Ranking All the ‘Alien’ Movies, From Best to Worst (2025)

In space, no one can hear you scream, but fans of the Alien franchise have screamed for more since Ridley Scott's first movie in 1979. There are nine movies in the Alien franchise, including the 2024 box office hit Alien: Romulus.

Dark surrealist artist H.R. Giger designed the terrifying creature, known as a xenomorph, and its various life stages. The xenomorph hatches from a pod as a “facehugger” and affixes itself to a human's face, implanting an embryo down the person's throat. After the Alien bursts through the human host's chest as a “chestburster,” it grows rapidly and is difficult to kill since the xenomorph has concentrated acid for blood.

Alien introduced the world to Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), arguably the strongest female character ever depicted on-screen, who appeared in four of the nine movies. When ranking from best to worst, this longtime fan took into consideration originality, acting, story, and effects.

Alien (1979)

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In Ridley Scott's Alien, the commercial spaceship Nostromo lands a team on an uncharted planetoid, and the crew unwittingly brings a dangerous facehugger on board. After the full-grown xenomorph gets loose on the ship, it picks off the crew members one by one until only Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is left to blow up the ship and make a desperate escape in a lifeboat.

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Alien is pure sci-fi horror — a genre masterpiece that introduced the world to the various life stages of the xenomorph created by H.R. Giger. In terms of tension, atmosphere, and originality, no movie in the series comes close to the standard set by Scott in the 1979 original. Although the part of Ripley was originally written as a man, Weaver owned the role and created one of the most iconic female characters of all time.

Aliens (1986)

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After being in stasis drifting in space for 57 years, Ripley is found and returned to a space station in Earth orbit. Weyland-Yutani Corporation convinces Ripley to accompany a group of Colonial Marines to investigate why the company lost contact with a colony living on the planetoid LV-426 that the crew of the Nostromo discovered in Alien. Spoiler alert: it's because the colonists found the same derelict spacecraft filled with egg pods that doomed the crew of the Nostromo.

Whereas Ridley Scott leaned into the horror aspect in Alien, director James Cameron dialed up the action in Aliens to create one of the most intense, nerve-wracking cinematic experiences of all time. As Ripley tries to rescue a young girl named Newt, she encounters the gigantic Alien queen — the xenomorph responsible for laying all of those eggs. Ripley's protracted final battle with the queen still holds up decades later.

Weaver was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Ripley in this first sequel.

Prometheus (2012)

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This prequel to Alien follows the crew of Prometheus, who travel to a distant world in an attempt to make contact with a humanoid alien race known as the Engineers, who designed mankind. What the crew finds is an Engineer outpost containing countless vials of a dangerous black goo with the power to transform any life form into monstrous creatures.

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Original Alien director Ridley Scott stayed away from the franchise and sci-fi in general before returning for this philosophical prequel that provides an origin story for the xenomorphs, Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and mankind itself. Noomi Rapace is compelling as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, who realizes in horror that her quest to discover mankind's creator could lead to its extinction. Michael Fassbender is quietly terrifying as the android David, who returns in Alien: Covenant.

Although Prometheus doesn't feature the traditional xenomorphs fans of the series may have wanted, it does connect the dots between the Engineers and things in Alien, such as the derelict craft and the so-called “space jockey” alien. If anyone were going to make a prequel to Alien many decades later, we're relieved it was the director who created this cinematic universe.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

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This interquel takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens. The story follows a group of space colonists desperate for a better life who encounter various stages of xenomorphs on a derelict space station hours away from falling out of its orbit and crashing.

After watching the movie, it's clear that director Fede Álvarez has a deep reverence for the franchise. Although some will call him out for recycling one too many famous lines (e.g., “You have my sympathies”) from previous Alien movies, Álvarez knows how to slowly build a sense of dread that becomes sheer terror. Just when you think the orphan miner Rain's (Cailee Spaeny) nightmare is over, a new nail-biting crisis emerges that she must overcome.

When I saw Alien: Romulus in the theater, the audience got so into it that you would hear a pin drop if it weren't for the usual theater background noise of crinkling plastic, popcorn munching, and pervasive respiratory problems, but I digress. Longtime franchise fans will appreciate this course correction and various Easter eggs sprinkled throughout, such as familiar computer and weapon sounds, a dippy bird toy, and a surprise appearance by a familiar face from Alien.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

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Alien: Covenant is the sequel to Prometheus and picks up sometime after the events in that prequel when Dr. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the android David (Michael Fassbender) fly off in an Engineer spaceship to seek out the home planet of the Engineers, the creators of mankind. The colonization ship Covenant makes its way to the same planet and discovers that the Engineers' civilization has been destroyed and that the world is crawling with xenomorphs.

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Original Alien director Ridley Scott returned to helm this second Alien prequel that gives more backstory about the Engineers' world and the origin of the xenomorphs, closing the gap between the prequels and Alien. Although Fassbender is ace in the dual roles of two identical-looking androids, David and Walter, the rest of the cast — especially “final girl” Daniels (Katherine Waterston) — is mostly underwhelming.

Daniels is no Ripley or even Dr. Shaw, whom we learn met a heartbreaking end.Although Rapace does not appear in the final cut of Alien: Covenant, watch the should-have-been-included prologue “The Crossing” in which we see Shaw and David en route to the Engineers' world.

Alien 3 (1992)

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Alien 3 takes place after the events of Aliens and completely unravels the triumphant ending of that movie after Ripley defeated the Alien queen and goes into hypersleep with Newt and Hicks at her side. En route back to Earth, a xenomorph on board Ripley's ship causes havoc and the ship crashes on a remote prison planet with no women in sight. Hicks and Newt die in the crash, and a marooned Ripley soon discovers that she has a xenomorph queen growing inside her.

David Fincher is a gifted director and Sigourney Weaver turns in an emotionally wrenching performance in her third turn as Ripley, but the tone of Alien 3 is so bleak, hopeless, and miserable that it's difficult to recommend to fans who enjoyed Alien and Aliens. After watching Ripley go through the events of those two movies, Alien 3 feels like a cruel end to her story.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

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Well, it turns out that Alien 3 was not the end of Ripley's story, nor was it the worst film in the series. Set some 200 years after the events in Alien 3 and Ripley's death, Alien Resurrection begins with scientists cloning Ripley so that they can extract the Alien queen in her body. Since the queen's DNA and Ripley's became intermingled, the Ripley 8 clone has some memories of the original Ripley. This proves helpful when xenomorphs start to overrun the spaceship Auriga.

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Although it's initially exciting to see Ripley return to life after taking a swan dive into a pit of molten metal at the end of Alien 3, Ripley 8 is a clone and not the same character that fans love. Ripley 8 moves and acts differently — almost like a predator slinking around — because she is part xenomorph.

Although director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien Resurrection has some cool sequences featuring underwater xenomorphs and a human-xenomorph hybrid baby that is the stuff of nightmares, the supporting cast is mostly unlikable and insufferable with the possible exception of Winona Ryder as the android Annalee Call. If filmmakers wanted to resurrect Ripley, it should have been for a better reason than this.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

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The crossover film Alien vs. Predator is the fifth film in the Alien franchise but, chronologically, is set on present-day Earth and long before the events of Prometheus. In the movie, scientists get caught up in an ancient war between xenomorphs and Predators as the humans try to escape an ancient pyramid buried under the Antarctic ice.

Although geeks who clamored for years for an on-screen matchup between the xenomorphs and Predators got their wish, this lame PG-13 clash of cinematic alien titans features cringe moments like when guide Alexa “Lex” Woods (Sanaa Lathan) buddies up with a hostile Predator. Besides the xenomorphs themselves, the only real connective tissue between this cash-in crossover experiment and the previous Alien movies is the welcome presence of Lance Henriksen — who played the android Bishop in Aliens — as Charles Bishop Weyland.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

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This sequel to Alien vs. Predator is set on present-day Earth and follows a Predator ship that crash-lands outside of Gunnison, Colorado. An Alien-Predator hybrid known as a Predalien escapes the ship and is pursued by a “cleaner” Predator to eliminate the Predalien and any humans who happen to get in the way.

Neither Aliens vs. Predator nor Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem are considered canon because if the events depicted in them took place on present-day Earth and so many people witnessed the existence of xenomorphs that the events of Prometheus, Alien, and the rest of the franchise wouldn't make sense. In addition, AVP: Requiem was so murky and poorly lit that whatever battles were going on didn't register with audiences because no one could see them anyway.

After AVP: Requiem got panned by critics, any plans for future Aliens vs. Predator movies were blown out of the nearest airlock.

Ranking All the ‘Alien’ Movies, From Best to Worst (2025)

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