In celebration of Ridley Scott’s latest entry into the greatest horror sci-fi franchise of all time – Alien: Covenant (now playing – our review HERE), I’ve decided to rank every single Alien and Predator film into one list. Shane Black’s ‘The Predator’ is on tap for a release August 3, 2018 as well, so stay tuned to see that badass horror-action flick next year.
#11. Prometheus (2012)
Look. The movie was gorgeous, it had a great cast and most importantly of all, it had Michael Fassbender playing a robot who is fascinated by extra terrestrial life forms. Ridley Scott needed a better script and he needed to incorporate more Alien stuff into this one, rather than set up a convoluted NEW journey that we didn’t even bother to explore in the sequel anyway. Prometheus was a waste of time in regards to the Alien franchise and aside from the self operation sequence (which was incredible) – the rest of the movie was hipster sci-fi bullshit.
Synopsis: The discovery of a clue to mankind’s origins on Earth leads a team of explorers to the darkest parts of the universe. Two brilliant young scientists lead the expedition. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) hopes that they will meet a race of benevolent, godlike beings who will in some way verify her religious beliefs, while Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) is out to debunk any spiritual notions. However, neither the scientists nor their shipmates are prepared for the unimaginable terrors that await them.
#10. Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Paul W. S. Anderson’s monster mash-up was an homage to classic versus pictures of the past, so even though hardcore fans were mostly left underwhelmed by the lack of gore and “serious” nature of the two franchises, I think there was a lot of fun to be had here. The action and effects were great and seeing my favorite two movie monsters going at it for the first time was a blast in spite of the script being around 10 pages long
.
Synopsis: When the wealthy and ambitious Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) funds an expedition to Antarctica, he hopes to find a mysterious source of heat that has been detected. Led by a tough guide, Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), Weyland and his team uncover a pyramid, but they also find malevolent parasitic aliens. Making matters worse, another extraterrestrial species, known as Predators, arrive to hunt the other aliens, with the humans caught in the middle of the conflict.
#9. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Yes they made a sequel and the one criticism that fans had from the first (an R-RATING) was answered and the gore was delivered! My god, there is some disturbing shit in AVP Requiem. The fact that the Pred-Alien (yes an Alien that burst from the chest of a Predator) invades a hospital and infects a pregnancy ward was incredibly messed up… The violence was ramped up, the fights were more brutal and even though I can’t remember a single human performer – it doesn’t matter because I got to see a Predator killing the shit out of both aliens and teenagers alike. Thank you.
Synopsis: Residents (Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz) of Gunnison, Colorado, are caught up in the crossfire when two deadly extraterrestrial species bring their longstanding conflict to Earth. On the one side, nearly indestructible Aliens; on the other, a lone Predator whose mission is to wipe out all traces of the Alien infestation from Earth, no matter who gets in the way.
#8. Predator 2 (1990)
Danny Glover and Gary Busey? Sign me up bitch. Predator 2 was a wonderful B-Movie romp and way better than it had any right to be at the time. The coolest aspect of this film was that it finally connected the Predator and Alien franchises, pulling some serious legendary Easter Egg shit – DECADES before Marvel was doing it by dropping a Xenomorph skull onto the Predator’s trophy case. Mind blown – the stage was set.
Synopsis: Los Angeles is enduring a heat wave and a crime wave, so the pressure on police officer Michael Harrigan (Danny Glover) to solve a strange string of murders is mounting. Harrigan thinks the culprit can be found among the warring gangs and drug cartels, but FBI Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey) knows the horrible truth: Their killer is a fearsome extraterrestrial (Kevin Peter Hall) with keen hunting abilities that include superior night vision and the power to make itself invisible.
#7. Alien: Covenant (2017)
I’m still shocked that Ridley Scott was allowed to make a sequel to Prometheus, but I’m happy he did because he kind of scrapped all the bullshit the previous movie was gunning for by opening the universe up and making it weirder. He did this by delivering a straight-up horror film in a beautiful sci-fi setting, finally answering the question – where did the Xenomorphs come from? Covenant answers that and it does a great job doing so. Michael Fassbender is legendary.
Synopsis: Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, members (Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup) of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think to be an uncharted paradise. While there, they meet David (Michael Fassbender), the synthetic survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition. The mysterious world soon turns dark and dangerous when a hostile alien life-form forces the crew into a deadly fight for survival.
#6. Alien: Resurrection (1997)
The fourth entry in the franchise gets a bad wrap and I don’t think that’s fair. This film had a wonderful cast, including Ron freaking Perlman, and it was loaded with bizarre shit including an alien-human hybrid baby thing spawned from the DNA of a cloned Ellen Ripley. Equal parts action and survival bio-horror, Resurrection was and still is a gem that did not deserve any of the hate at the time of it’s release.
Synopsis: Two hundred years have passed since Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) died on Fiorina 161. Aboard the medical research vessel USM Auriga, a team of scientists clone Ripley from her extracted DNA and removes the alien Queen embryo which was growing inside her at the time of her death.
#5. Alien 3 (1992)
David Fincher had the world’s worst job – following up the greatest sequel in the history of cinema… Alien 3 is not a bad movie, in fact it’s damn brilliant, emotional and stripped down horror that took the franchise back to it’s B-Movie roots after the action spectacle of ‘Aliens’. This flick even had a young Tywin Lannister in Charles Dance! How cool is that? Remember the part where the alien comes out of the ceiling and bites that dude’s head, picking him right up? That shit is hilarious – this film is well worth several revisits and the ending is a sad but poignant conclusion to our hero Ellen Ripley’s story.
Synopsis: Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor when she crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak wasteland inhabited by former inmates of the planet’s maximum security prison. Once again, Ripley must face skepticism and the alien as it hunts down the prisoners and guards. Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley leads the men into battle against the terrifying creature.
#4. Predators (2010)
Produced by Robert Rodriguez and named in tribute to how ‘Aliens’ snagged it’s title — Predators is just pure testosterone-fuelled fun. Take a bunch of badasses – drop them onto an alien planet and have them hunted down one by one. We get to see Predator DOGS, different TYPES of Predators and most importantly of all — a Yakuza assassin fighting one of these assholes with a samurai sword. This is a man’s movie and it shocks me how damn good it is every time I stop to check it out every couple years.
Synopsis: Brought together on a mysterious planet, a mercenary (Adrien Brody) and a group of coldblooded killers now become the prey. A new breed of aliens pursues the ragtag humans through dense jungle. The group must work together to survive, or become the latest trophies of the fearsome intergalactic hunters.
#3. Alien (1979)
The godfather of science fiction films, Alien revolutionised not only horror cinema, but sci-fi and protagonists on the big-screen. The final survivor is a woman!! A WOMAN DAMMIT! What?!?! You mean all those dudes get mowed down one by one until only Ellen Ripley is alive to take out the xenomorph trash? Damn right. Also – the first chestburster scene is also the greatest of them all and easily one of the best movie moments of all time. Co-writer Ronald Shusett came up with that horrifying idea and one could argue it was easily why the movie blew all of our minds to begin with and set forth a franchise that rivals all others, including Star Trek and Star Wars…
Synopsis: In deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
#2. Predator (1987)
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura going to war in the jungle with an invisible alien assassin that skins and beheads it’s enemies alive to take home their bones as trophies? Let’s do this bro. The practical effects used in creating the Predator are scary good – making this movie still hold up today over three decades later. Ferocious, frightening and badass – Predator is one of the best “buncha guys on a mission” flicks of all time and easily one of the most quotable films ever. “I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed” has to be one of the coolest things anyone has ever said in the history of cool shit to say.
Synopsis: Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a soldier of fortune, is hired by the U.S. government to secretly rescue a group of politicians trapped in Guatemala. But when Dutch and his team, which includes weapons expert Blain (Jesse Ventura) and CIA agent George (Carl Weathers), land in Central America, something is gravely wrong. After finding a string of dead bodies, the crew discovers they are being hunted by a brutal creature with superhuman strength and the ability to disappear into its surroundings.
#1. Aliens (1986)
James Cameron has directed two of the world’s most important sequels – ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ and ‘Aliens’. I consider Aliens to be the greatest sequel ever made – topping The Godfather Part 2 – topping them all. He mastered the art of action horror, by taking a stellar cast of characters and dropping them onto a xenomorph infested planet, where Ripley is forced to tough it out with a bunch of bros – including the badass Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Mark Rolston and Lance Henriksen (forever the most important android of the franchise – sorry Fassbender – you can’t beat Bishop).
Everything from the showdown with the Queen Alien “Get away from her you bitch!” to the knife roulette scene in the mess hall between Bishop and Hudson, Aliens is a cinematic marvel – jampacked with astonishing special effects, action-packed mayhem (the sound of those guns is iconic) and stunningly gruesome moments of terror when the xenomorphs begin to come out of the walls and take out the marines one by one. Aliens is the best and will always be the best. Period.
Synopsis: After floating in space for 57 years, Lt. Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) shuttle is found by a deep space salvage team. Upon arriving at LV-426, the marines find only one survivor, a nine year old girl named Newt (Carrie Henn). But even these battle-hardened marines with all the latest weaponry are no match for the hundreds of aliens that have invaded the colony.