If nothing else, alien life will almost certainly be carbon based, built from amino acid proteins, breathe oxygen, etc.
I generally agree with that, though I think carbon-based and breathing oxygen is taking it a bit too far, could be silicon-based. And not even all organisms on Earth need oxygen.
But the basic things hold, because of the shared physics - information exchange will be needed and there are only so many ways to do that.
Mortality is probably given, considering that more complex life cannot come into existence
ex nihilo, hence some sort of development and evolution must be there, which probably means that something has changed and died to make place for the new beings (though their mortality is not given, considering what technology can do - but they have that concept), which gives us a common psychogical element. Possibly even resource conflicts (fighting over food), hence the concept of conflict and war.
Movement: You can move through gas, liquids, and solids - flying, swimming, burrowing and move on transitions - that's some form of wheel, rolling, crawling or leg, we haven't found much else that works.
Decay: Everything decays, which ties in into mortality, but also into a concept of time and perhaps some idea of causality and time-based thinking.
Fingers: If they want to build and manipulate stuff, they need some sorf of instrument, it's just like that. Could be pincers, suckers, whatever, but it must have relatively fine control.
Cheers, LT.