After running away from the Alien franchise he created for decades, Ridley Scott returned in 2012 for the epic prequel Prometheus.Photo: Kerry Brown
Unlike the furthest reaches of the galaxy, the Alien films provide a safe space to scream.
Across 45 years now, the chest-bursting series following those pesky xenomorphs and the stupid humans who keep on running afoul of them has been warped and tweaked to fit the wildly varied sensibilities of its many directors. From Ridley Scott’s haunted-house horror in the original film to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s surreal freak show in the fourth, these are genre films that allow for personal touches while still prioritizing oh-god-no thrills first. And with this weekend’s release of Alien: Romulus, in which director Fede Álvarez (the 2013 reboot of Evil Dead) doubles down on the gore, there is no better time to revisit and rank one of Hollywood’s most enduring franchises.
9. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), streaming on Disney+
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, the direct sequel to the first 2004 monster mash-up, is a truly dire affair.James Dittiger/The Canadian Press
Technically, there are 10 films in the Alien universe, if we count a brief image of a xenomorph skull glimpsed onboard the bad guy’s ship in Predator 2. But then we’d kind of have to include all the other Predator films, too, and no one has time for that nonsense. So let’s start from the very bottom of the proper Alien-verse, which is a deep well indeed. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, the direct sequel to the first 2004 monster mash-up, is a truly dire affair, substituting bland violence for high tension, and hinging on the most threadbare of plots. I would rather make out with that little mini-xenomorph mouth that pops out of the bigger guy’s inner jaw than watch this mess again.
8. Alien vs. Predator (2004), streaming on Disney+
Lance Henriksen and Ian Whyte in Alien vs. Predator.Supplied
A cool idea for a video game – actually, this is a loose adaptation of a Dark Horse comic book – gets stretched and pounded into a disposable feature film in which, true to the film’s tag line, we all lose. While there is a contingent of Paul W.S. Anderson fans out there who insist the director, best-known for the Resident Evil films, is a secret cinematic genius, no such evidence makes its way onto the screen here. And efforts to expand the franchise’s mythology – mostly by casting Aliens co-star Lance Henriksen as Charles Bishop Weyland, the billionaire whose corporation would one day ruin Ellen Ripley’s life – were so weak that they would eventually be retconned by series godfather Ridley Scott in Prometheus.
7. Alien: Romulus (2024), in theatres Aug. 16
A xenomorph in a scene from Alien: Romulus.20th Century Studios/The Associated Press
For much of Romulus’s running time, it seems as if Fede Álvarez isn’t going to go as all-out on the gory guts as he did in his Evil Dead reboot and 2016 thriller Don’t Breathe. But then, as the third act kicks into gear, the director unleashes a few eye-popping bursts of crimson. Yet as violent and tense as Romulus is – including its opening minutes, silent and impressively retro-stylized to a tee – Álvarez, who co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues, makes a near-fatal error by making one franchise callback too many. The decision wades into spoiler territory, but it pushes the filmmaking past such a glaring red line that it immediately downgrades the whole bloody affair.
6. Prometheus (2012), streaming on Disney+
Michael Fassbender plays the delightfully sinister android David in Prometheus.The Associated Press
Speaking of which: after running away from the Alien franchise he created for decades, Scott returned in 2012 for this ambitious if confounding prequel, which attempted to answer the burning question of: “Just who was that giant fossilized astronaut-dude glimpsed aboard the xenomorphs’ ship in the first film?” The result is a prequel epic spanning millennia that oscillates so wildly between self-serious philosophizing and eye-popping set-pieces – all featuring the dumbest characters ever committed to film – that you’ll wish Scott stayed Earth-bound. But the entry cannot be entirely discounted, thanks to the introduction of Michael Fassbender’s delightfully sinister android David, and one fantastically tense late-film sequence in which Noomi Rapace performs surgery on herself in order to extricate a quickly developing alien fetus.
5. Alien: Covenant (2017), streaming on Disney+
Alien: Covenant is set a decade after the final moments of Prometheus, but a few decades before the events of Alien.Photo Credit: Mark Rogers
Set a decade after the final moments of Prometheus – but a few decades before the events of Alien – Covenant finds Scott trying to rectify the errors of his misbegotten prequel, to varying degrees of success. The filmmaker wisely puts Fassbender’s robot front and centre this time, even giving the actor a dual role as Walter, the next-generation version of David. But the actor sets the bar so high that the rest of his co-stars – indeed, even the film itself – can hardly compete, including Katherine Waterston as the heir-slash-predecessor to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. At least Danny McBride seems to be having fun as a cocky space pilot.
4. Alien: Resurrection (1997), streaming on Disney+
Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder in Alien: Resurrection.Archive Photos/Getty Images
One of the most hated films in the Alien canon, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s extremely French freak-show has aged incredibly well – at least, if you take it as seriously as the director does, which is not at all. Weaver rocks playing an extremely aggravated clone of Ripley, while Winona Ryder is just the right shade of mechanical naivety as an android. And hey, Ron Perlman is here, too, playing a space pirate who gets to kick some serious xenomorph butt while dropping Joss Whedon-penned snarky asides. The film also manages to deliver one of the most upsetting scenes in the franchise’s history, involving Riplay and her “child.“ The whole endeavour feels both perfectly in line with Jeneut’s what-the-hell career (The City of Lost Children, Amélie) and the beyond-good-taste lengths that studios will go to in order to extend their most valuable intellectual property.
3. Alien 3 (1992), streaming on Disney+
Alien 3 is an undeniably terrifying experience, intimate and monstrous.Twentieth Century Fox
David Fincher’s feature directorial debut was a notorious nightmare for almost everyone involved, with studio meddling and threadbare scripts and all kinds of behind-the-scenes turmoil. But the end result – especially the “assembly cut” released on DVD in 2003 based on Fincher’s editing-room notes – is an undeniably terrifying experience, intimate and monstrous. It also features a standout performance from Weaver, who approaches the “final” journey in Ripley’s legacy with grace and grit.
2. Alien (1979), streaming on Disney+ and Crave
Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton on the set of Alien, directed by Ridley Scott.Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images
Disgusting, terrifying and so finely tuned that it could be symphonic, Scott’s initial dive into the deepest reaches of interstellar hell retains its stomach-churning power all these decades later. The cast – not only the instantly iconic Weaver but also John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto – is perfect. The claustrophobic atmosphere is haunting. The creature design by H.R. Giger is imitable and immortal. And smuggled inside of it all is a rather vicious condemnation of corporate-America greed. And yet …
1. Aliens (1986), streaming on Disney+ and Crave
Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn in a scene from Aliens.Bob Penn/Getty Images
Scott’s original might be the franchise’s standard-bearer – and certainly seems to have influenced Romulus the most out of the bunch – but it is James Cameron’s follow-up that takes the entire concept of man vs. the unknown to spectacularly violent new heights. As much a sci-fi thriller as it is an all-out war movie, Aliens has inspired so many imitators that its touchstones have looped back to influence Cameron himself. Weaver’s Ripley – whose third-act mech suit is equal parts anime and neo-rust-belt armour – walked so that Avatar’s Jake Sully could run, leap and swim. Plus there is Bill Paxton, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen and Michael gosh-dang Biehn. All due respect to Scott – and however much money and bile that Álvarez scares up in theatres this weekend – but Cameron’s film is the one true Aliens flick that will never, ever die.