‘Alien’: Every Movie Ranked, Including Those Battles Vs. Predator
It’s been 45 years of cute little aliens popping out of human chests, screaming where no one can hear you, and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. With the latest Xenomorph entry Alien: Romulus in theaters this weekend, here is a subjective (but honestly objective) ranking of every theatrical Alien movie in the franchise. Yes, we’re including the “versus” ones, too. No erasure allowed.
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9. Alien vs. Predator (2004) You knew the worst had to be one of them. On paper, it could have been fun, just like Freddy vs. Jason, but as directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, this battle of both franchise creatures is mostly lame. It’s nice to see Lance Henriksen (playing the original version of Bishop from Aliens), as he leads a team of archaeologists and scientists on an expedition to Antarctica when he believes the ruins of an ancient pyramid temple are under the ice. Once inside the temple, they realize they are caught in a war between the Aliens and Predators. And who finally wins? Should we care? With a watered-down PG-13 rating, AVP just isn't very exciting or tense, making the face-off promised by the star-billing title not worth the plodding wait. And while one may expect to get some cheesy fun out of the deal, the project's approach is too deadly serious. The closest we get to scares are off-screen kills and false alarms (one so ridiculous, being in Antarctica, that we get a "it's only a penguin”). Even the action, of what there is of it when the filmmakers aren't biding time and making the humans chitchat, is murkily filmed.
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8. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) Depending on one’s mood, Alien vs. Predator and its sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, could switch places. Picking up literally right where AVP left off, with an alien/predator hybrid popping out of the corpse of the slain Predator who finished off the Alien Queen, no sooner does the ship crash back on Earth. This time near a Colorado mountain town, PredAliens run amok. There is at an R-rating this time, but this sequel is still just a concept and nothing more than a creature battle with humans getting in the way. You can almost excuse the amateurish cast, negligibly flat characters, and cheesy writing. (If you care, one of the characters, Dallas, is a wink-wink to Tom Skerritt's character from the original.) We get what we expect, but there is some unapologetic R-rated gore and gross-out shocks (such as aliens bloodily popping out of a pregnant woman's stomach). The action sequences in this one are still tedious and shrouded in such gloomy darkness that not much can be said for directors Colin and Greg Strause’s experience in visual effects. The Predators should have just stayed in the jungle, and the Aliens in space.
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7. Alien 3 (1992) Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and the “bitch” make their third return in the grim, nihilistic Alien 3 (or by the looks of it, “Alien to the 3rd Power”), but not any of the other survivors from Aliens. Ripley, eventually with a shaved head, crash-lands on a weaponless prison planet with bald rapists and convicted murderers (played by an intriguing roster of character actors, including Charles Dance, Pete Postlethwaite, and Charles S. Dutton). Of course, it takes about 45 minutes for anyone to believe Ripley that there is an alien stowaway bound to kill them all (including a dog). Despite some icky shocks and a nifty psychosexual twist to the monsters-scooping-up-a-victim-from-a-vent formula, Alien 3 is a dreary rehash. Weaver gives it a solid effort and makes Ripley interesting as always, but none of the other colorful characters are as compelling. It’s definitely moody, and we do get that memorable face-to-face shot between Ripley and a Xenomorph, but the visual effects are uneven and too slick, and then-28-year-old music video director David Fincher's camera gets too show-offy for its own good. What’s more, the finale goes on a barely coherent chase-and-kill loop with plenty of alien POV shots. No matter whether it’s the assembly cut or the theatrical cut, the clear vision that Fincher might have had gets lost somewhere between all of the splatter.
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6. Alien: Resurrection (1997) Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet would take on Alien: Resurrection, the fourth outing even after Ripley, pregnant with an alien, sacrificed herself at the end of Alien 3. 200 years later, Ripley has been cloned back to life, even still being the biological mother to the aliens, and teams up with brigands on a space freighter. Completely contrived to keep the franchise going, Alien: Resurrection is still sometimes exciting with a few gooey shocks and solidly fun set-pieces (the ladder one pre-dates Deep Blue Sea) with a Joss Whedon script of wisecracking pirate characters. Weaver surprisingly brings more heartbreak here than she did in Alien 3 in a scene where Ripley finds various failed clones of herself in a lab. The supporting cast is also more memorable than the last, including Brad “Chucky” Dourif, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Leland Orser, Raymond Cruz, Dominique Pinon, and Michael Wincott. This wild, goopy slimbeball of a movie includes a beautifully disgusting alien hybrid baby that cannot be seen on a full stomach.
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5. Alien: Covenant (2017) Ridley Scott’s second Alien prequel limited the philosophical discussions of creation, but it did not skimp on Xenomorph iconography and gross-out body-horror spectacle. Alien: Covenant feels like a creative tug of war—big, bleak existential questions versus face-hugging, chest-bursting carnage—and while the two halves are not always elegantly spliced together, it’s like an effectively jolting Friday the 13th sequel on a paradise planet. It seems like an apology to the “Prometheus” naysayers, but director Ridley Scott still knows how to play his audience like a fiddle with vise-gripped tension. Worth the price of admission alone, one visceral and harrowing set-piece in which an infected crew member is quarantined before all hell breaks loose in a medical bay is a showstopping piece of terror. Save for one or two crew members (and cast that includes Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Amy Seimetz, Demián Bichir, and Carmen Ejogo), it’s unfortunate that the characters on hand aren’t asked to be much more than reliably ill-fated fodder for the aliens to burst through and tear apart. Michael Fassbender, a key holdover from Prometheus, is outstanding, drolly funny and chilling in dual synthetic roles as the upgraded Walter and the self-aware, Wagner-loving David. At least James Franco, as the ship’s captain, gets killed off quite early. 2017 did see a superior Alien knockoff in the form of Life (starring Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Rebecca Ferguson), but Alien: Covenant is still taut, icky, and expertly made.
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4. Alien: Romulus (2024) Oh, look, the latest installment, Alien: Romulus, is the fourth best Alien. Evil Dead/Don’t Breathe director Fede Álvarez seems to be the perfect choice to helm this spectacular-looking pre-Aliens, post-Alien thrill ride. It goes back to basics and plays the hits in a pleasing way, marrying both the tone and pacing of Ridley Scott’s original and James Cameron’s sequel (as well as the clunky analog technology of both). Already being called the Star Wars: The Force Awakens of this franchise as if that’s a bad thing, this horror-heavy entry delivers all of the chest-bursting, face-hugging intensity and then some in a bonkers third act. Cailee Spaeny is right up there with Sigourney Weaver and Naomi Rapace as a root-worthy heroine named Rain, who gets to dodge acid blood in zero gravity, and David Jonsson is excellent as synthetic Andy. Isabela Merced and Aileen Wu also get put through the wringer in some of the most intense set-pieces involving Xenomorphs (who are practically done and haven’t looked this terrifying since the first two films). The resurrection of a certain character from the past may look a little too “uncanny valley,” but as long as one can get over the ghoulishness of computer generating a late actor, the off-kilter look of it all mostly works. Alien: Romulus may not be the most high-minded in the series, but it’s a lean, relentless, gnarly, and visceral blast.
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3. Prometheus (2012) Prequel or not, Prometheus is definitely part of the Alien family, as it's Mr. Ridley Scott's return to science fiction and terror in space where "no one can hear you scream.” It stands on its own as a companion piece but a jolt to the system that’s been implanted with a brain, ambition, and staggeringly beautiful cinematography. Prometheus is plenty thought-provoking, asking The Big Questions without spelling anything out, and as a journey of discovery into the unknown, the approach works. It’s expertly paced and taut, including an intensely nerve-racking set-piece involving heroine Noomi Rapace and a hasty self-administered C-section. Michael Fassbender is also flat-out excellent as David, the android made without a soul who may or may not be as benevolent as his pleasure for watching Lawrence of Arabia; and Charlize Theron, in form-fitting space suits in gray and black, has never been chillier. Divisive with audiences over lapses in character intelligence (Haven’t you ever met a human being before? We’re not that smart), this one has its knockout shocks and thrills, but like the best kind of science fiction, it's also about something.
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2. Aliens (1986) While Ridley Scott's Alien is more of a creepy, moody haunted-house picture in space and deliberate in its slow-burn pacing, James Cameron's Aliens is like a relentless amusement-park ride that's never heard of letup. Now while both films feature leaping aliens, yellow gooey acid, and splashes of blood, Cameron's film marches to the beat of its own drummer. Aliens is so expertly crafted and fast-paced that it ranks up there with Cameron's The Terminator. Character identification is key here for the intense, exciting action and jumpy scares to work, and James Horner's rousing score is no slouch either. Sigourney Weaver, returning as her female Rambo heroine, is the human glue and there's a touching layer in the relationship between Ripley and Newt (Carrie Henn), a surviving young girl, and Lance Henriksen lends some unexpected warmth as an android named Bishop. Plus her showdown with the Queen alien is sublime.
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1. Alien (1979) The mother of all sci-fi horror films, Ridley Scott’s elegantly moody Alien takes its time with a patient build. Sigourney Weaver makes for a well-rounded and identifiable “final girl” as Ellen Ripley. Once it really gets going after efficiently fleshing out these space truckers aboard the Nostromo (played by Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, and John Hurt and his poor chest), this atmospheric haunted-house-on-a-spacecraft scare machine emerges as an unnerving grabber with claustrophobic dread, jumpy jolts, slime, and stomach-churning shocks. The key “chest-bursting” scene is a real grotesque knockout and Jerry Goldsmith's music score helps tingle your spine. And reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, Scott doesn't show the terrifying design of Swiss artist H.R. Giger’s aliens right away.
