Part of the wave of monster films produced in Japan after the success of Godzilla, Warning from Space is a brilliantly weird piece of vintage Japanese sci-fi.

The film opens with a group of bizarre, starfish-shaped aliens discussing how to warn humans about impending disaster – a rogue planet is hurtling towards earth. Meanwhile, a physician Dr Matsuda works on a nuclear formula – a formula that could create the device required to stop the rogue planet from colliding with the world.

One of the films that inspired Stanley Kubrick in his creation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Warning from Space is a classic example of tokusatsu cinema, a special effects heavy subgenre of Japanese film.

1956 Japan Dir Koji Shima 87 min