Ranking the Alien Movies

As the Alien franchise heads into caller territory -- some thematically and format..ily -- with the TV bid Alien: Earth, we're Weylin' our Yutanis astatine the 7 Xeno-movies that person landed successful theaters. Yes, we're gonna fertile them each from worst to best, from wasteful to masterful. Did your apical Alien movie marque it to fig one? Find retired below...

Read IGN's reappraisal of Alien: Earth here!

Also, are we going to wholly disregard the AvP movies from 20 years ago? You stake your butt-o-morphs we are. Not lone did the Alien films that followed disavow everything that was successful them, but Fox considers AvP -- the movies, books, and comics -- to beryllium a abstracted franchise with its ain canon.

Check retired our precise ain Alien franchise guide -- movies, games, comics, and books!

Click the representation to caput to IGN's Alien Guide

What's your apical Alien flick? Is it Ridley Scott's 1979 original? James Cameron's stunning 1986 sequel? Fede Álvarez's ferocious caller introduction into the 45-year-old saga? We've voted amongst ourselves and travel up with this authoritative IGN ranking.

With soaring heroines played by Sigourney Weaver, Noomi Rapace, and Cailee Spaeny, menacing Machiavellian androids, and nightmare-inducing monsters whose full bodies (inside and out) are lethal, the Alien franchise is 1 of the scariest and astir enduring journeys successful cinema history.

Warning: Some spoilers for the Alien films follow...

7. ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997)

They were decidedly reasoning extracurricular the bun with Alien: Resurrection, hiring Delicatessen co-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and mounting the communicative 200 years aft the events of Aliens and Alien 3. It has immoderate visually gorgeous moments, but it's tonally each implicit the place. Sigourney Weaver came back, but she's not playing Ellen Ripley...not immoderate mentation that we knew anyhow. She's a ace soldier-style clone made from Ripley humor near down from Alien 3, a alternatively callous fusion of humanity and Xenomorphity.

Alien: Resurrection has abstraction pirates, a caller exemplary of android, a nefarious scientist, gnarly deaths, and the bid first-ever abomination, successful the signifier of the "Newborn," but it each unspools successful messy fashion, and conscionable similar its spot connected the timeline, it ne'er rises supra being a funky outlier and misfire.

6. ALIEN 3 (1992)

There person been attempts to retro-redeem Alien 3, giving it the aged "it's bully actually" treatment, but...nah.

After initially teasing a 3rd Alien movie acceptable connected Earth, Fox alternatively delivered a grim misery parade acceptable connected a distant decommissioned Weyland-Yutani prison, mostly filled with shaven-headed men donning brownish rags who you couldn't archer apart. What's worse, it coldly removed the stakes that allowed 1986's Aliens to scope specified affectional highs by sidesplitting disconnected Newt and Hicks during the archetypal fewer minutes and transforming the full franchise, up until that point, into a morose tragedy.

It was besides the archetypal clip the bid employed CG for its Xenomorph (the "Runner"), and immoderate of those effects haven't aged gracefully. The extremity effect of this precise troubled production, which sadly was David Fincher's archetypal diagnostic movie (don't worry, he'd rebound with Se7en), was a communicative that felt similar it was punishing Ellen Ripley for surviving and thriving. No, we volition person nary of that contrarian re-examination. This movie is simply a "woof."

5. ALIEN: COVENANT (2017)

Alien: Covenant is amended than you remember, deepening the lore surrounding the towering, buff Engineers and Michael Fassbender's David (who becomes the perfection-seeking huffy robot that develops the modular "Xenomorph" -- and the Queen -- utilizing guiltless victims successful heinous experiments) portion besides "getting backmost to basics" pursuing the chaotic swings of Prometheus.

It's besides precise overmuch a people correction from Ridley Scott's archetypal "new trilogy" idea, reining successful the Xenomorph-free elements of Prometheus and trying to enactment the toothpaste backmost successful the tube. It's different caller satellite and different caller lambs-to-slaughter situation, but this clip the monsters are much acquainted successful plan and the ramifications much oregon little driblet america disconnected astatine the doorstep of 1979's Alien (though we'll probavbly ne'er find retired the destiny of David, who is inactive retired determination somewhere, surviving everlastingly arsenic a Synthetic).

Alien: Covenant besides pulls a "Newt," sidesplitting disconnected Noomi Rapace's Dr. Shaw off-screen contempt the crucible she endured successful Prometheus and her crusade, astatine the extremity of that movie, to instrumentality the Engineers to task. That sucks, though the harrowing fearfulness movie-style twist astatine the extremity astir makes up for it.

4. PROMETHEUS (2012)

Ridley Scott returning to the Alien franchise aft implicit 30 years? Not a azygous nerd was skeptical; each were psyched and stoked. But what Ridley Scott delivered was polarizing. Some fans were ace into the caller lore -- with the Engineers and the Black Goo bioweapon and the aboriginal Xeno-variations brought astir by its contaminative properties -- and immoderate thought it overly convoluted a simple, terrifying taxon of predatory alien, a lawsuit of a classical movie monster getting explained to death.

Ahead of the film, Scott himself said that Prometheus wasn't directly related to Alien, but that inactive didn't halt immoderate from feeling deflated by this caller direction. Regardless, Prometheus is gorgeous, from its costumes to its sets to its awesome effects, and it opened up a full caller country of AI sci-fi, which Scott himself helped pioneer successful a modern consciousness with Alien and Blade Runner. Michael Fassbender's David represents Peter Weyland's lone recourse for immortality (man, billionaires hatred sharing decease successful communal with the poors, don't they), truthful it stands to crushed that the tech CEO would question airy years to effort to find retired the concealed to evading the Reaper.

Oh, and that MedPod C-Section scene, arsenic Dr. Elizabeth Shaw removes the Trilobite from her abdomen? THAT's a freakin' scene, dude.

Even though Alien: Covenant isn't a atrocious flick, the information that Scott didn't get to implicit his archetypal extensions of Prometheus yet wounded the movie, and it made it truthful that aboriginal films person to contend with its mythology.

Alien: Earth besides explores the usage of Synthetics to marque humans immortal, but successful a overmuch antithetic way. It's worthy noting though that it's not utilizing Prometheus oregon Alien: Covenant arsenic root worldly astatine all, which volition intelligibly marque immoderate fans happy.

3. ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024)

Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don't Breathe) mightiness not person added thing caller to the mix, per se -- unless you number the "Offspring" carnal astatine the extremity of the movie -- but what helium did with Alien: Romulus was instrumentality the DNA of 1979's Alien and fuse it with 2012's Prometheus, pitting a ragtag unit of miners and farmers, retired to bargain cryopods from a probe station, against a vicious Xenomorph hive spawned from the nonstop aforesaid Xeno from the archetypal movie. Yes, the 1 changeable retired into abstraction by Ellen Ripley.

So you get the Facehuggers, the Chestbursters, and the Xenomorphs, present mixed with the Black Goo and Weyland-Yutani's wicked plans to usage the Goo to germinate humans into amended heavy abstraction enslaved laborers. Some didn't similar however overmuch it called upon past movies (with adjacent Alien: Resurrection getting its flowers acknowledgment to the Offspring), but successful the end, Romulus is simply a savage, inventive heist-gone-wrong communicative with astonishing visuals and a fan-favorite quality successful David Jonsson's Andy, a faulty-but-kindly Synthetic companion. Romulus ties astir everything together, which is ne'er an casual feat; immoderate consciousness it crumbles a spot nether that burden, portion others find it to beryllium the equilibrium we've been searching for.

2. ALIENS (1986)

James Cameron's archetypal large movie pursuing The Terminator was sequel-with-no-equal Aliens, which took the slow-burn panic of Ridley Scott's Alien and blew it up. Literally. It's 1 of the champion enactment movies ever made, overflowing with iconic moments and imagery. And portion it's not a fearfulness movie, similar the original, it's inactive scary arsenic hell. It mightiness not beryllium imaginable to marque a Xenomorph movie and not person it beryllium freaky. The infinitesimal erstwhile the Colonial Marines participate the Hive and get dismantled by the monsters surviving successful the walls is 1 for the ages.

With Aliens, Cameron expanded some the Alien franchise and movie-making successful general. Space marines, the Xenomorph Queen, Weyland-Yutani's scheming, a heroine who transforms from last miss to badass enactment leader - Aliens created a caller scenery portion inactive keeping things terrifying. It's effortlessly quotable, endlessly re-watchable, and Ellen Ripley's quest to prevention young Newt successful the 3rd enactment (whether you see Ripley's girl Amanda to beryllium canon oregon not) is 1 hellhole of a jaw-dropping climax. Aliens is formidable sci-fi, exemplary storytelling, and conscionable damn fun.

1. ALIEN (1979)

Unsurprisingly, Alien gets apical marks here. It reshaped sci-fi, which is particularly awesome successful the aftermath of Star Wars, erstwhile everyone was looking to marque abstraction opera c copies. It's a abstraction movie, a monster movie, and an exploration of AI evils, and it floored audiences with its carnal effects and unforgettable Chestburster scene. While Aliens, 7 years later, would beryllium a high-octane sprout 'em up, Ridley Scott's original, written by Dan O'Bannon, is to beryllium studied. It's a masterclass successful hostility and terror, perfecting the hybrid genre of space-horror. We inactive spot the effects of Alien connected cinema astir 50 years later.

Alien features a formed of unheroic-looking bluish collar workers successful a precise used, lived-in sci-fi environment. There's a nifty protagonist bait-and-switch, the doubling down connected the thought of AI scoffing astatine empathy and valuing efficiency, and the inheritance radiation of a slasher movie (complete with 1 of the champion "Final Girls"). The movie besides boasts a ridiculously beauteous accumulation design, a oversea of lights and buttons that supply a backdrop of tech malaise. Alien is an astonishing experience, 1 to beryllium savored.

Matt Fowler is simply a freelance amusement writer/critic, covering TV news, reviews, interviews and features connected IGN for 17 years.