Alien

Alien, American science-fiction–horror film, released in 1979 and directed by Ridley Scott, that chronicles the struggle of the crew of a deep-space commercial spacecraft to survive an encounter with a terrifying alien creature. The film stars Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, and John Hurt. Alien, which won widespread critical acclaim, is regarded as a classic of the genre and has significantly influenced later science-fiction, horror, and action films. Alien’s poster, which shows an eerie green light emitting from a crack in the shell of an alien egg (which resembles a creepy smile), carries the iconic tagline, “In space no one can hear you scream.” The film was inducted into the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress in 2002 as a work that is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” to America’s film heritage.

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

Plot and characters

Alien, set in the year 2122 ce, tells the story of the deep-space commercial mining ship Nostromo. The ship is on its way back to Earth, carrying a load of extraterrestrial ore, when its crew is awakened from hypersleep, a type of high-tech hibernation, by the ship’s computer, Mother. The ship has intercepted what appears to be a distress signal from an uncharted planetoid, LV-426. Obligated to respond, the crew lands on the planetoid, and several of its members explore the surface. They find a spacecraft with a dead pilot and a cargo of alien eggs. When crew member Kane (John Hurt) inspects an egg that has opened, he is attacked by a face-hugging creature that inserts part of its body down his throat and clings fiercely to his head.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Hollywood What If Quiz

Against the orders of Lieut. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), other crew members violate quarantine rules by bringing Kane back on board. They find that the creature, whose blood is a corrosive acid, cannot be removed from Kane’s body without also killing Kane, but it eventually falls off on its own and dies. Kane awakens, seemingly recovered, and the crew gathers for a meal before reentering hypersleep and returning to Earth. Later, in a terrifying scene that has become an iconic moment in cinema history, an alien creature bursts from the chest of the screaming, convulsing Kane and scuttles away before the shocked crew members can respond. Belatedly, they realize that the creature is a parasite that can use human bodies to incubate its young. For the rest of the film, crew members desperately try to kill the quickly growing creature and, when they fail, to escape from it. One by one, the alien picks off the crew members, until only Ripley remains to do battle with it.

Ripley—a smart, tough, courageous woman who set the standard for generations of female protagonists to come—is the standout character of the film. She is strong and determined, relates to her crewmates on a purely professional level, and, unlike some of the crew, is able to control her terror and focus on eradicating the creature. Female characters like Ripley were rare in the 1970s. Alien explores the misogyny that Ripley faces as a woman in a male-dominated workplace. The film shows how the mostly male crew disrespects her, ignoring her orders and warnings to its detriment. Late in the film Ripley uncovers the commercial mining company’s scheme to transport the alien back to Earth for possible use as a military weapon, no matter the cost to the crew, which the company considers expendable. This subplot functions as a critique of capitalism as exploitative of workers.

Art direction and visual effects

Alien is notable for its extraordinary art direction and visual effects, which have had a tremendous influence on the look and feel of later films. The dark, grungy, claustrophobic corridors of the Nostromo ratchet up the film’s tension and suspense and highlight the isolation of space. Decades before the advent of digital special effects, the Swiss artist H.R Giger designed the now-iconic alien, a horrifying mixture of reptile, insect, and humanoid forms with an elongated head. The Italian special-effects artist Carlo Rambaldi designed and built the alien’s mechanical head effects—including a grotesque head-within-a-head. For most of the film, the creature camouflages itself in the shadowy industrial setting of the ship, a melding of monster and machine that is often more terrifying than a full view of the creature.

Sequels and crossovers

The film spawned a trilogy of sequels in the 1980s and ’90s: Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997). Weaver played Ripley in the sequels, which focus on Ripley’s frantic quest to keep the alien lifeforms from reaching Earth. Prometheus (2012), a prequel of sorts directed by Ridley Scott, explores questions regarding the origins of human life. A 2017 sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, continues the former film’s story. A further sequel to Alien, Alien: Romulus, was released in the summer of 2024. The film’s story is set in the period between the events of Alien and Aliens.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Alien and its original trilogy of sequels inspired the creation of novels, comic books, and video games related to the world of the films. It also inspired film crossovers that brought the lifeforms of the Alien series into the world of the Predator film franchise in the movies Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007).