20 Million Miles to Earth

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) is a classic science fiction horror film you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Nathan Juran, it follows the first manned mission to Venus — one that makes it back to Earth but crashes into the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily. Local fishermen pull a survivor from the wreckage, along with a small canister carrying something that definitely did not originate on this planet.

The creature inside is barely the size of a lizard when it's found. It doesn't stay that way. Growing at an alarming rate, it breaks free and eventually threatens the city of Rome. Colonel Calder, played by William Hopper, and zoologist Tom Sharman race to contain it before the military's preferred solution — destroy everything — becomes unavoidable. Joan Taylor co-stars alongside Frank Puglia.

The true legacy of the film belongs to Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-motion Ymir creature remains one of the great achievements in practical effects — brought to life frame by painstaking frame, decades before CGI existed. Stream 20 Million Miles to Earth online on iFILM.