Watch The Brother from Another Planet For Free

The first must-see film of the year.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The acting in this movie is really good.

John Sayles wrote and directed "Brother from Another Planet" on a budget of $350,000, money very well spent. Sayles also edited the film. Joe Morton is an "alien," this time in the literal sense. He escapes slavery from his planet and lands in Harlem, NYC, USA, EARTH.The writer-director also saves money by playing one of the bounty hunters tracking down the runaway alien. Morton is "Brother" and he is a deaf mute with telekinetic powers. He is chased by the men in black who are looking to return him to their home planet. Sayles has written a thoughtful and funny sci-fi black comedy and proves that money is secondary in the movie business.

A black skinned alien, who doesn't utter a single word yet understands what others are saying, crashlands in Harlem. He meets various people, such as some quirky, interesting black characters in a bar setting who would befriend him even though he doesn't say anything to them. He often sits or looks on as people just chat away. He has gifted abilities such as his touch being able to repair equipment magically, the way his right eye can be removed and used as an image recording device, can heal wounds, or how anything solid object he embraces with his touch can speak from the noise of a past incident. In Harlem, he's introduced to racism, poverty, lust, drugs, crime, sex, among other things as two alien "police"(played by director Sayles and his frequent actor David Strathairn)are trying to locate his whereabouts so they can "haul him in." The film show our alien's particular interest in two tragic dope-pushers(..and abusers)and how their plight might result from wealthy uptown types. I think ultimately, the film is a candid fish-out-of-water view of Harlem's plight from a babe's point-of-view.Introspective tale regarding Harlem and how it is viewed by many( a beat cop who chats with our alien, two white men from Indiana who get lost, etc). I thought the film was on target using comedy as an avenue to expose what had happened to Harlem over the years. Particularly interesting is listening to the men in the bar as they often are our real insight into how Halrem has changed over the years. Joe Morton is really amazing because he has to be convincing without a line of dialogue. Having us believe he's from some other planet is not the easiest task, but it's a credit to the actor and his director that this flick accomplishes it. Just a brilliant indie from acclaimed writer/director Sayles.

This film has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it. The Brother from Another Planet was featured at the French-American film festival in my temporary hometown of Avignon, France in the spring/summer of 1984, and I saw it in the Utopia theater there, a venue equal to this enchanting, unusual film. My own situation informed my viewing; as I had recently graduated from college and flown to France to work for the summer (before heading into "the 'real' world"), Brother spoke to me about life as a foreigner "without a voice." I was self-conscious about my French and had chosen to spend my early weeks there silently observing. The parallels were too many to enumerate. My reactions were visceral; I appreciated the situations more than had I been viewing with a majority American audience. Separate from my personal perspective, however, I believe the film depicts a wonderful cross-section of characters who were simultaneously of their era and archetypal; I enjoyed "meeting" the compendium the Brother met and seeing them through his eyes. Joe Morton was skilled at communicating without words, conveying emotion and thoughtfulness in his character's truly alien environment. The interplanetary bounty hunters, my personal favorites, were clearly inspirations for the later "Men in Black" feature franchise. I'm glad I saw them before MIB debuted. There was nothing formulaic about this story. Sayles' fresh approach made me into a lifelong fan; he is a storyteller whose tales are always worth the trip. For a film with the potential for both scintillating discussion or simply quirky-but-never-shallow entertainment, check out The Brother.

In what may have been John Sayles's most Hollywood-style movie - and I use that description loosely - an alien slave (Joe Morton) lands in Harlem and tries to escape two bounty hunters (the director and David Strathairn) from his planet. In the process, even though he can't talk, he starts fixing video-games (unintentionally, natch). It just goes to show that you don't need an exorbitant budget to make a good movie about extraterrestrial life. Maybe not Sayles's all-time masterpiece, but worth seeing, partly as a look at people's everyday lives. I'd recommend it.Make all the white people disappear. Yeah...