Key Takeaways
- Alien films have been inconsistent in quality over the years, ranging from great to disappointing.
- Some films, like Alien vs Predator, suffer from clunky plots, weak characters, and disappointing action scenes.
- The original Alien film stands out for its tense horror atmosphere, oozing style, and intriguing mystery.
There are a few horror series that have not only survived for decades, but have remained just as popular as the Alien movies. The original 1979 film first introduced us to a world of facehuggers, xenomorphs, and androids, and sequels have sprung up in the more than four decades since. Its lore has been greatly expanded and merged with another iconic extraterrestrial threat: the Predators. With so many sequels, prequels, and spinoffs set in this dark and terrifying world, it can be a bit difficult to pinpoint the timeline.
One thing we can all agree on is that Alien movies aren’t all that consistent. Some are considered the best movies of all time, while others are contenders for worst. We decided to grab our motion trackers and watch every Alien movie from start to finish to see if we could come up with a definitive ranking.
This list only features films that explicitly appear in the Alien timeline or that feature the Xenom-Pokh cannon.
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8 Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
The worst of both worlds
Is there anything good about Requiem? There’s nothing redeeming about the film that will appeal to fans of either series. Yes, there are a lot of deaths, but who cares if no one cares about anything? Oh, and the biggest selling point of “Predalien” is how it lumps together the sins of both series into one creature mistake. It feels like a loose series of scenes strung together between gory scenes meant to shock until it mercifully ends.
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7 Alien vs. Predator
Follow the trends
I don’t understand the weird obsession with crossovers in horror movies in the early 2000s. There was Freddy vs. Jason, Sadako vs. Kayako, and of course this one. The whole idea is to see who would win in a fight between two movie monsters, but it ends up being a huge disappointment. For starters, the new cast is flat as cardboard and you’re stuck with them for most of the movie. When the action does pick up, it’s excruciatingly anticlimactic compared to what you’d expect on your own. It’s interesting to see how this movie retconned the lore of both movies, but you’ll probably enjoy reading the wiki more than wasting your time watching the whole thing.
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6 Alien Resurrection
I’d rather die
When it brings characters back from the dead, you know the movie is at its worst. Despite director Joss Whedon’s best efforts, he just can’t make this script make any sense. It tries desperately to keep things fresh with twists like a new xenomorph type and the return of Ripley, but in the end it’s boring to watch. There’s nothing you feel involved in, the characters are flat and clearly gimmicky, and it lacks the style and atmosphere that the series is known for.
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Five Alien: Covenant
I lost my sense
Does anyone even know what Alien: Covenant was about? David is back and doing more weird stuff and the Xenomorph shows up, but why did it happen? Did it accomplish anything at all? The whole movie feels like an excuse to show us more of the android David, with the occasional gory Xenomorph scene to remind us that this is still an Alien movie.
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Four Prometheus
Unwanted Origins
There was a lot of excitement for Prometheus when it was revealed that Ridley Scott was returning as director. The film certainly has the feel of an alien universe movie, but the plot and characters are a jumble. The worst thing a horror movie can do is explain too much, but Prometheus spends the entire movie explaining everything you don’t need to know about the Xenomorphs and their creation.
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3 Alien 3
Better than expected
I know a lot of people hate Alien 3, but I don’t think that’s a completely fair assessment. Most of the hate comes from the fact that two alien characters are killed off screen. It feels cheap and invalidates most of what happened in that movie. I completely agree that it was a terrible choice, but if you can ignore that, Alien 3 isn’t a terrible idea. Lock yourself in a prison with an alien? A little close to the original, but different enough to be interesting. It’s far from perfect, but looking back it’s glorious compared to what we got later.
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2 alien
Game over
The pressure of having to make a sequel to the greatest horror movie of all time was unimaginable. Alien made the smart decision to completely change the stakes rather than recreating the same magic. It is essentially a horror movie, but not slasher-style, more in the vein of zombie movies, where the fear comes from an overwhelming force rather than a single entity. The Marines were great characters, and the protagonists felt like they had a chance to survive but never won. Ripley’s new role as a survivor and her development into a fully-fledged action star felt natural and expected. The nature of a sequel meant it couldn’t fully recreate the freshness of the original, but as a sequel it was as good as it got.
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1 alien
More than just nostalgia
Alien and Alien 2 easily trade places for the top spot, and not just because their names differ by only one letter. But personally, I prefer the traditional horror structure and pacing of Alien to the horror action of Alien. These differences aside, Alien’s mysteries and surprises are very intriguing. The whole movie oozes atmosphere and style, but remains unpredictable at every turn. And this is before we have any idea what the Xenomorphs are, how they work, or what they can do. In fact, by the end, we barely understand anything about the Xenomorphs other than the fact that even one of them is terrifyingly deadly.
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