Full disclaimer, this article is 100% biased, and you are fully invited to fight over this ranking of the Alien movies on social media!

The best alien movie is Alien (1979).

Ridley Scott’s Alien is one of the greatest, most iconic movies of all time, and several key elements make Alien so timeless. 

First, Swiss artist H.R. Giger’s design of the Xenomorph purposely melds phallic and yonic imagery to create a terrifying creature that can impregnate basically anyone. The very concept of motherhood is divorced from gender all throughout the movie, which gives Alien a unique flavor of body horror while also subverting gender. 

Second, though the story is set far into the future, the technology available to these characters does not save them. In fact, the tech often endangers them. Their weapons are useless, and the ship often provides convenient hiding spots for the xenomorph. 

Finally, though the xenomorph is indeed very scary, the true terror of Alien lies in the infinite greed of Weyland Industries, the corporation that sends the ship off course in the first place. The crew is betrayed by their own computer (named “Mother”) and a fellow crewmate. The nightmare of Alien is that even if they survive the xenomorph, they don’t have a home to go back to. They have been sacrificed.

The 2nd best alien movie is Alien Resurrection (1997).

The 4th alien movie, Alien Resurrection (directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet) is, from a thematic standpoint, the second-best Alien movie out there. PLEASE HEAR ME OUT. Putting aside the incredibly campy performances, the very dated Dutch angles, and the wildly oversaturated colors, Alien Resurrection picks up many of the threads laid out in Alien. The greedy corporation is now a greedy government – they do insane shit with xenomorph DNA in their unending quest to weaponize the lifeform. Their technology fails to contain the xenomorphs in spectacular ways, and the ship turns into an incubator for hundreds of newborn face huggers.

Ripley is not quite human anymore, and she teams up with a gang of outlaw misfits as they all fight to survive. She shamelessly flirts with Winona Rider’s character Call (who is also not-quite human), and in the aftermath of the film’s events, the two are left to make a life of their own. The visceral nightmare of motherhood, especially the non-consensual kind, is at the heart of this story. Ripely expresses palpable anger at the system that co-opts her body in order to breed violence, which feels strangely relatable 25 years later. Alien Resurrection culminates around Ripley’s struggle to control a very violent, very slimy lifeform. It’s chaotic, it’s brutal, and it’s very, very gooey. 

The 3rd best alien movie is Alien3 (1992) – specifically The Assembly Cut.

David Fincher famously disowned Alien3, and who could blame him? The production was cursed long before the first-time director signed on. The Assembly Cut, released on DVD alongside the theatrical cut, is supposedly a better representation of Fincher’s intent, but mainly it just includes important context to the strange prison planet on which the 3rd installment is set. Alien3 is a difficult watch. Its pacing is a mess, and there’s a pervasive threat of sexual violence throughout the first half that I think no one needs to experience. The fluid gender dynamics in Alien and Resurrection are absent.

Instead, we get a very binary situation where Ripley is specifically a woman, and it’s specifically her womanness that puts her in danger. This particular gang of misfits aren’t exactly sympathetic, which makes it difficult to care when they die. However, the abandoned prison colony setting does fit with the institutional violence present in the other Alien movies, and the lack of modern weapons and technology poses a unique challenge for the characters that the franchise sadly never revisits. The film’s final act is dark and intense. The ending gives us one last taste of cruelty from Weyland Industries, which pushes Ripley to reject motherhood in a very metal way. Alien3 is messy, but it tries.

The 4th best alien movie is Aliens (1986).

There are so many rich themes, motifs, and details that Ridley Scott sets up in 1979. There’s a genderfucked alien species and a genderless crew, an ominous all-powerful corporation, and a bunch of useless tech and weapons. But what does James Cameron do with these things in Aliens? NOTHING. Ripely is no longer a genderless crewmember, she’s a grieving mother (the only way to flesh out a female character, I guess?) who immediately bonds with a lost, traumatized child. Cameron introduces a queen xenomorph, making the characters specify that she is female. Cyborgs aren’t scary weapons anymore who sabotage on behalf of the corporation, they’re nice and helpful!

There are lots of weapons, lots of bullets, lots of flamethrowers, and they sort of work! In fact, Ripley uses a machine at the end to fight off the queen xenomorph, setting up a literal Mom (Ripley) versus Bitch (the queen) fight, which feels so antithetical to the agender vibes of Alien. In Aliens, the prevailing source of tension comes from the battle between humans and xenomorphs instead of the oppressive weight of Weyland Industries. And though the corporation is ultimately revealed to be up to no good, we go into the movie expecting them to be shady, which takes the sting out of the film’s final twist. 

Compared to the deep, ominous shadows of Alien, the sepia-toned desolation of Alien3, or the green, gooey chaos of Resurrection, the aesthetics of Aliens feel empty and clinical. Many entries in the Alien franchise stray from the original blueprint (how do you think Prometheus or Covenant compare? Or the AvP movies?), but it’s Aliens that fundamentally misunderstands everything that makes Alien so iconic.