Every Alien Movie Ranked by Awesomeness

I have been given the intimidating (maybe impossible) task of ranking the films in the Alien franchise. This is very hard to do, not only because there are too many films, but because they don’t all want to be the same thing. Some are more survival horror, some are action epics, some are quietly spiralling into existential crisis about creation, identity, and why androids always seem to have a lot going on emotionally.

And then you’ve got the crossover chaos, which is its own conversation entirely.

Since Alien first dropped us into that cold, industrial nightmare, the series has mutated in all directions. Sometimes brilliantly, sometimes… less so, but rarely in a way that’s completely boring. Even the messier entries tend to have something worth poking at, whether it’s a wild performance, a big swing concept, or just a moment that sticks longer than it should.

So ranking these by “awesomeness” feels right. Not “best,” not “most important,” just which ones hit that sweet spot of tension, spectacle, ideas, or sheer chaotic energy.

Alien Franchise Movies Ranked by Awesomeness

9. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

Picking up directly after the previous film, Requiem drops a xenomorph-predator hybrid into a small American town, where it proceeds to multiply the problem at an alarming rate. What follows is a full-blown infestation, with civilians caught in the middle and a lone Predator attempting to clean up the mess.

On paper, this should be chaotic fun. Aliens loose in suburbia is a strong hook. But the film never quite translates that into something engaging. The action is murky, literally, it’s so dark you spend half the runtime squinting, and the characters feel more like placeholders than people.

There’s a version of this that’s mean, lean, and properly nasty. This just feels… cluttered. Which is a shame, because the core idea is solid.

8. Alien vs. Predator

An expedition to Antarctica uncovers an ancient pyramid buried beneath the ice, which turns out to be a hunting ground where Predators breed and battle xenomorphs. A group of humans gets caught in the middle of this very elaborate rite of passage.

It’s a fun concept, and the film knows it. There’s a pulpy, adventure-thriller energy running through it that makes it easy to watch, even when it leans away from horror. The shifting pyramid is a great visual idea too, constantly reconfiguring the space and keeping things unpredictable.

But it never quite goes far enough. It plays things safer than you’d expect for a crossover like this. You keep waiting for it to really cut loose, and it mostly… doesn’t. Still entertaining, just not as awesome as it could have been.

7. Alien: Resurrection

Set 200 years after Ripley’s death, Resurrection brings her back via cloning, along with a batch of xenomorphs extracted from her DNA. Naturally, everything goes wrong, and a group of mercenaries finds themselves trapped on a ship with creatures that are evolving in unpleasant ways.

There’s a lot going on here. Identity, humanity, mutation. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley as something slightly other, not quite human, not quite alien, which is genuinely interesting.

But the tone is all over the place. Jean-Pierre Jeunet brings a stylised, almost grotesque visual flair that doesn’t always mesh with the franchise’s usual coldness. Some moments really land, others feel oddly cartoonish.

It’s messy, but it’s never dull. I’ll give it that.

6. Alien: Covenant

A colony ship bound for a distant planet diverts course after receiving a mysterious signal, only to discover a seemingly perfect world hiding something deeply wrong. Enter Michael Fassbender’s android, or rather androids, and things quickly spiral into familiar but nastier territory.

This is where the franchise leans heavily into creation mythology. Where do the xenomorphs come from? What role does artificial intelligence play in that? Big questions, and the film is clearly interested in them.

But it’s split between that and delivering classic alien horror beats, chestbursters, stalking creatures, panic, and the two don’t always sit comfortably together. When it focuses on tension, it works. When it drifts into philosophical monologues, it can feel a bit… self-serious.

Still, it’s never boring, and Fassbender is doing genuinely compelling work throughout.

5. Alien 3

Crash-landing on a bleak prison colony, Ripley finds herself among a group of inmates who have renounced violence, just as a xenomorph begins picking them off one by one. No weapons, no backup, just survival in a hostile, enclosed environment.

It’s a stark shift from Aliens. Smaller, grimmer, almost deliberately stripping away the sense of empowerment the previous film built. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley as exhausted but resolute, carrying the weight of everything that’s come before.

The production history is famously messy, and you can feel that in places. But there’s also a boldness to it. It refuses to be crowd-pleasing, and while that didn’t land at the time, it’s aged into something more interesting than its reputation suggests.

Not an easy watch, but a memorable one.

4. Prometheus

A team of scientists follows a star map discovered in ancient cave paintings, leading them to a distant moon where they hope to find the origins of humanity. Instead, they uncover something far more dangerous, and far less interested in their survival.

Ridley Scott goes big here. Creation, gods, evolution, the arrogance of seeking answers you might not be ready for. It’s visually stunning, packed with striking imagery and ambitious ideas.

But it’s also uneven. Characters make baffling decisions, emotional beats don’t always land, and the film sometimes feels more interested in posing questions than exploring them fully.

And yet… it’s compelling. Even when it frustrates, it lingers. Which might be more important than getting everything right.

3. Alien: Romulus

Set between the events of Alien and Aliens, Romulus follows a group of young colonists who stumble upon a derelict space station, only to discover it’s very much not abandoned in the way they hoped.

This is a return to basics, in a good way. Tighter spaces, smaller stakes, less mythology, more immediate danger. It leans back into the franchise’s horror roots, focusing on tension, pacing, and the simple terror of being trapped with something you don’t understand.

There’s a scrappiness to it that works. It doesn’t feel weighed down by trying to explain everything. It just wants to scare you again.

And while it doesn’t reinvent the formula, it reminds you why the formula works.

2. Aliens

Ripley returns to LV-426 with a squad of colonial marines to investigate what happened to the colony established there. Unsurprisingly, things have gone very, very wrong.

James Cameron shifts the tone from horror to action, expanding the scale and turning the xenomorphs into a full-blown threat rather than a singular nightmare. More creatures, more firepower, more chaos.

And it works. The film builds tension through escalation rather than restraint, delivering set pieces that are still iconic. Ripley’s evolution here is key too, from survivor to fighter, protective, driven, and absolutely not backing down.

It’s loud, intense, and incredibly rewatchable. A different kind of awesome, but undeniably awesome.

1. Alien

A commercial spaceship intercepts a distress signal and investigates a desolate planet, bringing something back on board that begins hunting the crew one by one.

Simple setup. Perfect execution.

Ridley Scott builds the film with incredible control, letting tension accumulate slowly, turning the Nostromo into a claustrophobic maze of shadows and sound. The xenomorph is used sparingly, which makes every appearance hit harder.

And at the centre of it, Ripley, not yet the action icon, just someone trying to survive as everything around her collapses.

It’s clean, focused, and terrifying in a way the sequels, for all their strengths, don’t quite replicate. This is the blueprint. Everything else is reacting to it in some way.

What’s weird about the Alien franchise is that it never really settles. It keeps shifting tone, scale, even purpose. One film wants to trap you in a corridor with something you don’t understand, the next wants to arm you and throw you into a full-scale war, and another is asking uncomfortable questions about creation while someone inevitably makes the worst possible decision in a helmet.

And depending on what you’re in the mood for, your ranking probably changes. I could swap Aliens and Alien on a different day without too much internal conflict. Or bump Prometheus higher purely for ambition, even if it doesn’t always land. That’s the thing, this series invites disagreement. So let me know your thoughts in the comments below!