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Alien

Play trailer 0:33 Poster for Alien R 1979 1h 56m Sci-Fi Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
93% Tomatometer 208 Reviews 94% Popcornmeter 250,000+ Ratings
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.
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Alien

Alien

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Critics Consensus

A modern classic, Alien blends science fiction, horror and bleak poetry into a seamless whole.

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Critics Reviews

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Jack Kroll Newsweek 11/16/2023
Alien will scare the peanuts right out of your M&M's. It was about time someone made a science-fiction thriller that thrills... and just boils everything down to the pure, ravishingly vulgar essence of fright. Go to Full Review
Elston Brooks Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com 11/16/2023
You can have Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001. I'll take Alien. Go to Full Review
Desmond Ryan Philadelphia Inquirer 11/16/2023
Miss Weaver, a New York actress making her film debut, makes the most of the opportunity without overdoing it. She suggests toughness and fear in equal measure. Go to Full Review
David Day Horror Movie Talk Sep 18
10/10
Alien is one of the most impressive pieces of cinema in history. It set the bar so high for horror and sci-fi that I think it’s still the apex of both. Every single aspect of this movie is carefully thought-out and crafted to the highest of standards. Go to Full Review
Mat Brunet AniMat's Review (YouTube) Aug 29
9/10
They'll save all the complexities for what you see visually, but in terms of the premise, all it needs is just a monster, a spaceship, a bunch of people, and let things fly out as it is, especially with the focus on the survival aspect. Go to Full Review
Rachel Wagner Rachel's Reviews (YouTube) Aug 15
It is scary but fun scary. It is one of the finest films in that genre ever made Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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VictorHFerr Apr 8 AWESOME SCIFI/HORROR FILM BY DIRECTOR RIDLEY SCOTT!!! See more Jeremiah 09/28/2024 My all time favorite film. it needs no justification. watch and see the genius of true horror. See more Aaron Bacchus 05/24/2024 A Horror Classic. The beat in the series. A must watch for all !!! See more Patrick S @PatrickStruik 6d The first and still the best. See more Satoshi i @SatoshiK Dec 10 I guess for it's time, it was a decent movie. But watching it nowadays, really made me notice how boring this movie really is. No charming characters, no nothing. See more Chad H. @ASOIrishWoody Dec 8 Alien is the story of a space crew just trying to mind their business, haul some cargo, and NOT get murdered by something that looks like a nightmare glued together with teeth and slime. Unfortunately, HR does not exist in space. Spolier Alert The movie starts with the crew of the Nostromo waking up from hypersleep looking like they all desperately need coffee and PTO. They get a distress signal, and because company policy is apparently “investigate everything even if it’s obviously a trap,” they land on a spooky planet filled with what can only be described as biological mistakes. Kane, overconfident king of bad decisions, gets a facehugger attached to him — which is honestly what you get for sticking your head into alien eggs like you’re at an intergalactic farmers market. The crew brings him back onboard, ignoring Ripley’s VERY reasonable “nope, absolutely not, quarantine means stay outside” energy. Once the facehugger falls off and everyone relaxes, Kane sits down for the most cursed dinner in movie history. He coughs, twitches, and then BOOM — a tiny demon worm erupts from his chest, screams at everyone, and scampers off like a gremlin late for a dentist appointment. From here, the movie becomes the world’s worst game of hide-and-seek. The alien grows from “angry sock puppet” to “six-foot-tall death machine with drool issues” in roughly 12 minutes. It stalks the ship like it pays rent, picking off crew members one by one while Ripley is the only person with both common sense and a functioning survival instinct. Parker tries to fight it with a flamethrower. Lambert tries to negotiate with it by crying. Ash turns out to be an android who loves corporate loyalty more than human life — which is honestly the most believable part of the whole movie. Ripley eventually blows up the ship, survives the alien, and floats into space with her cat Jonesy, who absolutely contributes nothing except being adorable and occasionally hissing. See more Read all reviews
Alien

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Movie Info

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.
Director
Ridley Scott
Producer
David Giler, Gordon Carroll, Walter Hill
Screenwriter
Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Distributor
20th Century Fox
Production Co
Twentieth Century Fox, Brandywine Productions
Rating
R
Genre
Sci-Fi, Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
May 25, 1979, Wide
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
Apr 26, 2024
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 2, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA)
$82.6M
Runtime
1h 56m
Sound Mix
Surround, Magnetic Stereo 6 Track, Dolby Stereo
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1), 70mm
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