Research expedition in Alaska finds a flying saucer buried in the ice. Unfortunately the occupant of said saucer gets accidentally thawed out, and he has no peaceful intentions towards us Earthlings...
One of the first great sci-fi films of the Fifties that still manages to hold up today. It does have to be said that the Thing, when finally revealed, is not scary at all...but how scary could a space carrot be?
Remade three decades later by John Carpenter as a much closer (and grislier) adaptation of John W. Campbell's original story.
Spencer's reporter is possibly the most irritating movie character outside of an Adam Sandler film, but he does have one of the best lines in movie history: "Keep watching the skies!!!"