The Highest Grossing Alien Movies

One of the most popular and enduring horror film series of all time is undoubtedly the Alien franchise, which began in 1979 with Alien and is still going strong in 2024. The franchise’s long and storied history has had its ups and downs, as the series has gone from its relatively simple sci-fi horror roots to the huge, complicated Alien timeline we know today, but one major question with all long-running franchises has been how well the films tend to do when it comes to the box office.

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The Alien franchise has been surprisingly consistent with its release schedule, releasing movies, whether they be full additions to the franchise or crossovers with other media, every five-to-seven years on average. While the series has never been among the top earners like Star Wars or the MCU in their prime, each film in the Alien franchise has been successful in one way or another, with no massive flops, although that’s not to say there haven’t been some disappointments.

9 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Box Office: $128 million

Aliens Vs. Predator_ Requiem - Poster - Predator

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ScreenRant logo 1/10 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem RFantasyActionScience FictionThrillerHorror

Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem is a 2007 science fiction horror film directed by the Strause brothers. The story follows a small Colorado town that becomes the battleground for an epic confrontation between the deadly Xenomorphs and the fearsome Predator. As chaos erupts, the townspeople must fight for their lives against these formidable extraterrestrial threats. The film stars Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, and John Ortiz.

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With a total earning of $128 million, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem has remained the lowest-grossing film in the franchise since its release in 2007. While the first Alien vs. Predator film performed well and was generally enjoyed by fans of both franchises, but Requiem was fully unable to recapture that success. The reported budget was $40 million, so Requiem wasn’t a huge flop, but clearly, the poor reviews alone were enough to cause Fox to pull the plug on the franchise.

In order for a film to be considered a financial success, it generally has to earn two to three times its reported budget back at the box office, in order to account for marketing and distribution costs. If a $50 million film makes $51 million, it will still likely lose money.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem went wrong in a few ways, chief among them the poor lighting, weak story and characters, and the wasted potential of the Predalien, the half-Xenomorph half-Predator hybrid. However, despite the film’s failure, an Alien vs. Predator 3 is still very possible given the continued success of the mainline Alien franchise.

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8 Alien 3

Box Office: $159 million

alien 3

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ScreenRant logo 6/10 Alien 3 rActionHorrorSci-FiThriller

Alien 3 is the 1992 sequel to Aliens. Directed by David Fincher and starring Sigourney Weaver in her iconic role as Ellen Ripley, the third installment in the Alien franchise follows Ripley as she leads a group of inmates in the fight against a Xenomorph after her ship crash-lands on a prison planet.

Alien 3 was, obviously, the third film in the franchise, and unfortunately, everything seemed to go wrong before the film even went into production. The film had an extremely troubled development, going through many different screenwriters and directors, before eventually landing on David Fincher for his directorial debut. Filming began before the script had even been finished, and the final product shows it.

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The film was widely panned, especially in comparison to the first two Alien films. James Cameron himself said that killing off Newt, Hicks, and Bishop was a “slap in the face” to him and fans of Aliens, while David Fincher has said that Alien 3 was terrible, and that the production was awful for him. While a $159 million return on a $50-60 million budget is nothing to scoff at, the reception and the production issues meant that changes had to be made to keep the franchise going.

7 Alien Resurrection

Box Office: $160 million

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ScreenRant logo 4/10 5/10 Alien Resurrection RActionHorrorSci-FiThriller

After dying in Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver is back as Ellen Ripley for the fourth film in the Alien franchise. In Alien: Resurrection, a human/alien hybrid clone of Ripley prevents aliens from coming to Earth with the help of a band of space pirates. The film was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by Joss Whedon.

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Alien Resurrection came out as the last of the original Alien series in 1997. The film continued the franchise’s lack of consistency when it came to directors, so Alien: Resurrection had French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet taking the reins. It was the final film to star Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, and unfortunately, like Alien 3, it also wasn’t able to live up to the original duology, arriving to very mixed reviews from critics and audiences.

By the fourth film in the series, the franchise was clearly becoming stale for many, and although Resurrection made slightly more money than Alien 3, it also had an inflated budget of around $70 million. Without seeing significantly more box office success than the previous movie, and with the continued lack of support from critics and audiences, it became clear that the Alien franchise was going to have to be shelved for some time.

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6 AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Box Office: $172 million

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AVP: Alien vs. Predator PG-13AdventureScience FictionActionHorror

AVP: Alien vs. Predator, released in 2004, follows a research team’s expedition to the Arctic, where they discover a buried pyramid. Unbeknownst to them, the site serves as a battleground where the Predators hunt Aliens, thrusting the team into a deadly interspecies conflict.

AVP: Alien vs. Predator was the first film released in the Alien franchise to not feature Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Since the last two mainline films hadn’t been getting the praise of the original, Fox decided to take the Alien franchise in a new direction entirely, and that was to crossover with the already very successful Predator franchise. The crossover felt so natural, to have this exceptionally skilled group of hunters face off against the ultimate life forms, the Xenomorphs.

It doesn’t share much of its DNA with the previous movies.

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While few could say that Alien vs. Predator is a great artistic achievement, seeing these two classic movie icons face off against each other is still a delight. It doesn’t share much of its DNA with the previous movies, which tended towards more character-driven stories, but the monstrous action remains an enduring appeal of the franchise as a whole, and Alien vs. Predator has that in spades.

5 Aliens

Box Office: $183 million

Aliens Movie Poster

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ScreenRant logo 10/10 9.5/10 Aliens RAdventureHorrorSci-FiAction

Aliens is a 1986 Sci-Fi classic by writer and director James Cameron. Starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, it’s widely considered one of the best Sci-Fi Horror films ever made. Ripley must band together with a group of Colonial Marines to investigate a disaster at a terraforming colony.

Franchise(s) Alien

Aliens is the second film in the franchise, and for many, it is still the very pinnacle of the series. Written and directed by James Cameron, taking over from Ridley Scott, Aliens takes the original film’s concept, characters, and world and greatly expands them, giving the universe a depth that hadn’t been fully explored in Alien, introducing characters like Newt and Bishop, as well as debuting the Xenomorph Queen.

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Ian Holm as Ash looking on curiously in Alien Related How Ian Holm Was Recreated For Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus featured a surprising character return, and a mix of animatronics, CGI, and an actor using facial capture helped to resurrect Holm.

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Aliens was made on a production budget of $18.5 million, and as such, the $183 million return has made this movie a massive success. The film originally debuted at $85 million at the box office, but its many rereleases in international markets have boosted that number considerably. Aliens showed that the franchise was not just a one-hit wonder, that there were plenty more stories to tell in this universe, and is certainly one reason that the franchise has kept going to this day.

4 Alien

Box Office: $188 million

Official theatrical poster for Alien (1979)

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ScreenRant logo 10/10 10/10 Alien (1979) RSci-FiHorror

Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is a science fiction horror film that follows the crew of the commercial spacecraft Nostromo. Upon investigating a distress signal on a distant moon, they discover a deadly extraterrestrial lifeform. The film stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley and became a seminal work in both the sci-fi and horror genres, known for its atmospheric tension and groundbreaking visual effects.

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As the film that started it all back in 1979, Alien was a pretty big hit when it was released. On a budget of $11 million, which at the time would have been quite a bit of money, the film’s original release alone made $78 million, which, if it were to be adjusted for inflation, would easily beat out the rest of the franchise. The film’s status as an absolute success helped propel both Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver into stardom, despite the fact that reviews were actually a little mixed when the film initially released.

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Alien could easily be in the conversation for the greatest movies of all time, and its success has led to the nearly 50-year-old franchise we know today. This first film created one of the best movie aliens of all time, and showed off a gritty, more grounded sci-fi world, a far cry from many other sci-fi properties at the time, like Star Wars or Star Trek.

3 Alien: Covenant

Box Office: $238 million

Alien Covenant Poster

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ScreenRant logo 7/10 8/10 Alien: Covenant RThrillerAdventureSci-Fi

Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott, follows the crew of the colony ship Covenant as they discover an uncharted planet. Initially seeming like a paradise, the planet soon reveals dark secrets. Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, and Billy Crudup lead the cast in this science fiction horror film, which serves as a direct sequel to Prometheus and continues to explore the origins of the Alien species.

Franchise(s) Alien

As a film that has made significantly more than some of the most beloved movies on this list, saying that Alien: Covenant is the biggest financial disappointment of the franchise might seem like a stretch, but by all accounts, it’s true. Alien: Covenant came out in 2017, well into the modern era of Hollywood, where films were making billions of dollars left and right. Off the back of Prometheus, Fox poured around $100 million into this film, hoping to continue to build off the success of the franchise.

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Direct sequels to this film were still being considered by Ridley Scott and the studio in the years following, but when Disney completed its Fox acquisition in 2019.

Unfortunately, off the back of the mixed reviews of the previous film, audiences were hesitant to see this film, and when it seemed to just be much more of the same, Covenant fell by the wayside, making significantly less than Prometheus. Direct sequels to this film were still being considered by Ridley Scott and the studio in the years following, but when Disney completed its Fox acquisition in 2019, those Covenant sequels were shelved.

2 Alien: Romulus

Box Office: $350 million

Alien Romulus Poster Showing a Facehugger Attacking A Human

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ScreenRant logo 7/10 66 8/10 Alien: Romulus RSci-FiHorrorThriller

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.

Franchise(s) Alien
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Alien: Romulus was the first Alien project to be released by Disney, following the financial flop of Alien: Covenant. The film marked a return to form for the franchise for many, creating a story much more akin to Alien or Aliens than Prometheus and Covenant, without ignoring what was set up in those sequel films. The film was a huge success, making $350 million on a relatively small (by modern standards) budget of $80 million.

A Xenomorph screaming in Alien Romulus Related How Many Aliens Are On The Romulus Space Station

Alien: Romulus has been hailed as a return to form for the long-running franchise, but how many of the iconic aliens does Romulus actually have?

Alien: Romulus‘ financial success also managed to revitalize the series as a whole. After the disappointment of Covenant and the Disney acquisition, the future of the franchise was unclear. While the seven-year break between Romulus and Covenant wasn’t abnormal for the series, in today’s media landscape, that long of a gap between films is a gamble, especially because the franchise seemed like it may have been running out of steam.

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1 Prometheus

Box Office: $402 million

Prometheus Poster

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ScreenRant logo 9/10 35 8.4/10 Prometheus R Sci-FiHorrorActionAdventureDramaMystery

2012’s Prometheus is the fifth installment in the Alien franchise and was directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, and Guy Pearce, the film acts as a direct prequel to 1979’s Alien.

Franchise(s) Alien

Prometheus came out at just the right time to be a huge hit for the franchise. The previous Alien film was Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, a movie that saw very limited success. Audiences were looking to see what was next for the series, and having Ridley Scott, the director of the first film in the series, back to tell another story in the universe, gave many people reason to be excited about this film.

From the outset, Prometheus seemed to be something very different, not simply repeating the same plot points and story that had been told in the first four Alien movies. Despite the more mixed reviews of the film, attaching Ridley Scott to the project and ensuring Prometheus asked enough questions and left enough mysteries unsolved was clearly enough to make the film a huge hit, and one of the biggest successes in the Alien franchise.

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