District 9

Neill Blomkamp's debut feature is a thoughtful sci-fi thriller about aliens stranded on Earth, which tells a social parable that couldn't be more apposite to its South African setting. Back in the early 80s a spaceship grinds to a halt above Johannesburg. On investigation, the colossal craft is found to house insect-like bipeds, all in a very bad shape. Eventually allowed to land on the planet, the occupants are confined to District 9, a shabby outlying suburb. Now, around 20 years later, the entire population of 'prawns', as the aliens have offensively been labelled, are to be moved to a distant detention camp, with Afrikaner bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe placed in charge of their relocation. But when a grim accident befalls van de Merwe, he's given a radically different perspective on the affair, as well as little choice but to team up with the extra-terrestrials. Mixing elements of horror and action-thriller into the allegorical whole, the Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated fantasy, produced by Peter Jackson, uses top-notch CGI to both create a believable setting and to move the pace along nicely. In English, with subtitles for the dialogue in Afrikaans, Nyanja, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and the aliens' language.