Cinema: Best of ’86: Cinema

ALIENS Tall, wondrous Sigourney Weaver battles tall, terrible monsters in James Cameron’s technically awesome blend of the horror, sci-fi and service- comedy genres.

BLUE VELVET Political and sexual corruption in Your Town, U.S.A. David Lynch’s | luscious sick joke is a nightmare that refuses to explain itself, or to be forgotten.

THE FLY Under the grotty gore of David Cronenberg’s nifty horror comedy lurks something even more terrifying: a parable of a lover’s fidelity, no matter how repulsive the physical decay, no matter how great the emotional sacrifice.

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS Sketching on his broadest canvas, Woody Allen creates a rendering of comic heartbreak and rebirth among Manhattan’s tarnished glitterati.

PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED Or: Back to the Future meets The Wizard of Oz. Kathleen Turner is an older Dorothy who is transported to the Emerald City of youth, then ruefully returns to the Kansas of middle age. Francis Coppola plays Frank Capra, and wins.

THE SACRIFICE Andrei Tarkovsky, the Soviet emigre film wizard, poaches on Ingmar Bergman territory — the metaphysical longing, the sexual heat, the end of the world — and fashions his testament. A triumph of imagery and ambition.

THERESE The Little Flower was Christ’s top cheerleader; this film is a small miracle of faith, craft and good humor.

TRUE STORIES The folks of Virgil, Texas, “don’t want freedom/ We don’t want justice/ We just want someone to love.” Is that weird? Naaah. Not in this surreal funfest from David Byrne, rock’s Renaissance guy. Lotsa laughs and neat songs.

TURTLE DIARY Two eccentrics (Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley) rescue a pair of tortoises from imprisonment at the London zoo. Harold Pinter writes comedy without wasting sentiment, John Irvin directs it without wasting motion.

VAGABOND Agnes Varda’s bleak portrayal of a runaway adolescent on her last legs is also a meditation on the unknowability of human motives and a tour de force for Actress Sandrine Bonnaire.