By his own later account, a rock star who had barely eaten or slept for months, living on cocaine and milk, walked onto a film set to play a being from another planet. He barely had to act.

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976) stars David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien stranded on Earth in search of water to save his dying world. He builds a technology empire with the help of a lawyer, Oliver Farnsworth, played by Buck Henry, while falling into a haze of gin and television with Mary-Lou, played by Candy Clark.

Nicolas Roeg directed from Walter Tevis’s novel and shot it largely in New Mexico, letting the empty land and endless sky swallow Newton whole. Rip Torn plays Nathan Bryce, a former chemistry professor who goes to work for Newton’s company and grows suspicious of him from the inside. The government eventually closes in on Newton just as his plan nears completion.

The film’s original cut runs 139 minutes (the US release was trimmed to roughly 118) and drifts across the years the way Newton does, unchanged while everyone around him ages.

It remains one of the strangest science fiction films ever made, cold, sexual, and heartbroken by turns.