The Alien franchise may be host (a charged word around these parts) to some of the best sci-fi movies of all time, but it's still suffers from something many long-running film series do: an overcomplicated timeline. With that, figuring out how to watch the Alien movies in order can as much of a challenge as outrunning a Xenomorph.
In the 47 years since Ridley Scott's original, we've had everything from game-changing prequels, like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, to straight sequels – and Weyland-Yutani being established outside of canon in the super futuristic Predator: Badlands, too. And that's before you delve into where TV spin-off Alien: Earth fits in...
Yes, it's safe to say that the Alien timeline requires some explaining. Fortunately for you, that's where we come in. Keep scrolling for our full guide on how to watch all the Alien movies in both chronological and release order. So steer clear of any pulsating eggs and take an express elevator to hell through cinema's ultimate sci-fi horror series.
How to watch the Alien movies in chronological order
- Alien: Earth (TV show)
- Alien vs. Predator
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
- Prometheus
- Alien: Covenant
- Alien
- Alien: Romulus
- Aliens
- Alien 3
- Alien: Resurrection
Alien vs. Predator
Year: 2004
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Sorry, we know this is a strange place to start when talking about how to watch the Alien movies in order. James Cameron and Ridley Scott worked together on a fifth Alien movie, with the idea eventually becoming Prometheus. But in 2004, Fox decided to take the franchise in a different direction, paying off a fun Easter egg in the '90s movie Predator 2, which featured an Alien skull.
This became the face-off movie Alien vs. Predator. Cameron wasn't happy about this idea and decided to work on his own sequel instead, with Paul W. S. Anderson stepping up to the mark. By this point, Anderson had plenty of experience in genre-melding horror thanks to the first Resident Evil film (aka one of the best video game movies ever made). Alien vs. Predator follows billionaire businessman Charles Weyland as he investigates an icy pyramid, which just so happens to contain an Alien Queen. As it turns out, the whole thing is part of an ancient ritual to lure humans into birthing Xenomorphs so that traveling Predators have something exciting to hunt.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Year: 2007
Director: The Brothers Strause
Alien vs. Predator wasn't great, as you can tell from our own Alien vs Predator: Requiem review. But it did well enough at the box office to justify another one, set immediately after the first movie’s revelation of the birth of the hybrid 'Predalien'. The Predators send a particularly badass member of their own species to Earth in an attempt to kill the hybrid, with lots of humans inevitably caught in the crossfire.
The Brothers Strause replaced Anderson in the director's chair after forming a strong relationship with Fox on other blockbusters. But the response to the movie was rough. It ended up on several lists of the worst films of 2007 and got a pair of Razzie nominations. The sibling directors had made noises about making another Alien movie, and the box office numbers were decent, but the strength of the critical backlash led Fox to put the creatures back into storage – for a few years at least.
Prometheus
Year: 2012
Director: Ridley Scott
In 2012, Ridley Scott returned for something entirely different from what had come before. He envisaged Prometheus as the first in a series of prequels that would eventually lead directly into the original Alien. Set in 2089, Prometheus was the first and followed a team of scientists on the hunt for the origins of humanity.
This carried them through to the society of The Engineers, who were seemingly responsible for humanity's creation, but had chosen to destroy their offspring. Scott and screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof packed the film with religious imagery and highfalutin literary allusions, which somewhat put off those who were hoping for a balls-to-the-wall horror movie akin to the first film. On that basis, the response to Prometheus ended up being quite mixed, although we still gave it a four-star rating in our Prometheus review. While Scott did eventually get to make a sequel, his plans for a wide-ranging prequel franchise were more or less dead.
Alien: Covenant
Year: 2017
Director: Ridley Scott
The feedback from Prometheus was clear – less of the philosophy, please, and more terrifying aliens ripping things apart. John Logan and Dante Harper's script features plenty of Xenomorph action while still building on Scott’s fundamental ideas about the relationship between creators and creations – here exemplified by Michael Fassbender's dual performance as Prometheus android David and his identical successor Walter.
Unfortunately, Covenant got caught between two stalls. It's like the philosophical elements and the blood-and-guts body horror in Covenant are from different movies trying to co-exist awkwardly. The plot is the usual setup – a team of scientists arrives on a planet and subsequently discovers some form of parasitic alien – and originality is in short supply. Scott, at the time, said Covenant was the start of a three-movie arc that would lead straight into Alien, but a combination of soft box office, middling critical notices – like in our Alien: Covenant review – and the Disney-Fox merger seems to have put an end to his plans.
Alien
Year: 1979
Director: Ridley Scott
Here's the good stuff. Ridley Scott's original horror movie, set in approximately the year 2122, is unburdened by complex mythology. It’s just a terrifying tale about the blue-collar crew of a spaceship forced to fight for their lives when something deadly gets aboard. That’s not to mention Sigourney Weaver's iconic performance as Ellen Ripley.
Every element of Alien works perfectly, from its slow build of tension to the all-out carnage of its second half. HR Giger's designs for the chest-burster and the xenomorph have never been bettered for the sheer fear factor. With all of this in mind, it's no surprise that the film was an enormous success and is often considered one of the best horror movies of all time. It's also completely unsurprising that a movie so influential and successful fired the starting pistol on a franchise that's still running decades later.
Alien: Romulus
Year: 2024
Director: Fede Álvarez
In true legacy sequel style, Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus chooses to ignore the other sequels in the franchise and wedges itself right after the original movie. As we break down in our Alien: Romulus ending explained guide, the film centers around a group of rebels who are tasked to find the DNA from that Xenomorph that Ripley blasted into space during the 1979 movie.
The Weyland-Yutani Corporation is trying to "save humanity" by creating the perfect organism, and we even get some references to Prometheus as well. However, this is an Alien movie, so obviously, things don't go well, and soon, the group is being picked off one by one. Alien: Romulus does leave the door open for a potential sequel as well, and technically, there are still 37 years before the next Alien movie in our timeline, so it's possible we get another addition in the future, too. Keep your eyes on this page as we update you with all the latest details. But for now, you can read more about Fede Álvarez's film with our Alien: Romulus review.
Aliens
Year: 1986
Director: James Cameron
Famously, James Cameron pitched his sequel to Alien by simply writing an 's' after the film's title on the back of his script. It's a very smooth, very cool story about a very smooth, very cool movie. Everything's bigger in Aliens, which swaps a single Xenomorph for absolutely loads of them – not to mention the Alien Queen herself.
More than 50 years after the events of Alien, Ripley awakens from hypersleep and tries to warn the authorities about what she's seen. There's now a terraforming colony on LV-426, so the presence of aliens would be a big problem. Along with a team of Marines, Ripley returns to the surface and discovers that she, of course, was right all along. There aren't many filmmakers who can live up to Cameron when it comes to crafting an epic blockbuster, and Aliens is a prime example of this. Like its predecessor, it was a huge hit at the box office and is considered to be one of the best alien movies of all time. In 2024, Aliens Expanded – a four-hour documentary movie – debuted, exploring every element of Aliens. It takes a special film to justify anything like that.
Alien 3
Year: 1992
Director: David Fincher
David Fincher is a household name in Hollywood today, but in the early '90s, he was best known as the music video director behind songs like Madonna's Vogue. Alien 3 was his feature debut, and it went so terribly that he has since disowned the entire thing, saying in 2009 that "to this day, no one hates it more than me".
Immediately after the events of Aliens, Ripley is the sole survivor of an escape pod crash, landing in the middle of a maximum security prison full of violent inmates. Unwittingly, she has brought the embryo of an Alien Queen along with her – inside her body. Alien 3 had been through multiple iterations before it landed with Fincher, and the general perception is that the movie's myriad flaws weren't really his fault. Fortunately for him, he'd moved on to the project that would cement him as a truly gifted movie visionary: one of the best thriller movies of all time, Se7en.
Alien Resurrection
Year: 1997
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Ripley's death at the end of Alien 3 seemingly stopped more Alien sequels, but Fox inevitably wanted more from the franchise. Weaver wasn't especially keen to return, but she liked the idea of a slightly twisted version of the character whose DNA had been combined with a Xenomorph.
This makes Ripley's loyalties a little harder to discern as the story goes on, with military scientists using human hosts to breed Xenomorphs for them to study. French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who had a background in sci-fi cinema, was brought in as director. The result was a film that did better than its predecessor with critics but still failed to hit the heights of the first two movies. Weaver wasn't against the idea of making another appearance in an Alien film – and she's still open to it to this day – but Fox decided to focus on the Alien vs. Predator crossover series. That didn't exactly go brilliantly.
How to watch the Alien movies in release order
- Alien (1979)
- Aliens (1986)
- Alien 3 (1992)
- Alien Resurrection (1997)
- Alien vs. Predator (2004)
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
- Prometheus (2012)
- Alien: Covenant (2017)
- Alien: Romulus (2024)
- Alien: Earth (2025)
Where does Alien: Earth fall in the Alien timeline
So technically, Alien: Earth isn't a movie, but the show does take place in the Alien timeline and is a prequel to the events of the first film. In our Alien: Earth timeline guide on the subject of the new show's place in the Alien canon, we mention how season 1 is set two years before Ellen Ripley meets an Xenomorph for the first time. That means it takes place during the year 2120.
However, despite its place in the timeline, Alien: Earth creator and showrunner Noah Hawley has suggested his show won’t stick to elements of Alien mythology established in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. With that in mind, we may be looking at a new timeline being formed (think of Halloween's separate timelines after years of retcons and remakes).
To make things even more confusing, Hawley recently told Collider that the show takes place "somewhere around the events of the second film, either before or just after." This quote doesn't make much sense unless the series spans a few decades, since Aliens takes place in the year 2177, following Ripley's 57 years in hypersleep. This was likely a case of Hawley mispeaking at the time, however, until it's cleared up, we'll have to keep an eye on where the series is going as we look towards season 2 after the recent Alien: Earth season 1 ending.
Before you check out the new Alien movie, here's our list of all the movies and TV shows to watch before Alien: Romulus.
