Starting in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s Alien, the sci-fi horror franchise takes heavy inspiration from the artwork of H.R. Giger, intertwining the mechanical with the organic through beautiful practical effects and a truly terrifying creature design that has left a lasting effect on both the genres of science fiction and horror.
Alien and its iconic xenomorph design would go on to spawn a total of six full-length franchise films as well as two crossover movie with the Predator series, plus eighteen short films over forty years of horror fandom. Though not a traditional killer, the movie franchise has managed to create one of the most iconic and lasting monsters of all time with the xenomorph and all its forms. Alien was released around the same time as Halloween and Friday the 13th, and managed to set itself apart from the slasher movie craze; despite being so different, Alien's xenomorph stands alongside villains like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers as a staple of cinematic history and pop culture phenomena.
The beloved series has grown to encompass a number of novels, comic books, and a booming selection of merchandise from home decor to clothing and toys. The Alien films, characters, and creatures have truly become iconic in the horror genre, but how do all the movies actually rank when compared to one another?
6. Alien: Resurrection (1997)
The fourth film in the original Alien series, Alien: Resurrection is Joss Whedon’s addition to the Alien franchise. It takes place in 2379, two hundred years after the events of Alien 3, where military scientists have managed to clone Ripley and use her body to gestate a xenomorph queen.
Alien: Resurrection was a critical and commercial flop. For most fans of the Alien series, Resurrection is an affront to the canon of the original. The effects are horrendous, the story doesn’t make any sense in the context of the first two films, and the writing is just awful. Plus, there's that alien-human hybrid.
While the first film filled the audience with feelings of isolation and dread, the second brought action into the mix while still ensuring terror and amazing practical effects. Alien: Resurrection attempts to return to the action sci-fi feeling of Aliens, but fails at every turn with a poorly constructed narrative combined with lack-luster acting and effects.
5. Prometheus (2012)
Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien franchise, in the form of a prequel to the series. The film follows the crew of the spaceship Prometheus on its two-year journey to LV-223 funded by Weyland Corporation. Archaeologists, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, and Charlie Holloway discovered a star map, which they believed to be an invitation from the Engineers, leading them to the planet.
While Prometheus features some interesting horror and sci-fi set pieces, it completely misses the point of what made Alien great to begin with. Critics praised the crisp, beautiful look of the film, but note that it falls flat in the actual story, dialogue, and meat of the plot. All the technical aspects of the film are solid, but the aspects that actually make a movie enjoyable are missing.
Clearly Ridley Scott was trying to do something big with Prometheus, but the plot elements fail to coalesce into an engaging story, making the film feel confusing, disconnected, and even boring at times. It’s totally removed from the Alien series, offering attractive visuals with no compelling mood or substance.
4. Alien 3 (1992)
Directed by David Fincher (Se7en), Alien 3 sees Ripley, Newt, Corporal Hicks, and Bishop crash-land on the prison colony Fiorina 161 when a fire starts on the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco. Newt and Hicks are killed in the crash, and Bishop is fatally damaged, leaving Ripley as the sole survivor. Unbeknownst to Ripley, during their journey a facehugger attached itself to her and a queen is now growing inside her.
Alien 3 gets a bad reputation for failing to live up to its two predecessors, but it’s not actually a bad movie; it’s just not the Alien 3 audiences wanted or deserved. Obviously an attempt to return to the somber, moody feeling of the first film, the script fails to connect with Alien fans because of a lack of engaging story and action, which is most likely due to a great deal of conflict in the film's development.
Alien fans were immediately put-off when the film opened by unceremoniously killing off two major characters from Aliens, and the story never provides enough interest to make this risk worthwhile. Overall, Alien 3 is left as a mostly uninteresting film that’s middling, delivering on mood alone without providing engaging story, effects, or characters.
3. Alien: Covenant (2017)
The latest addition to the Alien franchise, Alien: Covenant is the second in Ridley Scott’s prequel series for the original films. Taking place eleven years after the Prometheus expedition, the story explores the journey of a colony ship on its way to a new settlement, finding an uncharted planet and mysterious transmission during the trip that ultimately leads to ruin.
Offering a significantly more interesting take on the xenomorph biology and Alien canon than its previous iteration, Alien: Covenant is more satisfying than Prometheus or Alien 3, but still fails to deliver a story that lives up to the two original films. It gets the mood right for a sci-fi horror, even perhaps for an Alien film, but ultimately still feels very disjointed and unclear.
Ridley Scott’s prequels are very clearly trying to please everyone without actively settling on a firm direction. Covenant offers interesting creatures and has a lot of themes surrounding androids and what it means to be human that are heavily reminiscent of Blade Runner, but suffers from being a part of the Alien franchise. The canon and xenomorph biology becomes too muddled, producing a film that leaves audiences underwhelmed and confused.
2. Aliens (1986)
James Cameron’s brilliant sequel to the original Alien film, Aliens is set 57 years after the original movie when Ellen Ripley’s escape shuttle is found and recovered by Weyland-Yutani. The corporation remains skeptical about Ripley’s story of seeing alien eggs on LV-426, a planet which now houses a mining colony. But, when contact is lost with the colony, Ripley is asked to come along as the company investigates.
While Aliens brings a more action-oriented feeling to the Alien universe than the claustrophobic dread of the first film, that doesn’t mean it rejects its horror origins. Cameron’s film expands on the xenomorph biology, introducing the alien queen, without losing sight of Giger’s original style and design or creating too many unnecessary leaps.
From the start of the film to the end, the story is unremittingly intense, keeping the audience engaged and on the edge of their seats the entire time. Ripley’s character remains consistently strong yet relatable and human, while the new characters introduced are loveable and memorable.
1. Alien (1979)
Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O’Bannon, Alien follows the crew of the commercial space tug Nostromo as they are awoken from stasis to discover a strange distress signal from nearby planet LV-426. But, when the crew goes to investigate, they get much more than they’re bargaining for in the form of an extremely deadly alien predator who uses living bodies for gestation.
Alien ranks at number one simply because of its masterful blend of creature design, writing, cinematography, and characterization. The masterful way that Ridley Scott builds dread throughout the story, contrasting quiet moments with big explosions of violence and horror creates a truly compelling experience, while the practical effects are beautifully terrifying and perfectly crafted.
That being said, whether Alien or Aliens is the better film is really more a matter of personal preference than it is a matter of which film is objectively better crafted, written, or produced. Both movies are so clearly labors of love with attention paid to even the most minute details from the careful crafting and design of the practical effects to the masterful way that the films wield dread and tension through each shot. Regardless of preference, the Alien franchise remains one of the best examples of its genre and of late 70s horror to this day.