Ranking the Alien films

[Jester David]

I like Aliens. But the first is such a great movie. A nice slow burn. A tight cast that you get to know before things get horrible. If you walk into it blind, there's some great twists and you really don't know who the "hero" is. There's some great moments of tension and horror and a lot of world building done with very little. It's a nice, tight movie that really stands on its own.

 

[jonesy]

Aliens is one of my all time favourites. I've seen it more times than all the other movies in the franchise put together. It's just fun.

And that is why I still think that Alien is the better movie. It's such a perfect build up of suspense.

The sequel, while fun, is just a regular action movie. There's a ton of those. Maybe not as well made as Aliens, but still a lot.

But Alien? there are very few movies that do horror that well. So the first one's the winner.

 

[Jhaelen]

For me it's clearly Alien - the movie that started it all. It's also one of only two movies I've watched countless times (the other being Bladerunner). It was revolutionary in so many ways!
Aliens, while being a good action movie, didn't do as much for me.
And as for all the others: a resounding meh!

 

[billd91]

For me, it's also clearly Alien. Freaky and suspenseful as hell.
Aliens comes second and makes for a good follow-up to the first.

Everything else trails behind with probably Prometheus and Alien: Covenant coming in the middle for some interesting ideas and characters.

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

Yep, add mine to the pile of votes for the original Alien movie. It is still ranked as the #2 greatest horror movie of all time (right behind Jaws), even after all these years.

Aliens is a very close second. It set a high bar for sequels, and for action movies in general, and it's just so full of awesome quotable lines.

Covenant is, for me, in third place. But it's a very distant third, and everything else in the series is really not worth rating.

 

[RangerWickett]

Aliens is, in my mind, the best movie, with an actual character arc.

Then Alien, for the style and horror and characters.

Then Resurrection, which while the directing isn't great, it's fun and again has great characters.

Then Alien3, assembly cut.

Then Covenant, which never really differentiated the characters except for main lady, cowboy hat, and religious guy. It had good action, but was weak around that.

Then Prometheus, for dumb people.

 

[Ryujin]

Prometheus could have been a much better movie. Parts which explained characters' actions were slaughtered wholesale. I'd call it a failure of direction and editing.

Where they went wrong:
https://filmschoolrejects.com/the-8...de-sense-in-the-original-script-a52def9655d4/

What should be the 'original' script:
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-9NMTSgzvy2U3U-oz/Alien-Engineers-ORIGINAL-PROMETHEUS-SCRIPT_djvu.txt

 

[MarkB]

Heh - Alien and Aliens neck-and-neck currently, with the others not spared even a single vote between them. That's fair.

Alien3 lost me at the start when it undid the victory Ripley had achieved at the end of Aliens while she was still asleep. It was also at that early stage of CGI where the less-talented effects companies hadn't cottoned onto the fact that making your CGI seamless with the live-action footage was more important than making it look cool.

 

[Hand of Evil]

There are only two Alien movies...Alien and Aliens, all the others just don't come close.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I liked 3 the best but I haven't seen it since I was young and thought stupid action movies were the height of cinema, so my impression could be way off. I was not impressed with Resurrection, Prometheus, or Covenant.