Alien movies in order: chronological and release

In space, no one can hear you watch the Alien movies in order. It might be the perfect organism according to Ash, but the xenomorph's timeline is a bit of a jumbled mess of prequels and origin stories. So, we've put together this guide to help you watch the Alien movies in either chronological or release order.

Alien: Earth is upon us — the first TV show set in the Alien universe — and it's absolutely fantastic. The series is a stunning continuation of form for the venerable sci-fi horror franchise after Alien: Romulus got things back on track last year, and a great excuse to watch all the Alien movies again. Check out our How to Watch Alien: Earth guide to see where it's streaming in your country.

Thankfully, it's easy to nail down the order of both the chronological and release order lists, as the Alien movies are very good at letting us know the dates of events. The bigger problem becomes figuring out if they're all canon. You could argue that the Alien vs Predator movies aren't part of the official timeline — especially with the Aliens seemingly being created in Alien: Covenant — but Alien: Earth being set before Covenant seems to confirm the retcon. Short version? David didn't create the aliens; he just cooked up a fresh batch in a lab using the black goo developed by the Engineers.

So where does that leave us? Who knows, but for now we're considering everything canon. If you want to stick to the pure Alien movie timeline, it begins in the year 2089 with Prometheus, when the colonization of distant worlds has already begun, and advances up to the year 2381 with Alien: Resurrection.

Given that Weyland-Yutani is featured in the upcoming Predator: Badlands, though, it's looking very likely that more Alien vs Predator crossovers are on the way. It might be time to watch through all the Predator movies in order, too. Oh noooooooo.

There are no spoilers in this list beyond the basic premise of each movie and some curiosities and references, but if you want to go in as blind as possible, stick to the bullet list below.

Alien movies in chronological order

• Alien vs. Predator
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
• Prometheus
• Alien: Earth
• Alien: Covenant
• Alien
• Alien: Romulus
• Aliens
• Alien 3
• Alien: Resurrection

1. Alien vs. Predator

• Release date: August 13, 2004
• Cast: Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen

After a failed AvP project which was developed in the 90s, Shane Salerno’s script set the action in (back then) present day: 2004. An expedition led by Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) wants to investigate a massive heat signal under the ice on Bouvetøya, an island off the coast of Antarctica. What comes afterwards is a chaotic battle between long-dormant Xenomorphs and three Predator hunters, with humans caught in the middle.

As the first Alien vs. Predator crossover movie, AvP tries really hard to connect both franchises, especially with the inclusion of Aliens veteran Lance Henriksen as the founder of Weyland Industries (which later becomes Weyland-Yutani after a merger). However, it put the origins of the Xenomorphs – as presented by Alien (1979) – into question, and Ridley Scott’s prequel movies later trashed the entire idea of Xenos existing this early in the timeline. Furthermore, a major flashback set in the early days of human civilization shows that both species have been going at it for an awfully long time.

2. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem 

• Release date: December 25, 2007
• Cast: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz

20th Century Fox’s (now Studios) second go at AvP was met with abysmal reviews and a cold shoulder from most fans, although it delivered enough unrestrained nastiness and refreshing in-universe concepts to get diehard fans talking. AvP: Requiem is set in 2004 too, starting right after the previous movie cuts to black. There are notable differences between the theatrical cut and the extended one (which is the way to go), but the main events remain unchanged in the latter.

This movie keeps pushing the idea of everything in both franchises happening in one big timeline, and ends up tying Yutani Corp’s huge space travel advancements we see in the Alien movies to Predator tech. This ain’t canon anymore for the Alien franchise, but as mentioned before, the AvP movies have been embraced by the Predator timeline. As bad as the movie is, the Yutani nod was a cool note to end on.

3. Prometheus

• Release date: June 1, 2012
• Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron

The first of the Alien prequels by original director Ridley Scott starts in 2089 (prologue aside), with archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discovering an ancient star map on Earth that sends them – backed by the Weyland Corporation – to the distant moon LV-223, where they arrive in December 2093.

While Xenomorphs as we know them don’t show up in this movie, we learned tons about their makers – referred to as Engineers – and their connection to humankind. The sci-fi rules of all the chaos and horror that ensue are confusing to say the least, but Scott and his team made one thing clear: the classic Xenomorph didn’t exist at this point, instantly vaporizing both AvP movies out of the timeline.

In a hilarious move, the upcoming TV series, which Scott is producing and actively working on, appears to be playing the same card and trashing his take on the Xenos’ origin, as it will take place on Earth “in the near future.” Continuity? They don’t know her.

4. Alien Earth

• Release date: August 13, 2025
• Cast: Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, and Adarsh Gourav

The first — and so far only — TV show set in the Alien universe, but what a debut on the small screen. When the deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot crash-lands on Earth, a ragtag group of soldiers and survivors must band together to escape the horrors that were on board. This time around, the horrors aren't just limited to the xenomorph, though, as the Maginot was carrying up a menagerie of extraterrestrial nightmares when it fell to Earth.

The show is set in 2120, making it a prequel to the original Alien and placing it 16 years after Alien: Covenant. Nice and easy to slot into the timeline.

Beyond people getting turned into lunch by cosmic horrors, our heroes will have to contend with the greatest evil our kind has ever known … corporations. Earth is controlled by five megacorps: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold. Prodigy is the star of the show here, having developed a technology that lets it put a human consciousness into robots.

Alien: Earth launched to rave reviews, earning a 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and garnering some intense praise. In our Alien: Earth review, we called it "an intelligent and thought-provoking bloodbath."

5. Alien: Covenant 

• Release date: May 12, 2017
• Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup

Once again, the second Alien prequel kicks off with a distant prologue which teases future events and discoveries. The story itself takes place in the year 2104, 11 years after the Prometheus expedition went missing. The colonization ship Covenant is en route to the planet Origae-6, but a mysterious transmission of a human voice makes the crew look for answers in a nearby planet with Earth-like characteristics.

While Ridley Scott still showed more interest in everything that wasn’t the actual Xenomorph, there’s plenty of classic Alien goodness in Covenant, finally giving the nightmarish creatures a clear origin which, as mentioned before, doesn’t vibe with the AvP flicks. Sadly, the third movie of the trilogy will probably never happen following a disappointing box office haul, and Covenant’s ending is anything but close to leading into the crashed Engineer ship found in the original Alien.

6. Alien 

• Release date: May 25, 1979
• Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt

The events of the original horror masterpiece take place in 2122, which puts only 18 years between it and Covenant. Of course, this being the movie that started it all, everything in Alien stands on its own. There’s a big mystery, plenty of scares and gore, and little more. The worldbuilding is intriguing but slim, and we learn early on that Weyland-Yutani was actively seeking the strange and lethal Xenomorph.

If we accept Scott’s intent and try to work his Alien prequels into the original canon, we have to assume that, at some point in between Covenant and this movie, the company learned about the existence of the Xenomorph and the Engineers, either through a survivor of whatever happened afterwards or via remote transmission. Also, a group of Engineers from another planet or moon – since the synth David (Michael Fassbender) massacred an entire planet before creating the monster – got their hands on plenty of eggs and then crashed on LV-426. If everyone involved wanted to tie things up nicely, these events would’ve been the backbone of the prequel trilogy’s conclusion. But alas…

7. Alien: Romulus

• Release date: August 16, 2024
• Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson

Alien: Romulus takes place in 2142. Weyland-Yutani got its hands on the dangerous Xenomorphs and ran experiments on them in a space station. Enter the cast of young characters, who board said space station to steal some highly-regulated equipment. Of course, things get ugly fast, but the movie revealed a far more sinister mystery than just Xenomorphs that broke containment.

The story kicks off with a shuttle from Weyland-Yutani retrieving a Xenomorph cocoon from the debris left by the Nostromo’s explosion in the first Alien movie. Yup, the unwanted alien passenger that slaughtered the Nostromo’s crew simply stayed alive, asleep and adrift in outer space until someone found it. Without getting into further plot details, Romulus ends in a way that doesn’t break the basic premise of Aliens, which is that Weyland-Yutani continues to look for Xenomorphs and risks an entire colony years later.

8. Aliens 

• Release date: July 18, 1986
• Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn

57 years after the events of Alien, in 2179, the sole survivor of the Nostromo, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), is rescued in deep space and debriefed by her employers, who seem skeptical about her claims. To make matters worse, LV-426 is now the site of a large terraforming colony. And of course, some poor employees eventually come across the massive derelict ship full of dormant Xenomorph eggs.

Though there are some obvious ellipses happening early on, the entire story plays out during the year 2179, which suggests that Ripley is brought to a Weyland-Yutani station close nearby after she’s rescued, and that LV-426 isn’t too far away either. And it all makes sense, since the Nostromo never got too far from the planetoid in the first movie before Ripley destroyed it and went for a long nap inside the shuttle Narcissus, which just drifted away for more than half a century.

9. Alien 3 

• Release date: May 22, 1992
• Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance

Alien 3 begins shortly after Ripley, Newt (Carrie Henn), Hicks (Michael Biehn), and the damaged android Bishop (Lance Henriksen) enter cryonic stasis. In one of the darkest movie starts of all time, Ripley crash-lands and finds herself trapped in a claustrophobic prison on Fiorina “Fury” 161, a barren world. Of course, the Xenomorphs had something to do with that, and the nightmare follows her down to the hellish planet.

The entire movie takes place in 2179, which means the post-Aliens nap was extremely short and that everything in David Fincher’s off-beat and smaller threequel happens rather fast. A major question mark that still causes heated debate among fans is the appearance of Bishop’s creator (both played by Lance Henriksen), who doesn’t seem too bothered by some grave injuries he sustains in the climax. Was he the real Michael Weyland or just a more elaborate synth designed to fool her into giving up the Xenomorph?

10. Alien: Resurrection 

• Release date: November 12, 1997
• Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman

Alien: Resurrection made the biggest time jump in the franchise, distancing itself from Weyland-Yutani and that entire storyline. It’s set in the year 2381, 202 years after the death of Ellen Ripley and the last known Xenomorph. One would think the franchise would take advantage of the situation to swap Sigourney Weaver’s character for a new lead, but nope – she’s cloned, alongside the embryo of a Xenomorph Queen, using blood samples taken before her death by Jonathan Clemens (Charles Dance).

The entire premise (and development) of Joss Whedon’s script was quite the ride, and French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s sensibilities only made Resurrection even weirder, but it’s nonetheless a fascinating look into a far future of the Alien universe which somehow feels even more depressing and dire than the classic Weyland-Yutani era.

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)