They Live (1988)

The War of the Worlds for the neoliberal era. Very fun, kinda stupid, at times striking, more radical that it was maybe meant to be. However, it calcifies into a straight action flick as it goes on. One big flaw's the flipside of its strength—it gets the “scales falling from the eyes” moment out of the way by a political-consciousness deus ex machina that lets us get to the good bits (metaphorically seeing things as they really are), but also feels cheap (no need to explore how someone reaches that point, just drop some magic sunglasses on their face). Ultimately, this is a very “white guy turns woke” movie made by a white guy turning woke… with all that entails.