In space, no one can hear you scream.

Did you just watch Alien: Romulus, and you’re wandering where to go next? Or are you preparing by diving into the franchise before hitting the theatre? You’ll find the best this franchise has to offer below.

The Movies

Watch Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). But it’s not quite that simple!

Watch the theatrical cut of Ridley Scott’s Alien. While he oversaw a director’s cut decades later, he considers the theatrical cut his true final version of the film and the alternate version a chance to play around.

Watch the Special Edition of James Cameron’s Aliens, and watch it on blu-ray. The studio released a butchered theatrical cut of the film, which chopped out most of the character sequences and several lengthy special effects all so that Fox could show more screenings each day. Weaver thinks that she lost her chance at the Academy Award for Best Actress because of this. I fully believe she’s right. The Special Edition is the film the team set out to make, and it is the only version worth watching for fun.

And while you’re at it, watch it on blu-ray. The recently released 4K of Aliens suffers from a wide suite of issues. Most importantly, it has a yellow filter, the lighting is blown out (Aliens is a film with inventive lighting that changed how movies are shot), the image has been flattened, and it seems a generative AI has hallucinated details throughout the film. The blu-ray, however, is slightly too shadowy, but otherwise faithful to the film as created by the original team.

The best, and most affordable, way to watch these films is in one of the blu-ray collections, whether as part of the Alien Quadrilogy box set or the currently available megapack. They use the same disks.

The remainder of the series suffered extraordinary problems via studio interference, nepotism, the wrong person in the wrong position, marketing-driven-filmmaking, and more. Unless you have a completionist streak, and perhaps a machoistic streak, you can stop after watching the first two films. Many of the following films are considered some of the worst to emerge from Hollywood for a reason.

The Video Games

There are quite a few fun video games in the franchise, like the ongoing series of shooters pitting Xenomorphs and Predators in fights to the death, but there is one game to recommend above all others.

Alien: Isolation, a 2014 game from SEGA’s Creative Assembly, is not only the best Alien game, and one of the best games in its genre, it’s an all-time great, if a flawed great. This is the closest a game can come to being saved in the edit, as the game was radically restructured prior to release and the script was all the more radically rewritten by Dan Abnett. The game is not only gorgeous, with sparkling art direction that expands upon the world of Alien while always feeling like a natural extension, it has a great story. But when we talk about Alien: Isolation, everyone talks about the stalking xenomorph and its two AI systems that keep driving it toward you for cinematic encounters. It’s frightening, and its perfect.

Alien: Isolation is so good most fans consider it the “actual” third movie, in the same way Indiana Jones fans almost universally treat Indiana Jones and the Fait of Atlantis as the “real” fourth installment.

Aliens: Dark Descent, a horror real time strategy game is excellent and nails the feel of the world.

The Tabletop Games

For all of the problems Alien has had in other mediums, the series has mostly excelled in tabletop. Two currently supported games deserve to be highlighted.

Free League Publishing’s ALIEN The Roleplaying Game is an extraordinarily crafted system designed to recreate the films from the high stress placed on characters to the secrets they keep. A wonderful system, and perfect for diving into with friends.

Gale Force Nine’s Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a tabletop miniature wargame where you get to paint the figures and build your own display-ready army. The miniatures are wonderful, and you are spoiled with options for which characters to build. The game is quite a lot of fun!

Books & Comics

The Dark Horse novels and comics are generally excellent. While not a flawless record, most of the material is high quality and the comics often have stunning art. You can start essentially at any point, as most series and novels are unconnected.

The Titan and Marvel comics need to, mostly, be read in release order. Some readers love them, some don’t.

While you are at it, be sure to read or listen to the adaptations of William Gibson’s Alien 3. While they are often based on the great, but far less amazing studio-influenced version of his script, his version of Alien 3 is a natural extension of the themes and goals of Aliens as married to the vision of one of the best science fiction authors of the day.

Featured Image: 20th Century Studios

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