Alien Movies in Order: Release and Chronological Order

The Alien movies in order of release are seven films across 45 years, starting with Alien (1979) and ending with Alien: Romulus (2024). Five of them form the main saga, and two, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, are prequels that arrived 15 years after the fourth film.

1. Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott: the crew of the commercial towing ship Nostromo is woken early to answer a signal from a nearby moon.
2. Aliens (1986), directed by James Cameron: Ellen Ripley is found drifting in hypersleep after 57 years and goes back to LV-426 with a team of Colonial Marines.
3. Alien 3 (1992), directed by David Fincher: an escape pod crashes on Fiorina 161, a foundry world holding a small group of violent male prisoners.
4. Alien Resurrection (1997), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet: military scientists aboard the spaceship Auriga clone Ripley from blood samples, while mercenaries arrive on the ship Betty.
5. Prometheus (2012), directed by Ridley Scott: archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway follow an ancient star map to the moon LV-223.
6. Alien: Covenant (2017), directed by Ridley Scott: the colony ship Covenant, carrying sleeping colonists, diverts to a nearby planet after a human voice transmission.
7. Alien: Romulus (2024), directed by Fede Álvarez: a young miner named Rain and her android brother Andy plan to board a derelict station in orbit.

Release order is also the order in which the series changes hands between directors. Scott builds the original, Cameron turns the sequel into a war film, Fincher moves it to a prison world, and Jeunet takes it into cloning and mercenary crews. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley in all four of those films, which gives the first run a spine that the prequels do not share. For a closer look at how each entry compares, see Alien movies ranked.

Two crossover films belong to this period but not to the main sequence. AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause, arrived between Alien Resurrection and Prometheus. They are context entries only in this order.

The franchise has also reached television. Alien: Earth, created by Noah Hawley, premiered on FX and Hulu on August 12, 2025, and its first season ran for eight episodes. In release order it falls after Alien: Romulus. A follow-up to Alien: Romulus is in development with no release date, and Alien Romulus 2 tracks its status. For the full count of films, see how many Alien movies are there.

In my opinion, release order is the right choice for a first viewing, so start with Alien (1979) and work forward. Is it better to watch the Alien movies in chronological order or release order? The two orders suit different viewers, and the difference comes down to what you want the series to withhold.

Release order lets the story unfold as audiences first met it. The xenomorph arrives as an unexplained threat on the Nostromo, so the creature's life cycle is revealed a piece at a time (the xenomorph life cycle page lays it out afterwards). Chronological order front loads Scott's prequel questions about where the creatures came from, and it asks you to care about those answers before you have met the monster that made the series. It could be argued that this suits a rewatch much better than a first run.

Should you watch Prometheus or Alien first? Alien (1979), without hesitation. Prometheus works as an expedition story, but I would treat it as an addition to the original film, in the way that you would watch a documentary about a recipe after tasting the dish.

If you have time for only two films, I would pick Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), which give you the horror film and the war film that the later entries react to. If you plan to watch all of them, add Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant in release order, then finish with Alien: Romulus. Viewers who want the television side can then add Alien: Earth.

As of November 3, 2026, according to JustWatch data on TMDB, Alien (1979) and Aliens stream on Netflix in the US and Alien: Romulus on Hulu, while all seven films stream on Disney+ in the UK and Australia. Check where to watch Alien for your country and press play on Alien (1979). If you want to know who is on screen before you start, the Alien cast page lists the returning faces, and the Alien movies hub links to everything else.