direction.
  • StarCrossedVoyager
    September 13, 2011
    StarCrossedVoyager
    A very obvious vanity project, it could have been a lot better if they'd sat down and discussed the plot to the minutest detail. Bowie's performance was fantastic though.
  • Tomassgringo
    February 15, 2011
    Tomassgringo
    Very interesting 70s idea of science fiction. It takes too long to get to the point, but even then - the point is disappointing. The concept is much better than the product. I enjoyed David Bowie's performance and the fun was in nostalgia.
  • ajv2688
    January 3, 2011
    ajv2688
    I should really see this movie again, I didn't get to see the whole thing, but I liked what I did see.
  • mumby1988
    September 12, 2010
    mumby1988
    Philip Ridley once said that ?watching a film has always been both an experience and a process; we experience it first and we spend the rest of our lives processing it.? Each of us can cite examples of films which were memorable experiences to watch and which have dogged our imag... read moreinations since that fateful first viewing. Sometimes the film is so perfect we embrace it and analyse it ad infinitum; sometimes it is so hideous that we are repulsed and vow to avoid that area forever. And sometimes, as with The Man Who Fell to Earth, the experience is just so strange that we don?t know what to think.

    The Man Who Fell to Earth is a notable meeting point in many interesting careers. It was maverick director Nicolas Roeg?s follow-up to Don?t Look Now, a flawed but fascinating Gothic tale of grief and the supernatural. It was produced by Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley, who would later win Oscars for their work on The Deer Hunter. And it marked David Bowie?s first foray into film, having failed to get an adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four off the ground.

    More than any of that, it is also one of the strangest, oddest and most baffling films ever to have come out of Britain ? quite something for the country which gave us The Wicker Man. Roeg?s experimentation with colour, composition and narrative structure takes a relatively straightforward science fiction story and distorts it ruthlessly, creating something which is incoherent and indulgent, but utterly memorable.

    Based on a 1963 novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth is something of a bridge between the drug-induced hippie culture of the late-1960s and the post-Altamont paranoia of the 1970s. Its visual style is reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni, particularly The Passenger and Zabriskie Point. Both films rely on long slow scenes with lengthy takes, and the camera is as much in love with the landscape as it is with the characters dotted around it.

    There are also hints of Andrei Tarkovsky in Roeg?s work. Like The Mirror, The Man Who Fell to Earth plays out like a stream of consciousness with no particular interest in narrative. And as with Solaris, part of what story there is includes a man wanting to rejoin his family on a distant planet. We watch David Bowie?s mind conjure up images of a strange desert world, and are not sure whether we are seeing what is real or illusion, the future or the past.

    One of the distinctive features of The Man Who Fell to Earth is its complete disregard for the passage time. Characters physically age, but there is no clue as to how much they age by or how long it has taken Bowie to accumulate all his wealth and power. Roeg deliberately sought to remove the ?crutch of time? from his audience, a decision which makes the film deeply incoherent. Couple that with the generally slow pace of the film, which runs to two-and-a-half hours when fully uncut, and you would expect the whole project to collapse into a soupy heap.

    This is avoided by Roeg?s striking visuals which pull us into the world of the film and keep us totally engrossed (if freaked out) by what is going on. Like Ken Russell before him and David Lynch shortly after, Roeg puts images on screen which are so horrifically beautiful that we can be fixated by what is happening even if we have no idea what is going on. The scenes of Bowie?s home planet, inhabited by hairless creatures with air packs and yellow eyes, is up there with the acid queen sequence in Tommy.

    The Man Who Fell to Earth is a deeply druggy film, right down to Bowie?s entrance which resembles footage of Syd Barrett (allegedly) tripping on mushrooms in a quarry. This psychedelic feel spilt over into the production, since the film was made at the height of Bowie?s cocaine addiction. Perhaps the only way to rationally understand the film is to liken it to an acid trip or lengthy state of drunkenness, in which little makes sense and one has little control over events playing out before you.

    It?s therefore hard to know whether the film?s indulges with both time and content are deliberately intended to reinforce this effect or are simply a case of poor discipline. By and large Roeg is well-behaved behind the camera, choosing his angles for their propriety rather than to show off his skills as an editor. His use of zooms, while repetitive, does enhance the film, mimicking our wandering minds that focus on something on a whim for no good reason. That said, we do have to put up with the gratuitous shot of Candy Clark urinating in fear, in which the camera focuses tight on her underwear in a really uncomfortable manner.

    Being an X certificate film, The Man Who Fell to Earth also has its fair share of nudity and graphic sex. We get full frontal scenes of Clark and Bowie, and scenes of Clark and Rip Torn making love in a manner which resembles a mugging. Although none of these scenes are exploitative, they are far removed from the famously delicate love scene in Don?t Look Now. We also have to put up with a parade of teenagers staring at Torn?s genitals and remarking: ?you don?t look anything like my father?.

    But beneath all its incoherence and excess, The Man Who Fell to Earth is an insightful and powerful film about the destructive effects of wealth and the lifestyle that goes with it. Beyond the obvious irony of the story (a man sent to find water ends up becoming a drunk), the film demonstrates how someone of seemingly noble intentions can end up as a bankrupt vessel of decay. Thomas Jerome Newton begins with no emotions and a singular focus on his mission, setting up World Enterprises with the express purpose of helping his planet. But the longer he stays on Earth, the more Newton absorbs the lifestyle and values of our planet until he loses all desire to help anyone.

    Just as Charles Foster Kane was based on newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, so there are shades of real life enigmas in Bowie?s performance. The most obvious comparison, aside from Hearst, would be with Howard Hughes. Both individuals are obsessive by nature, with the ability to conjure up wealth and power out of nothing. Like Hughes, Newton entertains the possibility of travel by seemingly unrealistic means. And like Hughes, Newton becomes a recluse who is both tormented and fascinated by film and television. Think of Newton as Kane?s mentally deranged, druggy half-brother ? and even then, you?re only halfway there.

    Much has been written about Bowie?s performance, which is the best of his erratic acting career. Bowie literally inhabits Newton to the extent that he lived the lifestyle of the character long after the film had wrapped. The covers of Station To Station and Low are stills from the film, and Bowie?s persona of The Thin White Duke was in some respects a perversion of Newton?s mental state. His performance is the mainstay of The Man Who Fell to Earth, the touchstone which sustains our attention and prevents us from being completely alienated. His pathos-ridden delivery and unusual beauty pulls us hypnotically into the world of Newton and his various pleasures, and the heartbreak is genuine as he slowly but inevitably falls apart.

    The Man Who Fell to Earth is a remarkable feat of science fiction which finds Roeg at the height of his powers. It can?t be called a masterpiece, because of its blatant disregard for anything resembling discipline or coherency. But it is a deeply cinematic experience with a sense of ambition and scope which is rare in filmmaking, even for the period in which it was conceived. It holds up both as a bona fide cult film and as the document of a bygone age, in filmmaking and in Western society. It?s baffling, bizarre and utterly bonkers, but never anything less than unforgettable.
  • pier007
    August 20, 2009
    pier007
    I liked the general idea of the film, Bowie's performance; and, only at first, the mysterious, convoluted plot, but after a while I got tired of all that. Overlong and too scattered for my taste.
  • dhetteix
    August 31, 2008
    dhetteix
    Disjointed and self-indulgent, this film conveys its story poorly, expounds lengthily while delivering little of value, and makes brave stylistic moves for styles sake. One may very well argue that the film conveys, if not coherency, then at least the "spirit" of alienation and d... read moreisjointedness that the plot revolves around. In that regard, the film succeeds, but at the blatant risk of disregarding the plot entirely in an attempt to find its "soul." This isn't to say it tells no story... the story is just poorly told, constantly crippled by misplaced cinematic license.

    This film at its worst fails to tell a story at all, and increasingly this is the case as the film progresses, becoming so enraptured with its capturing the essence of alienation that it alienates good portions of its audience.

    This film is a cult film, indeed, but a cult film in the truest sense of the word: it is enjoyable to an elite who enjoy its rarity and odditiy, or by those who find kinship with its disjointed, dilated, and eerie essence. Unlike better cult films, there is little being said of value, little that can be gained by investing the time to understand it, and no true narrative (which is merely a foil, an excuse to indulge in an exercise of thematic expression) or meta-narrative (it tackles no real issues or cultural phenomena) to speak of beyond the phenomena of its heavy-handed effect.

    Over-rated.
  • puffchunk
    April 22, 2008
    puffchunk
    Sorry to say that I got very, very bored with this one. David Bowie is the man, but not enough spandex and too much sex with that same chick.
  • webalina
    January 2, 2008
    webalina
    Not impressed. Kept waiting for some kind of point that never came. I found myself flipping through a magazine and finding it more engrossing. That's a shame too, because I probably missed a plot point -- I MUST HAVE -- that would have explained things a little better. This is an... read moreother case of being disappointed in a film that I waited years to see. Maybe if I had seen it when I first heard about it 30 years ago, I might have like it better.

    Oh, and why does Candy Clark always talk like she's 8 years old? Of course, with a name like "Candy" I guess that's to be expected.

View All The Man Who Fell to Earth Reviews

Critic Reviews

Chris Vognar
August 25, 2011
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

The Man Who Fell to Earth today plays like a movie that fell from the sky, origins unknown. Full Review

Colin Covert
August 25, 2011
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The film is a more poignant (and infinitely bleaker) portrait of extraterrestrial homesickness than "E.T." Full Review

Michael O'Sullivan
July 15, 2011
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

Feels like a tedious historical artifact. It's a sci-fi "Days of Wine and Roses" for the arthouse crowd. Full Review

Nick Pinkerton
June 21, 2011
Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

Undeniably long, Panavision-wide, but of questionable depth. Full Review

Variety Staff
June 6, 2007
Variety Staff, Variety

Establishes [its] British director as one of the most talented and imaginative new filmmakers in this part of the world. It's a demanding effort which will provide a challenge. Full Review

Dave Kehr
June 6, 2007
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Nicolas Roeg's obfuscating style tricks it up, though the film is ultimately an empty thing. Full Review

Roger Ebert
October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

What we have here are pieces of a vast, ambitious, complex conception. Some of the pieces are, in themselves, so very good that we really regret they don't fit together. Full Review

Glenn Abel
June 14, 2003
Glenn Abel, Hollywood Reporter

By turns, creepy and cheesy, literate and vapid.

Richard Eder
May 21, 2003
Richard Eder, New York Times

There are quite a few science-fiction movies scheduled to come out in the next year or so. We shall be lucky if even one or two are as absorbing and as beautiful as The Man Who Fell to Earth. Full Review

Sarah Boslaugh
September 22, 2011
Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

The cinematography by Anthony B. Richmond still looks fantastic and Bowie's androgynous screen presence is never less than fascinating. Full Review

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The Man Who Fell to Earth Trivia

  • Who played in The Hunger, The Man Who Fell To Earth, and The Labyrinth?  Answer »
  • Which actor played Thomas Jerome Newton in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'?  Answer »
  • Who wrote the novel to the Award-Winning movie "The Man Who Fell to Earth" starring David Bowie?  Answer »
  • Which movie did David Bowie played ?  Answer »
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