Every ‘Alien’ Movie, Ranked From ‘Alien vs. Predator’ to ‘Romulus’
Even if you’ve somehow never seen any of its movies, every movie fan is able to instantly recognize the importance of the Alien series.
Spanning nearly a dozen films and countless comic books, novels, and video game tie-ins, Alien has only continued to terrify audiences for the past five decades. Maintaining as fabled a place in the annals of science fiction as Dune, Star Wars, or The Terminator, it’s a timeless entry in both horror and science fiction, ingeniously finding a way to fuse both genres together into one unforgettable creation.
With its upcoming series, Alien: Earth, set to arrive on FX this coming August, we thought we’d take a look back at each previous entry in the franchise, ranking every one of the Alien films in order from worst to best.
9. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
It takes a truly horrific film to match the negative reception of 2004’s Alien vs. Predator. Against all odds, though, 2007’s immediate follow-up (Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem) somehow secures that dishonorable achievement. Between its non-existent plot and paper-thin characters, it’s a generic action horror movie that’s heavy on gore but all too light on a cohesive story, giving audiences little reason to tune in and remain watching in the first place.
8. Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Audiences had spent years wondering what a potential match-up between a Xenomorph and an alien Predator might look like. When it came time to finally answer that long-gestating question, however, 2004’s Alien vs. Predator egregiously missed the mark. A slow-paced, thinly plotted, nonsensical sci-fi horror film, Alien vs. Predator’s ambitious crossover might have initially caught viewers’ attention, but the finished product is almost certainly best left forgotten.
7. Alien 3 (1992)
It says a lot that Alien 3’s director David Fincher has since disowned the movie, citing constant studio interference as his primary dissatisfaction with the film. Hampered by production setbacks and behind-the-scenes meddling from the earliest get-go, Alien 3 could have been a crowd-pleasing adventure film that continued Ripley’s overarching story in the Alien universe. As it is, all we’re left with is a sluggish sci-fi thriller struggling to live up to its earlier, far superior precursors.
6. Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Though it initially seemed Ripley’s journey had come to a close in 1992’s Alien 3, Resurrection promptly attempted to breathe new life into the Alien franchise, reinvigorating the series after the failure of its previous installment. Try as it might to reignite audiences’ interest in the rampaging Xenomorph hordes, Resurrection ultimately suffers from the same obvious weaknesses as Alien 3, right down to its hackneyed characterization and increasingly formulaic main storyline.
5. Alien: Covenant (2017)
Stupefying audiences with his ambitious work on Prometheus, director Ridley Scott promptly returned with his 2017 sequel, Alien: Covenant. Providing a cohesive bridge from the narrative gap of Prometheus to the overarching continuity of Alien, Covenant does a fantastic job portraying the origins of the nightmarish Xenomorphs, exploring their continued evolution from the series’ previous installment. If that weren’t enough to enjoy this underrated 2017 horror film, Michael Fassbender once again dials it up to a solid 11 in his portrayal of the God complex-afflicted android, David (as well as his far more benevolent counterpart, Walter).
4. Prometheus (2012)
In the months leading up to its release, most people could only speculate about Prometheus’s connection to the Alien universe, with many viewers initially believing it to be a loose prequel to 1979’s original Alien. While the tie-ins to the Alien series became more apparent with its 2017 sequel, Prometheus still serves as an exceptionally well-crafted sci-fi horror story – one able to stand on its own merits, free from comparisons to any Alien film that came before or after.
3. Alien: Romulus (2024)
Returning the Alien series back to its roots, Alien: Romulus avoids the existential speculations of both Prometheus and Covenant. Taking the time to instead focus on its more unsettling scares, Romulus’s straightforward simplicity makes it the perfect companion piece to the earliest Alien movies. Weaving in a variety of nods and easter eggs to the original, Romulus is the terrifying Alien follow-up fans had wanted to see for decades, proving that good old-fashioned horror is far more effective than philosophical themes or empty-headed action.
2. Aliens (1986)
As with all the most famous movie series, it’s a matter of individual taste and preference which is better: the very first Alien film or its equally thrilling counterpart, 1986’s Aliens. In the case of the latter, director James Cameron manages to outfit the series with a far more militaristic edge, resulting in a film that simultaneously succeeds as a first-rate survival thriller on the one hand and an explosive action movie on the other. As enjoyable today as it was four decades ago, it’s among the best sequels ever made, more than measuring up to similarly memorable cinematic follow-ups like The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, or Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
1. Alien (1979)
By the late 1970s, science fiction had taken a turn towards the light-hearted, with movies like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind emphasizing the profound mysteries waiting beyond the stars. But with 1979’s Alien, Ridley Scott showed that some of those prevalent mysteries weren’t always harmless, with the universe holding horrors beyond our imaginations. Turning the conventional sci-fi genre on its head, Alien literally broke new ground in its portrayal of its central storyline, equipping the genre with a dark new atmosphere it lacked throughout the previous decades. For this reason alone, it’s perfectly deserving of its iconic status today, influencing the larger landscape of pop culture in more ways than one.
