The Brother from Another Planet (1984)
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A fugitive slave with three-toed feet crash-lands in New York Harbor, and nobody in Harlem finds that the strangest part of him.
THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (1984) follows an escaped alien, played by Joe Morton, who looks like a Black man and cannot speak. He drifts through Harlem, healing arcade games with a touch and absorbing the neighborhood's rhythms while two white bounty hunters hunt him down.
John Sayles wrote and directed the film on a budget so small the special effects amount to little more than a severed foot and a few camera tricks. He needed nothing more. The real subject is how a silent stranger becomes a mirror for everyone who meets him, bartenders, hustlers, addicts, children, each reading him through their own history.
Joe Morton carries the entire film without a line of dialogue, using only his face and posture to register wonder, grief, and recognition. Sayles surrounds him with a cast of locals like Steve James and Bill Cobbs, whose characters treat the alien less as a curiosity than as one more man passing through. Sayles surrounds him with a cast of locals like Steve James and Bill Cobbs, whose characters treat the alien less as a curiosity than as one more man passing through.
Underneath the comedy sits a sharp allegory about immigration, slavery, and belonging, told by a director more interested in community than spectacle.
Physical media
About the film
He's not just another out-of-towner...
- Directed by
- John Sayles
- Runtime
- 108 minutes
- Released
- September 7, 1984
- Certification
- NR
- Country
- United States of America
- Starring
- Joe Morton, Rosanna Carter, Ray Ramirez, Yves Rene, Peter Richardson
More credits
- Genres
- Comedy, Science Fiction, Drama
- Language
- Spanish, French, English
- Origin
- US
- Studios
- A-Train Films
- Written by
- John Sayles
- Produced by
- Peggy Rajski, Maggie Renzi
- Cinematography
- Ernest R. Dickerson
- Music
- Martin Brody, Mason Daring
- Also starring
- Ginny Yang, Daryl Edwards, Steve James, Leonard Jackson, Bill Cobbs
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Saw it when it came out, just saw it again a couple of months ago. It really holds up. Funny, tender, with a few pertinent things to say about the Black experience in America. Sayles as one of the White Power aliens was hilarious.
‘The Brother From Another Planet’(1984) is one of my favourite John Sayles films, and that fact owes a lot to Joe Morton’s inimitable performance. 🫰🏻
Love this film.
Awesome movie.
A cinematic benchmark both in terms of storytelling and social commentary. Joe Morton deserves a retroactive honorary Oscar for his wordless performance.
saw it when it came out , great movie !!
Great film!!! First time we saw actor Joe Morton. He was good then and even better now!
Saw this in the theater because my dad was in it. Incredible film
I loved this movie so much when it first came out. Time for a re-watch.
Best movie ever!
Love, love, love this movie!!!
Yes!, I remember seeing this child way back in the ’80s with my father, at an independent movie theater. 🕛🎬✔️
Really cool, great movie!
Excellent movie
Love this movie!
Joe Crushed this role!! First movie I ever saw him in.. I was 21.. And remembered what a great actor he was and have been following him every since!!
Jonathan Sayles is my favorite director, maybe only behind the Coens. I love all his films. Passion Fish and Lone Star are my favorite.
Kirreck Williams Lone Star is one Helluva movie…the best Mystery movie Ever…Sayles also made one of my all-time favs, “Eight Men Out”….about Shoeless Joe and the 1919 Red Sox…I always suggest that people should watch this film first before they watch “Field of Dreams”
Shelton Bryant I’m a Kristofferson fan and I think it’s his best role. Definitely should have been nominated for best supporting in all awards. I love 8 Men Out. A note – the movie’s ending song is on my playlist, After You’ve Gone, by Leigh Harris. It’s became my favorite version after seeing the movie, which is saying something since Bessie Smith & Dinah Washington have version.
This movie was so good. My favorite part was at the end when he was with all these other back folks ,he pointed upwards thinking they were also not from earth and they all pointed down meaning earth. Now what I found surprising was reading the credits cause I just knew it was written by some black dude only to find out that John Sayles, one of the white guys who was trying to capture him wrote it.
I remember when it came out.
Great movie
Extraordinary movie, amazing leading man
Joe Morton is UNSUNG.
Great movie
This movie scared me so much as a kid!!
Creshaye Graham i was looking for this comment. I was terrified.
❤️
LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie!!!! “I’ll keep an eye out for you>”
One of my favorite films!!
& I told Joe Morton so on a clubhouse call during the pandemic. Totally fangirled him!! ♥️🤗
“White folks get stranger all the time.”
Loved it! 🥰🥰
Unforgettable film.
I adored this film until Bill Greaves did an incisive critique and I could never look at it the same way.
Lillian Jimenez I believe I might have read that same critique and it caused me look at the film differently.
Who is Bill Greaves? What critique? This movie is a masterpiece!
Bill Greaves was a pioneering documentary filmmaker who made feature films. I did not read the critique as we had a conversation and discussed the film. Bill was an amazing and brilliant man. And he was African American and a friend of mine.
Lillian Jimenez Greaves made this absolutely remarkable film “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm”…I swear to God that it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen
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This was a great film!
I just watched it the other day great movie.
I still remember this Michael A. Blair
Dee Garrett oldie but goodie
I love this film!
Wonderful film…saw it when it came out !!!! ❤️❤️🔥🔥🔥🎥🎬🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️
I was watching something stupid but fun recently, “Executive Decision”. Joe Morton plays one of the special forces soldiers who secretly boards a hijacked 747. He’s injured in the attempt and spends the rest of the movie strapped to a board. My takeaway from the movie was: Joe Morton, immobilised, can still command a scene. Great, and underappreciated, actor.
I enjoyed the movie 1983.
The Brother Joe Morton.
✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿
This movie turned me onto John Sayles and Joe Morton. I’ve been a huge fan of both ever since.
I read that in order to make the alien bounty hunters look a little alien, on the cheap, Sayles and David Strathairn, who played the hunters, walked backwards and then they reversed the footage.
I was just thinking about this movie the other day.
Way ahead of its time. Joe shoulda got an Oscar
Roni Wheeler 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
I remember Joe Morton from a PBS show called watch your mouth, that’s how far I go back🤔
I also love City of Hope, Passion Fish and Sunshine State. He was a remarkable filmmaker.
Anytime I see Joe Morton in anything, I always think of this movie.
Classic
And he can pick out one of his eyes and set it down someplace , and it’s a makeshift video, surveillance camera
My people built this country Jim………😎
And playing an infamous “Badmiral” in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds!
🔥
Lo ví
I want the power to fix electronic devices with the laying on of hands too!
Brilliant Commentary and Morton’s Break-out Role…Hilarious and at the same time deadly serious …Sayles was Spike Lee before Spike Lee…Poignant and Beautiful Ending
I liked the romantic angle with Dee Dee Bridgewater.
A, really good film with great acting by Joe Morton, who never speaks
An amazing film highlighting how our nation, perhaps even our planet, responds to the wrapping of a living being with flesh covered by Black skin. A layered story about us.
Fisher Steven’s had great role
I loved the “magic trick” of getting all white people to leave the train, at 59th headed to 125th.
🔥🔥🔥
Great movie
Special appearance by Dave Babcock!!! Great film! 116th Street – right exit, wrong line.
this is a feel-good movie that is not corny at all. love this.
Great 👍🏾
Have had a celeb crush on this man aka “Papa Joe” (Scandal with Kerri Washington) since his movie with Sayles!
Great movie and an early standout performance by Joe Morton. Fisher Stevens has a nice little turn as a card trickster. He’s on the subway with the Brother and showing him a card trick while telling a story. At the end he says, “Want to see another magic trick? All the white people will disappear.” The doors open, the conductor announces “Next stop, 125th Street Harlem” and all of the white people get off the train.
It’s an excellent movie.