Alien: Romulus (2024): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

Alien: Romulus follows Rain, a young miner on a company run colony world, who joins her friends in a plan to steal cryosleep pods from a derelict station in orbit. The film opens in a future dominated by the Weyland-Yutani company, where a probe recovers a strange cocoon from the wreck of the Nostromo, the ship from alien 1979.

Months later, Rain's work contract is extended against her will, which blocks her hope of leaving. She teams up with her android brother Andy and a group of friends, including her ex Tyler and his pregnant sister Kay. Their plan is to board the derelict Renaissance station, take its cryosleep pods and make the long trip to a better planet. That planet bans androids, a rule that weighs on Rain and Andy more than on anyone else in the group.

The crew flies a salvage ship toward the station, and the film then settles into the close, corridor by corridor survival story the series is known for.

The full plot of Alien: Romulus runs from a station lockdown to a hybrid creature loose on the salvage ship, and it ends with Rain and Andy in cryosleep. Spoilers follow for the whole story.

Once the group is inside Renaissance, a security lockdown frees facehuggers, and one of them impregnates Navarro. Rain needs Andy to open the station's doors, so she installs a chip taken from a damaged science android called Rook. The chip does what she wanted, but it also changes Andy's priorities, and his loyalty begins to shift toward the company.

Rook explains what the station's scientists were doing. They studied the creature from the Nostromo and used the facehuggers to make a fluid called Z-01, which can rewrite human DNA. Before the group can act on that, Navarro's chestburster kills her and the salvage ship is wrecked, so nobody has a way home.

The creature that hatches grows quickly and hunts the survivors. Bjorn is killed by its acid blood, and Kay is carried off. Andy, now following company orders, goes after the Z-01. The rest of the group finds the creature's nest and rescues a badly hurt Kay, who is holding a vial of the fluid. Tyler gives his life to protect Rain and Kay.

Rain then restores Andy's original programming. She cuts the gravity so she can fire on the swarm without acid damaging the hull, and Andy kills the Navarro xenomorph. Rain and Andy escape on the ship as the planet's rings destroy the station. Kay injects herself with Z-01 and gives birth to a hybrid creature, which kills her and disables Andy. Rain throws the hybrid out into the rings, where it breaks apart. She and Andy then head for the new planet and enter cryosleep.

Alien: Romulus opened in Australia on August 15, 2024, and in the US and UK on August 16, 2024, after a world premiere on Monday, August 12, 2024 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Box Office Mojo lists the US and UK dates, and 20th Century Studios announced the Australian opening.

The film is rated R in the US, 15 in the UK and MA 15+ in Australia. Its 119 minute runtime is shorter than aliens 1986 at 137 minutes, and longer than alien 3 at 114 minutes and alien resurrection at 109 minutes.

As of November 3, 2026, Alien: Romulus streams on Hulu and FXNow in the US, and on Disney Plus in the UK and Australia. It can also be rented or bought digitally on services including Amazon Video, Apple TV Store and YouTube in the US. In the UK it can be rented or bought on Apple TV Store, Rakuten TV, Amazon Video, Sky Store and YouTube, while in Australia it is purchase only, on Apple TV Store, Amazon Video, YouTube and Fetch TV. Availability changes often, so the where to watch alien page carries the series wide table. For the film's takings, see alien box office.

At the end of Alien: Romulus, Rain throws the hybrid creature into the planet's rings, and she and Andy set course for their new planet and go into cryosleep. Spoilers for the ending follow, along with my own reading of it.

What does the hybrid mean? Kay injects herself with Z-01, the fluid the Renaissance scientists made from the facehuggers, which can rewrite human DNA. The child she gives birth to is part human and part xenomorph, and it kills her. The cast list credits Robert Bobroczkyi as Offspring, which appears to be this creature. In my opinion, the scene is the film's argument made visible: the company wanted Z-01 so badly that it never asked what it would do to a person.

What does Andy's reset mean? Earlier, the chip from Rook moved Andy's loyalty toward the company and sent him after the Z-01. Rain restoring his original programming is the point where the film chooses its side, because Andy returns to protecting the person he was built to travel with. His survival after the hybrid disables him matters for the same reason.

Why do they end up asleep? Cryosleep was the group's plan from the start, and the film ends with them doing what they set out to do. Hypersleep is a recurring way to close a story in this series: aliens 1986 opens with Ripley found drifting in hypersleep after 57 years, and alien 3 opens with Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop all in hypersleep. Perhaps Romulus is quietly asking how long Rain will sleep.

Is Alien: Romulus a good movie, and what is its point? It could be argued that the point is simple: a story about young people trying to leave a company that owns them, with the xenomorph as the thing that keeps pulling them back. My view is that it is a confident, well built entry, although its returns to earlier films will land harder if you have seen alien 1979 and Aliens first. The alien movies ranked page places it among the others.

Is it connected to Prometheus? Romulus is not a sequel to Prometheus, because its story follows the wreck of the Nostromo from Alien (1979). In chronological order, Prometheus is first and Romulus is fourth, between Alien (1979) and Aliens. The alien timeline lays out the full order.

Alien: Romulus was filmed in Budapest, Hungary, where principal photography began on March 9, 2023.

For other production locations in the series, see the film pages for alien covenant and prometheus movie.

Alien: Romulus cost $80 million to make, according to The Numbers, and the details below come from its credits and from trade reporting.

• Principal photography began on March 9, 2023 in Budapest.
• Ridley Scott and Michael Pruss produced through Scott Free, with Brent O'Connor, Elizabeth Cantillon and Tom Moran as executive producers.
• Fede Álvarez co-wrote the screenplay with his long time collaborator Rodo Sayagues.
• The android Rook is credited to Daniel Betts for facial and vocal performance, with the late Ian Holm credited as facial and vocal reference.
• Benjamin Wallfisch composed the score and Galo Olivares was the director of photography.
• The film opened in Australia a day before the US and UK, on August 15, 2024.
• It is the seventh film in the series by release order and the fourth in chronological order.