Best ‘Alien’ Movies, Ranked

9. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Requiem, directed by Greg and Colin Strause, is set in a small Colorado town that’s under seige by an Alien-Predator hybrid, a Predalien, who was born at the end of the previous AvP film. In its possession are a batch of Xenomorph eggs, which of course hatch and spread chaos. A Predator named Wolf is sent to Earth to eradicate the Predalien and the Xenomorphs, while a group of largely expendable humans portrayed by Steven Pasquale, Johnny Lewis, Kristen Hager, David Paetkau, Ariel Gade, Reiko Aylesworth and John Ortiz try to escape town before being killed, either by the aliens or the nuclear strike headed for their homes.

The human drama is pretty banal, but at least there are allegedly cool Alien v. Predator fights that live up to the title, right? I say “allegedly” because the presentation of the film is shot so dimly that it’s nearly impossible to see what’s happening most of the time, and the trailer makes that all-too evident. There’s a fun concept and some great effects work, as evidenced by BTS photos, buried there somewhere in the dark. Still, until we can, hopefully, see a better presentation on physical media, it isn’t easy to fully judge.

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8. Alien Resurrection (1997)

Surprisingly, and perhaps disappointingly, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection remains as far as the Alien franchise has gone in terms of the series’ timeline. It’s also the last time Sigourney Weaver, who admittedly did the film for the money (no judgment here), has been a part of the franchise, which makes Resurrection even more of a bummer to end it. Two hundred years after the third Alien movie, a clone of Ripley (Weaver), whose DNA has been mixed with that of the Xenomorph, must band with a group of mercenaries to stop a military science vessel full of Xenomorphs from reaching Earth. While that plot sounds cool on paper, the result is a film that feels way too conscious of late ’90s trends, with its black leather fashion designs and references to Walmart.

The credible environment and atmosphere of the previous film have been replaced with what could serve as the background for any nu-metal music video circa 2001. But most egregious is the treatment of Call (Winona Ryder) who exists solely for the other characters, most often Johner (Ron Perlman) to ogle at and make sexual remarks about. And Ripley, despite changing the landscape for female roles in genre films, isn’t spared of the rampant sexism either, making the whole thing feel gross. An underwater Alien chase and battle of failed Ripley clones, and the creature dubbed “The Newborn,” are bright spots in a film that doesn’t feel of a piece with what came before.

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6. Alien 3  (1992)

David Fincher may have disowned the film, his first feature, but that hasn’t stopped fans from finding plenty to love about the Alien franchise’s third and bleakest entry. Ripped from the comforting dreams of cryosleep, Ripley (Weaver) crash lands and awakens on a prison planet, Fiorina 161. Her found family, Hicks, Newt and Bishop are dead from the crash, and Ripley is left to fend herself in the prison’s foundry, surrounded by men trying to avoid their worse impulses under the leadership of fellow prisoner and spiritual advisor, Dillon (Charles S. Dutton). What’s worse is the revelation that a stowaway was on Ripley’s crashed ship, a Xenomorph, with a new hunting ground full of bodies.

Even after having undergone production challenges and studio interference, Fincher’s film still carries his visual touches, and the grungy, perpetually damp and smog-filled aesthetics that helped define his moody style in the ’90s. While the theatrical version is fine, it’s the Assembly Cut that makes a strong case for the essential existence of Alien 3, placing an emphasis on character development and highlighting the film’s religious themes, which are crucial as Ripley finds herself in a manifestation of hell, complete with maze-like layers the evoke Dante’s Inferno. The film isn’t nearly as action-packed as Aliens, and it lacks the fine-tuned precision and pacing of Alien, but Alien 3 has a lot to offer — not least of all Weaver’s best and most emotionally raw performance in the series.

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5. Alien: Covenant (2017)

Ridley Scott’s follow-up to Prometheus inches closer to the world of Alien. While originally, the sequel, Paradise, was planned to follow Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the android David (Michael Fassbender) to the homeworld of the Engineers to discover who made them, studio and audience desire to see the focus return to the Xenomorphs shifted those plans. The result is Alien: Covenant, a film that does fill the Xenomorph quota, but also doesn’t shift far from Scott’s more fascinating musing about creation, faith and AI, as David takes the role of central antagonist and continues to play god in his quest to create the perfect organism.

When a colony ship lands on an undiscovered planet where they might make their new home, the crew, led by Daniels (Katherine Waterston), quickly discover that there is something very wrong with their newfound setting. Covenant is a bloody affair, with many of the crew members, portrayed by Billy Crudup, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez and Danny McBride meeting gruesome ends. But the true horror lies in the bigger questions the film asks by establishing David as a Luciferian figure who has managed to usurp his creators and shift the balance of the universe.

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4. Alien: Romulus (2024)

Fede Alvarez’s latest entry to the Alien franchise is set between Alien and Aliens, and follows a group of young colonizers forced into indentured servitude by Weyland-Yutani. Seeking to escape off-world, the group sets out to steal cryopods from an abandoned science station so they can make the nine-year journey to a planet outside of Weyland-Yutani’s reach. Of course, this is all easier said than done as the space station is not abandoned. Rain (Cailee Spaeny), Andy (David Jonsson), Kay (Isabela Merced), Tyler (Archie Renaux), Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Navarro (Aileen Wu) quickly find themselves at the merciless mouths of facehuggers and Xenomorphs. While there are elements of nostalgia through callbacks, and the film does suffer in some regards due to the use of digital/puppeteering necromancy, which “revives” a deceased actor in a supporting role that distracts from the realism of the rest of the film, Romulus feels like it has its own ideas and themes to play with. And of course, given Alvarez’s history with horror, there’s no shortage of blood, gore, and images that will leave you uneasy as you leave the theater.

The concept of generations of an expendable and replaceable workforce, made possible through reproduction, AI and forced evolution, not only feels timely but also uniquely tied to Alvarez’s growing up in Uruguay. Romulus also pushes ahead of the mythic nature of Alien that Dan O’Bannon was so fascinated by, along with the concepts Scott, who serves as a producer on this film, introduced in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. In terms of a level of pure spectacle, bolstered by incredible sound, production design, and special effects, Alien: Romulus features some of the coolest stuff the franchise has ever committed to screen and the third act gets a big “hell yeah!” from this viewer.

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3. Prometheus (2012)

Scott’s Alien prequel provides a partial answer to the mystery of the Space Jockey — the giant, seated figure discovered in Alien. But Scott isn’t interested in purely expository answers to the mystery. With the answers that do come, there also come more questions, making Prometheus one of Scott’s most endlessly fascinating films.

In a quest to discover the origins of mankind, archaeologist, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and her husband, Dr. Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a star-map Shaw believes will lead mankind to their makers. Joining the crew of the Prometheus, the two archaeologists set out on a privately funded expedition, paid for by Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) and led by his daughter, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), to discover the origins of humanity. Accompanied by the android David (Michael Fassbender), the crew, piloted by Janek (Idris Elba), lands on the moon LV-223 and discovers an ancient structure, filled with vases of black goo. Much has been made over the years about the seeming stupidity of some of the scientists in this movie, particularly Millburn (Rafe Spall) and Fifield (Sean Harris), and their incessant need to touch things. But here’s the thing: look at human history, look at the news, and you’ll find plenty of examples of so-called experts doing very stupid things. The film isn’t trying to hide the stupidity of humanity, but rather draw attention to it and why the film’s plot hinges on the idea that humans were a mistake. And that’s why David believes he can use the black goo to alter their DNA to create something more perfect.

Prometheus is about confronting faith, and Shaw’s Christianity is tested by what she sees. But it is also about the idea of letting creation run rampant and allowing humanity to believe in their godhood, as Weyland does with both the creation of his “son” David, and search for immortality on an alien world. What makes Prometheus so great is that while it is set in the world of Alien, it’s also so much bigger than that, and isn’t interested in simply serving as a prequel, but opening the universe and searching for gods and devils among the stars.

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2. Aliens (1986)

James Cameron upped the ante on everything with his follow-up to Scott’s classic. It’s a film of excess directed with such confidence and so many crowd-pleasing moments that it’s nearly impossible not to love — even though the simple, horrifying, and quiet beauty of Scott and Dan O’Bannon is overridden by a hail of gunfire, explosions and the limited vocabulary of military grunts.

Fifty-seven years after the events of Alien, Ripley is rescued from stasis by her employers, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who will take legal action against her for destroying the Nostromo, if she doesn’t accompany a squad of marines, a Weyland-Yutani representative, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) and the android Bishop (Lance Henriksen) back to LV-426 — the planet where her crew found the eggs in the previous film, which now serves as a terraforming colony. Upon arrival, Ripley and the marines quickly discover that the colony has been overrun by Xenomorphs. Cameron’s Xenomorphs are insectoid in their behavior and social structure, as he introduces drones and the Queen. While the drones are killed much more easily than the beast of the original film, their overwhelming waves still make them formidable foes, and Aliens only increased the popularity of the monsters.

Amid all the bursts of gunfire and pools of acidic blood, Cameron further develops Ripley as a character worth investing in, as she not only forms a surrogate family with a young orphan, Newt (Carrie Henn), and a budding romance with Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn). Bill Paxton rounds out the central players with the endlessly quotable Private Hudson. The dimensions of Ripley’s characterization fully come into focus as she emerges as an action hero in her iconic battle against the Alien Queen, in which she fights not only for the lives of her newfound companions but the fate of the universe in her attempt to destroy the Xenomorphs once and for all. Aliens is a wonder in practical effects, courtesy of Stan Winston Studio, working off of H.R. Giger’s original designs, a glorious showcase of Cameron’s talents as a blockbuster filmmaker, and one of the best sequels ever made.

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1. Alien (1979)

The series has gone louder, bolder, more introspective and messier. For all the great, and not-so-great, qualities subsequent entries exhibited, no film in the franchise has been as perfect as Alien. It’s been said before that Alien is essentially a haunted house movie in space, complete with all the creaks, drips and shadowy corridors that entails. And while that description is true, it still undersells Alien a bit. Because the Nostromo is not merely a haunted house, but one of the best-designed spaces ever to be put onto movie screens.

One of the aspects of Scott’s direction that arguably isn’t referenced enough is his history as a fine artist and a diligent storyboard artist. There’s not a single space wasted in the Nostromo, nothing that doesn’t contribute to the sense of horror, the Xenomorph’s ability to hide, or the crew’s constant sense of paranoia. The Nostromo is all tight spaces and low ceilings, which only adds to the impossibility of escape and the uncanny nature of the alien’s movements (portrayed by Bolaji Badejo), large as it is. And although we’ve gotten comfortable with the idea of auteurs, Alien is one of the best showcases of filmmaking as a group effort, as the film would not be the masterpiece it is without Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s and their interest in mythology, or without artist H.R. Giger’s biomechanical designs, which still feel on another level in terms of originality.

And of course, there’s the cast, led by then newcomer Weaver, and supported by talented a recognizable leading and character actors — Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto — who each contributed to the blue-collar sensibilities of the crew, who weren’t looking to explore but just to go home and get paid. The film tackles themes that Scott would revisit throughout his career, including the sinister nature of corporations, humanity’s relationship with AI, and community over individualism with a sense of urgency that has led to the filmmaker’s prolific output. Alien changed the shape of horror and science-fiction, and both genres are forever indebted to it.

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