Ellen Ripley: Who She Is, Who Plays Her and What Happens

Ellen Ripley is the crew member of the commercial towing ship Nostromo who survives the first encounter with the Xenomorph and becomes the central figure of the Alien saga. She is introduced in Alien 1979, directed by Ridley Scott, and Sigourney Weaver plays her in every film in which she appears. The credits across the series list her as "Ripley", while the first name Ellen appears in the story of Aliens.

Weaver is billed second in Alien (1979), behind Tom Skerritt, who plays the captain Dallas. She is billed first in Aliens 1986, directed by James Cameron, in Alien 3 (1992), directed by David Fincher, and in Alien Resurrection (1997), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Weaver also holds a co-producer credit on Alien Resurrection.

That makes Ripley a four film character. She does not appear in the prequels: Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) are set before the Nostromo's voyage and follow other crews. Alien Romulus (2024), directed by Fede Álvarez, opens with a probe recovering a cocoon from the wreck of the Nostromo, so her ship is part of the story, but the film follows Rain and her friends.

The two crossover films, AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007), also leave her out, and neither cast list includes Weaver. If you want the viewing sequence for her four films, the Alien movies in order page sets them against the prequels.

Ripley's arc runs from a crew member who follows procedure to a survivor who refuses the company's rules, and then to something no longer fully human. In Alien (1979), she stays aboard the Nostromo while Dallas, Kane and Lambert explore a derelict vessel on a small moon. She works out that the transmission that woke the crew was a warning, and she tries to keep the group from boarding with a creature attached to Kane. The science officer Ash lets them in anyway.

After the chestburster kills Kane, the alien picks off Brett and then Dallas. Ripley finds the company's secret orders, which put the return of the creature ahead of the crew's lives, and she learns that Ash is an android carrying them out. She sets the ship to self-destruct, escapes in the shuttle with the cat Jones, and finds the alien hidden aboard. She blows it out of an airlock and records a final log entry before entering hibernation.

In Aliens, she is found drifting after 57 years in space, and Weyland-Yutani doubts her story about the eggs on LV-426. When the colony there goes silent, she joins a Marine unit on the condition that the creatures are destroyed. She takes over from the panicking commander, goes back alone for Newt, and faces the Alien Queen in the hive. She then fights the Queen in a power loader and forces her out of an airlock.

Alien 3 sends her escape pod to the prison planet Fiorina 161, where only she survives the crash. A facehugger had been aboard, an alien grows in the prison, and a scan shows she carries a Queen embryo. In Alien Resurrection, scientists on the Auriga clone her two hundred years after her death. The clone, called Ripley 8, has alien strength and acidic blood.

The people closest to Ripley are the ones she tries to protect or cannot trust, and the series uses both to define her. The cat Jones is the first. In Alien (1979) she sets the ship to self-destruct and flees in the shuttle with him.

Ash is her first betrayal. He is the science officer who lets the infected Kane aboard, and Ripley learns he is an android obeying the company. Parker and Lambert disable him after he attacks her.

In Aliens, the relationships turn warmer. Newt is the young girl who survives alone at the colony, and Ripley goes into the hive for her and brings her out again. The story gives Ripley a makeshift family in Newt. Corporal Hicks and the damaged android Bishop are the other two survivors who escape with them. Burke, the company man who wants embryos for profit, is the film's human enemy.

Alien 3 removes all of that. Ripley learns that Newt and Hicks did not survive, and she insists their bodies be burned. On Fiorina 161 the doctor Clemens treats her, and the prisoner Dillon sacrifices himself in the fight against the alien.

The oldest and strangest relationship is with the creatures. The Alien Queen is her opponent in Aliens, and the embryo in Alien 3 is part of her. In Alien Resurrection, the pale hybrid born from the Queen treats Ripley as its mother. Call, a mercenary who recognizes her name and secretly wants her dead, escapes with her in the Betty and is with her at the end of the film. For the creature itself, see the Xenomorph.

Yes, Ellen Ripley dies in Alien 3, and the Ripley seen in Alien Resurrection is a clone. At the end of Alien 3 (1992), a team from Weyland-Yutani arrives, led by a man who looks exactly like Bishop and claims to be his maker. They offer help, but Ripley refuses to let the company take the Queen embryo she is carrying. She throws herself into the furnace, which kills the Queen inside her. Morse is the only prisoner left alive.

That answers what happened to Ellen Ripley, but not how she was impregnated. A facehugger had got aboard the escape pod before it crashed, and the scan on Fiorina 161 shows she is carrying a Queen embryo.

In Alien Resurrection (1997), scientists on the Auriga clone her from blood samples two hundred years after her death and remove the Queen growing inside the clone. Ripley 8 has acidic blood, extra strength and a link to the creatures. She burns a lab holding the ruined remains of earlier failed clones, then kills the hybrid by letting her blood eat a hole in a window so the vacuum pulls it out. The Auriga is destroyed on impact with Earth while she, Call, Vriess and Johner escape in the Betty.

The film ends with Ripley on Earth, telling Call she does not know what she will do, because she is a stranger there too. No later film continues her story.

In my opinion, the best Ripley scenes are the ones where she makes a choice that costs her something, and four of them stand out. These are my picks, and other fans will order them differently.

First, the shuttle in Alien (1979). She has already set the Nostromo to self-destruct, and then she finds the alien hidden in the shuttle. It could be argued that the scene works because she does not panic: she puts on the spacesuit, opens the airlock and ends the threat. Scott keeps it patient, and the result is among the quietest set pieces in the series.

Second, the power loader in Aliens. Cameron gives the franchise one of its defining images, and it is also a character moment, since Ripley is protecting Newt, not herself. Paradoxically, a film full of Marines with rifles is settled by a woman in industrial machinery.

Third, the furnace in Alien 3. In my opinion, Fincher's film is the bleakest in the series, and Ripley's final decision is the only one in which she wins by giving up everything. She refuses the company's offer of help, and that refusal is the point of her arc since Ash.

Fourth, the hybrid in Alien Resurrection. Ripley 8 is a stranger to her own story, and when she lets her blood open the window, she uses the one trait the clone shares with the creature to end it. That being said, this is the weakest of the four as a Ripley story, because the film spends so much of its time on its ensemble.

If you are new to the series and want to meet her at her sharpest, start with Aliens 1986, then go back to the first film.