If you are someone who enjoys watching gore and horror, the Alien franchise is something that is quite literally handcrafted for you. This franchise has been running for quite some time and has given us eight movies in total with another one on the way. Some of these movies were phenomenal but some were not so good. Now that Alien Romulus is coming up, it’s time to start watching Alien movies to get familiar with the franchise. Here’s how to watch the Alien movies in order in both release date and chronological order.
Alien Movies in Release Date 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 Movies in Chronological Order
1. Alien vs. Predator
Released in 2004, Alien vs. Predator is set in the same year and takes us to a crew led by Charles Bishop Weyland who is trying to investigate a heat signature they found buried in the ice under Bouvetøya, an island off the coast of Antarctica. However, their expedition ends horribly when they unleash the evergoing battle between Xenomorphs and three Hunter Predators.
But, this movie messes up the timeline and origin of the Xenomorphs set by the Aliens movies since a flashback also shows us that Aliens and the Predators have been at war with each other for a massive amount of time, basically, since before the dawn of human civilization.
2. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Even though released in 2007, Alien Vs Predator: Requiem is set in the year 2004 and picks up right where the first Alien vs Predator movie left off. There are two versions of the movie where the extended one is slightly better than the original cut.
This movie and the previous one are constantly trying to impose that both the Alien and The Predator franchises are part of a big cinematic universe and end up revealing that the space travel advancement seen in Yutani Corp in the Alein franchise was taken from Predator tech.
3. Prometheus
Chronologically, this prequel movie, Prometheus, is the first one out of the Alien-Alien franchise. Set in the year 2089, this movie shows us that archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway found a distant star dubbed LV-223 that can support human life. They are sent to LV-223, financed by Weyland Corporation, where they arrive in the year 2093.
This movie does not contain a lot of Alien action sequences but tells us a lot about “Engineers,” the ones who created them. If we look at this movie, classic Xenomorphs are nowhere to be seen and are nonexistent which makes the Alien vS Predator movies irrelevant.
4. Alien: Covenant
The story of Alien Covenant takes a massive leap in time this movie is set in the year 2104 which is exactly 11 years after the expedition we saw in Prometheus go missing. The colonization ship named Covenant is going to a planet named Origae-6 but an unidentified transmission of a human voice makes the crew of the ship look for who sent it, which leads them to an Earth-like planet.
Even though this movie once again does not give us a lot of classic Alien-like action there is just enough for the fans of this franchise to be happy. The selling point of this movie was that it gave the Aliens a strong origin point which once again does not align with what we saw in the Alien Vs Predator movies.
5. Alien
The events we see in the original Alien movie take place in the year 2122 which sets it 18 years after what we saw in Alien Covenant. This movie is where it all began and everything that happens in this movie is pretty standalone. This movie reinforces that back on Earth, Weyland Corporation has learned about the existence of Xenomorphs by either a surviving member of previous expeditions or transmissions since Weyland-Yutani was seeking out these creatures.
6. Aliens
Set in the year 2179, Aliens takes us to Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of Nostromo, who is rescued by her employers in deep space. However, what she tells them in her debriefing, is taken with a grain of salt by them. LV-426 is now a massive terraforming colony and eventually, some employees come across dormant Xenomorph eggs which don’t stay dormant for too long.
7. Alien 3
Alien 3 takes place not too long after the events of Aliens where we see Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop go into cryostasis. Ripley crash lands on a barren planet and finds herself trapped on Fiorina “Fury” 161 while being hunted down by the Xenomorphs at the same time. This suggests that everything that has been happening in this threequel is rather fast-paced. This movie was the last one in the original Aliens franchise and everything that followed after this was either a prequel or a sequel stemming out of everything we saw in these three movies.
8. Alien: Resurrection
Alien Ressurection by far takes the biggest time jump in the entire franchise the movie is set in the year 2381 which is a massive time gap of 202 years after the death of Ripley and the last known Xenomorph. However, in this movie, she was resurrected using a blood sample of hers along with a Xenomorph Queen. This movie by far does not have any other connection with the previous movies except the cloning of Ripley and is a fresh look at the franchise after such a massive gap in time in the franchise.
When Does Alien Romulus Take Place In the Alien Franchise
Initially, we had no information about the timeline where Alien Romulus will be taking place but in a conversation with Variety, Actor Cailee Spaeny, who will be playing the protagonist in Alien Romulus confirmed that this movie will be taking place sometime between the events of Alien and Aliens. In her comment, she stated-
It’s supposed to slot in between the first movie and the second movie. They brought the same team from ‘Aliens,’ the James Cameron film. The same people who built those xenomorphs actually came on and built ours. So getting to see the original design with the original people who have been working on these films for 45-plus years and has been so much of their life has been really incredible.”
As of now, we can’t say how much of an influence this movie is going to have on the franchise and what part it will play in the broader scheme of things, here are the movies you should watch before Alien Romulus.
