Joey Magidson
Few franchises with this kind of stature are as top heavy as the Alien one. You have Alien and Aliens as all-time great films. Then, the movies are very much a mixed bag, to say the least. With Alien: Romulus hitting theaters, the release of that movie gave me the spark necessary to look at the series on the whole. As we’re prone to do here, a ranking of all of the flicks followed, which I’m presenting to you all today.
In my review of Alien: Romulus (here), I spoke of these things while praising this newest installment:
The Alien franchise is a tail of a few highs, a couple of crossover lows, and aside from that, a lot of mediocrity. I’ll talk about that more when I rank the films later on in the week, but for a series with major influences on cinema, as well as a status as A-list, surprisingly few entries have been of high quality. There’s Alien and Aliens, but no other stone cold classic movies. So, Alien: Romulus enters the fray with a lower bar to clear than you might expect in order to be considered upper echelon. Does it accomplish that? Yes, but not quite by as much as you might hope. It’s good, to be sure, but anyone wishing for it to be great will end up at least slightly disappointed. Still, the franchise is on solid ground and potentially pointed in the right direction.
Alien: Romulus is closer in approach to the two best installments, though it does more or less take a straightforward approach to being a mix of science fiction and horror. The action is far less than in Aliens, so it’s a slightly scaled up Alien, at its core. That might not sit well with those looking for something big and bold and new. However, if you’re just looking for the powers that be to get this sort of thing right again, well, you’re in luck.
Below, I’ve ranked the Alien series. As you can see, there’s Alien, Aliens, and then everything else. Alien: Romulus and Prometheus are likely next in line, then it’s pretty rough stuff. I’ve even included the Alien vs. Predator spinoffs, which are…not good. Where I fall on Alien3 and Alien Resurrection really makes the list, given that the whole world was more or less meh on Alien: Covenant. Well, enough talk. The ranking is next…
Here now is my ranking of the Alien films. Behold:
9. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
8. Alien vs. Predator
7. Alien: Covenant
6. Alien3
5. Alien Resurrection
4. Prometheus
2. Aliens
1. Alien
What are your favorite films in the Alien franchise? Let us know!
The thing that always astonishes me about Aliens is how, at the time he secured the gig of writing the story and screenplay for the sequel to one of the highest-grossing films of 1979, James Cameron only had Piranha II: The Spawning to his name. And then, when he asked the executives at 20th Century Fox for time away for what was still called Alien II to complete his low-budget sci-fi thriller about a time-traveling killer robot, they not only said yes, but they put the entire project on hold for him and then, before The Terminator was even in theaters, they decided to put James Cameron in the director’s chair when he was ready to return to Aliens.
The faith they placed in this guy who had only one cheesy B-movie sequel to a blatant Jaws ripoff under his belt at the time is only slightly less awe-inspiring than the fact that their faith was amply rewarded in the end.
Truly. A great Hollywood story, for sure.