Alien is near-perfectly paced and incredibly tense horror flick that slowly progresses from a space trip gone awry into a waking, breathing, nightmare.

Scott's severe dedication to suspense occasionally caused my eyes to drift away from the screen but not for long. This film is very much in control of itself and doesn't stray from the gloom it creates except for the few minutes when it is appropriate to do so. Markedly better on second viewing.

It feels like a horror but suceeds as a thriller, Ridley Scott provides an outstanding terror in which In Space No One Can Hear You Scream.

Alien is sci-fi horror in its prime. A small group of scientists on a mining ship, the Nostromo, pick up a distress beacon on a nearby planet. After stopping to investigate the crew are hunted down one by one by the aggressive and deadly creature they find on the planet. The film is very slow to start off with and even when it gets going its still pretty slow but a great and enjoyable film. Lack of character development and story is a little irritating though.… Expand

So I went to the park the other day. There were some cool dogs there. I rode around on my bike for a while. It got boring. I went home and played some videogames. Skyward Sword sucks by the way. It was a good day I guess. Oh, was I supposed to wright something about Alien? It doesn't matter. It speaks for itself.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ridley Scott only made two great movies. This is one of those! The artistic direction, the interior designs, the design of the alien creature, the alien planet and the Nostromo are all looking spectacular!
The mood is just perfect! Sigourney Weaver created a believable "dominant" female character. Ian Holme as the scary, calculating and sexually frustrated android is also excellent in his role! The music is unsettling, the camera work is beautiful! One of the rare gems of science fiction - horror genre!… Expand

This has to be the best sci-fi/Horror film of all time. Ridley Scotts 'Alien' really sets up a genuine mood to the film that makes you wanna keep watching. It keeps you interested throughout and entertains me every second.

Easily one of Sci-Fi

The definiton of Sci-Fiction is this movie. It is scary, or should i say claustrophobical, suspensful, with extraordinary themes and explorations. The character's interaction with one another works to cool it down a bit of the claustrophobical ambient, especially if you're watching it alone or in a dark theater room.
A CLASSIC!

Alien, by newcomer director Ridley Scott, is without a doubt the greatest monster movie of all time and is exemplary of the much used "haunted house" format. Nearly every facet of this film is flawless including sublime art and creature design, with amazing levels of detail perhaps only seen before in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a fantastic script with a mind blowing premise and creature life cycle, an understated and eerie score and the list could go on… Expand

Best Science fiction horror in history, but we all know that don't we. I just wanted to recommend another good Sci-fi horror film that I enjoyed almost as much as Alien called Pandorum, check it out.

I think Ridley Scott should be called "The Master of Sci-fi." The thing I liked the most about "Alien" was Sigourney Weaver's character "Ripley." She's an out-of-this-world knockout that can even shoot massive creatures of Alien lifeforms to becoming one of the most popular characters today and back in the day. I have watched it sometimes, but I haven't get the quadrilogy on Blu-Ray. The Alien franchise was one of the best (except Alien 3, which was a far less Cameron-styled sequel) and although Prometheus is certainly not a prequel or a reboot to the Alien universe, it just goes to show the entire world what kind of strange and eerie creatures have ever been landed. But "Alien" deserves a big honor, one of the best science fiction movies of all time.… Expand

This is still my favorite movie out of all the other Alien films combined. It still scares me to this day and I have seen this movie so many times no matter if it is the original from 1979 or the director's cut in 2003. I don't believe anyone can recreating the original feel of this movie without copying it.

Is ALIEN Ridley Scott's crowning achievement? Yes it is. It's shadow eclipse his other efforts, including his latest, PROMETHEUS. It's not ALIEN, the fanboys crowd says. Yeah..because ALIEN is one of the best film of all time. A game changer that resulted in countless imitations and influences in many media..be it video games, films and books. It's perfect because it's simple and effective, with one of the best monster design of all time. See this side by side with ALIENS...… Expand

Easily one of sci-fi's greatest moments, the films structure is pure perfection, constantly keeping the tension, its hard to desribe how unbelievable the film is. The beginning section builds up a sense of tension, the aight of an abandoned ship, unsure of a distress or warning signal, and the most provocative is the eerie moment as the ships crew uncover the remains of a giant body. You suddenly realize that this film is throwing you in at the deep end, with this shot making you realize something dark is yet to come and leaves the question of what was here before them, and what caused this distress signal, are they all gone? Obviously this is all explained in Prometheus, but on initial viewing you feel a sense of dread and this worls out as one of the films creepiest moments.
After the infamous face hugger scene we realize that something bad is on its way, and even in the slow, steady moments of trying to find what this creature is and what are its motives there still is thrills there still remains tension, excitement and some intruiging speeches. But then comes one of cinemas most famous moments, the chest burster. The scene is so shocking that your are literally pulled from your seat while watching, this Leads again into the middle of the film, the team pulling together to find the alien. This works out very well, with us realizing the simplistic formaula of the films is excellent. As the team begin to search for answers and ehat they belive at the moment is a small alien, builds up to the climax of the unveiling of the giant alien that will gie people nightmares for years to come. The rest of film, in fairness, is simple, but as mentioned this make it even better, each member bands together for the search and we feel we are there with them, hoping and realizing the fear of being completely alone, in space. As more people are hunted down there are ingenoius waysof them going, there is no rung out violent deaths all are off screen and quickly over, but helps, as more of the crew describe the danger of the alien, we wonder what it did to them crew members next, again building more fear.
Finally the film comes to its head with sole survivor Ripley realizing she needs to get out of the ship, but knowing the alien is still aboard. The lingering silences in this finale, put you in Rileys place, her fear of the uknown and the realiziation that in the silence more can be heard. The films ending with the reveal of the alien being aboad with Ripley is still shcoking even though you kinda knew something else was coming. But the suprising point of this finale was that usually the alien on board would spell death for our protagonist, but we see Ripley, getting her courage and bravery to send the alien into space, a final realiziation for the film, Ripley is alnd always was going to be the surivior like anyone she is in fear, but that powers her bravery. I fins this scene a first in showing the power of women in film, with usually a film holding a woman who fights back but seems to always have some help; Ripley does not. She is literally completely alone apart from her menace the alien, showing she is cinemas first heroine to fight her own battle.
To conclude, there is not a single shot in Alien that does not leave one in awe and wonder, all of them make you think and stay with you. The acting is top notch too, with Sigourney Weaver playing the part perfectly. This turly is one of the greatest Sci Fi movies of all time. Ill say it again, perfection.… Expand

Classic. Masterpiece. Revolutionary.

Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror debut 'Alien' is an enduring, legendary masterpiece. It's one of my favorite films of all time and has been for many, many years. The art direction and attention to detail is exquisite. Alien is a movie that never ages and still feels as fresh as the day it was wrapped (despite eventually turning into a listless franchise). If you haven't seen this movie then you really are missing out on one of cinema's eternal classics.… Expand

Meticulous, absorbing set design by genius visual artist H.R. Giger, the best sci fi acting performances yet, terrifying, this masterpiece works on numerous levels.

Alien is Ridley Scott at his very best. Intelligent, atmospheric and scary, it has quite rightly become an icon of both science-fiction and horror cinema. Like all of his films, it's visually flawless, and thematically complex, but this never detracts from what matters - character and story. There will never be another female action hero like Ellen Ripley (the sublime Sigourney Weaver) and it is in this film you see her as she was meant to be - strong, level-headed and independent, before James Cameron sunk his over-sentimental, popularity-clamoring, profiteering claws in with Aliens, which softened and some would say ruined the character of Ripley with unnecessary trivialities like a maternal instinct. The rest of the crew of the Nostromo all play their part, with John Hurt's Kane, Ian Holm's Ash and Harry Dean Stanton's Brett in particular making their mark. Alien maintains its tension throughout, and plays cleverly into the viewer's (and by extension humanity's) fear of the unknown, and Scott imbues the whole film with an intense feeling of claustrophobia, which the director himself suffers from.. It doesn't suffer from the problem that plagues so many modern horror films, that of predictability as it wrote much of the rule book. You'd be hard pressed to guess the order of the crew's grisly ends, and who'll make it out alive, as you often can in contemporary horror (something the Scream series lampoons extremely effectively). It is also highly influential in the realms of sci-fi (as it should be - it's mostly set on a frickin' spaceship) - only Scott can communicate the evil of big corporations as well, and the dark and manipulative force that pulls the strings behind the scenes of the narrative is in many ways more frightening than the alien itself. Don't get me wrong, the alien is fantastic, and H. R. Giger's mecha-organic dream case study for psychoanalysts makes an extremely effective symbol for the film's horrific themes, and its appearance has now deservedly become embedded in popular culture. In 1979, Alien was a film the likes of which the world had never seen before. Even today it leaves an impression - it's an uncompromising and provocative sci-fi/horror hybrid that is a feast for the eyes and the mind, and gives you a fair amount of heart-jolting scares for good measure. Here's hoping Ridley Scott delivers with Prometheus, and does justice to his own film legacy when he revisits it.… Expand

Alien isn't just an answer to the two year's previous Star Wars, it's a complete rewrite of the monster movie. The 1950s and '60s saw B-movie shlock create an almost unshakable perception that monster movies were about men in rubber suits chasing screaming blonds around in front of cardboard sets while a square-jawed scientist followed closely behind with a ray gun. In 1979, Alien took that perception and took a massive dump on it. In 1977, Star Wars convinced everyone that after Vietnam (and the endless string of disaster movies) it was okay to go to the movies and have fun again. Alien convinced them that science fiction didn't always have to be about fun. It's a movie that's just as revolutionary as Star Wars, but in different ways. Here we have a group of characters on a space ship who aren't all straight laced scientists and explorers. Some of them are dirty mechanics. The ship's captain is pissed at the world; the navigator seems bored and can't get ahold of herself when things go south. Honestly, when closely examined, Alien's main protagonist is a complete **** lost in her role as the Nostromo's third in command. Are these characters likable when viewed this way? You're damn right they're likable because we know all of them; we are all of them. Alien is about actual real people encountering the scariest monster ever conceived. Part of the fear comes from H.R. Giger's nightmarish design but I think most of it comes from an audience being able to so easily get into the shoes of these "truckers in space" and imagine how they themselves would react. If Star Wars was created to have people cheering for the good guys beating the bad guys, Alien was created for audiences to stare at the screen and not blink for two hours as the good guys are eaten. In 2003, Ridley Scott was more or less forced to create a new version of the film to premiere during Halloween. He trimmed some things and added a few things, and the film actually runs a minute shorter. It may feel a little tighter, but it's slightly inferior to the original. If you haven't seen the film that many times you probably won't notice much, so it's not all that big of a deal.

"Director's Cut" or just regular 1979 version, Alien is the greatest monster movie of all time and will probably remain so forever.… Expand

The geniuses that created this masterpiece should be given control of the world for this gift they have given us. This living, breathing visual motion masterpiece will unlikely ever be toppled as King of all sci-fi.

Amazing ambiance, visual and sound effects. A amazing film, who completely deserves its legend and still scary 31 years later. Sigourney Weaver is simply awesome.

One of the finest films ever made! Alien is horrifically atmospheric! All performances are strong. Weaver and Holm are particularly spectacular! This film has been the guiding light for so many other projects and it is one of Ridley Scott's best. It never gets old. The effects are still very convincing and this alien is easily one of the most horrifying creatures of sci-fi perfection. An ultimate sci-fi horror classic!… Expand

"In space no one can hear you scream". A most memorable tagline from one of the most terrifying, science fiction horror films I have seen in my life. After the success of Star Trek and Star Wars, the filmmakers have produced a terrifying Sci-fi horror and boy have they done a great job. The film focuses on seven space crew members, who are on a return ship to Earth. The crew, awakened by the ships computer, receives a transmission from an unknown asteroid. By orders from their employers, the crew search on the asteroid and find an alien spacecraft. Kane (one of the crew members) searches inside a chamber which encountered of numerous eggs, and one of them opens up and releases a creature, famously known as a "Facehugger" that attacks him on the face. The crew decide to take Kane back to their spaceship and try to remove the Facehugger, but are unable to as it is strapped tightly around is neck, and fear any sudden move attempt could cause the creature to strangle Kane and kill him. Eventually though he lets go of Kane and dies of unknown cause. I will not spoil what happens from this point, but what I will warn all newcomers who haven't seen the movie yet to brace themselves. What I really liked about this movie was that, although the special effects for its day were great, it was more of the suspense than anything. I've got to admit, suspense was a category that I never really got into because they would always drag it on for too long and wanted to know the climax as soon as possible. But when I watched this, I got into it so much that I wasn't bothered about the timing of how long it took to actually unveil the mystery or shadow hidden in the dark. The performance of cast also helped to make this film come alive, as I reckon it wouldn't have got the same response from critics and audiences had they not delivered a great performance. Nowadays I understand and appreciate these kinds of films more. I realised that that you don't always necessarily need to start and finish and movie with a bang by showing off none stop action - gun shooting, long lasting brawls and chase scenes that usually occur during the final 30 minutes of a film. Sometimes just a quiet and frightening suspense like this is a good enough. I give credit to Dan O'Bannon who wrote this incredible story, and director Ridley Scott for using his skills to make sure that the cast, (particularly Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley) delivered a brilliant performance. Alien is one of the films that have become a cult classic, and still remain popular today… Expand

Aliens is a cult film and rightly so, great plot awesome character interaction and awesome settings back before good CGI so had to make good models which they did. The aliens themselves are a class type of beast more like a Wasp or Ants with one queen propagating the whole species and then they eradicate anything that could cause a problem to their existence. Also not killing enough of their prey to ensure they can multiply great horror film worth a watch without a doubt… Expand

Awesome movie. The suspense was great and the acting was very well done. The alien itself was very scary, and the plot had me always guessing about what would happen next. Overall I absolutely loved this movie.

This film is meticulously constructed, and all of its components fit together almopst perfectly. Creepily paced, wonderfully acted, and menaced throughout, Alien is one of the best films ever made.

Space Freighter stops to check out a distress signal, finds crashed unknown craft, strange things inside, crew member gets attacked, survives, or does he?
Still a brilliant film after all these years. Very intense & a good mixture of personalities within the crew. Forgot how good Ian Holm is as Ash & still probably Sigourney Weaver's best film.
The effects are fine but the Alien does look like a man in a suit at times.… Expand

Excellent, stylish, suspenseful flick.

All-time fave (if not the second part) and I never got tired watching it over and over again (after having bought an Alien Quadrilogy box set).

A great sci-fi suspense flick. I remember seeing it the first time and being scared in my seat not when the alien popped out but in the following 20 minutes or so when you didn't know where it was in the ship.

One of the most suspenseful films of all time!

The slaughterfest that occurs two-thirds of the way through is literal overkill, but the hot-wiring of the science officer is one of the wierdest other-worldly things ever put on film. The plot line development from the beginning to the establishment of the alien out of control on the spaceship is a finely honed masterpiece of editorial pacing and actualization. So, except for digressing into milking the fright of the audience, this movie is 2 hours of non-stop worship and praise of the audience's attention. As for the director's cut, it may improve or degrade the original release, which as presented should be memorialized here without consideration of later touch-ups or blemishes.… Expand

One of the best horror/sci-fi films of all. Too bad the majority of entries in these genres (including the Alien sequels after Aliens) aren't as good. As for all of the crying about Mr. Scott's editing changes, the original theatrical version is included on the DVD.

My favourite movie. It´s gorgeous and even on our days it scares the sh.t out of you... but director´s cut version has new scenes BUT deleted ones And the movie´s shorter than the original.... WHAT THE F... IS THIS DIRECTOR´s CUT VERSION?

One of the all time greats is back on the big screen. Catch it while you can. It won't play as long or on nearly as many screens as the latest lackluster Matrix movie, and that's shame. The H.R. Giger inspired sets and Alien are simply the most mesmerizing creations in cinema history. Forgot all the CGI creations out there these days. Alien is the real deal if you're looking for film to take you away from this world for a couple of hours. … Expand

It was great.

The movie was perfect when it was originally released. I think Scott should have left it's cut as it was. The last scene added is especially poor. It's not needed and it slows down one of the greatest, "the clock is ticking" sequences in cinematic history. Besides, why does she all of a sudden take a new path between the escape shuttle and the self-destruct sequencer? The original cut is a perfect film in every way, this one was a little off. I really wish directors would stop tinkering with their masterpieces.… Expand

My viewings of this film are close to triple digits, yet what a thrill to see it once again on the BIG SCREEN. A perfect film.

This movie will be the best experience of my life after school at 4:15... so will lotr: return of the king.

I personally have seen this movie more times than I care to admit, but when the opportunity to see it on the big screen arises, it?s an absolute treat. The dark, gritty world Ridley Scott places us in best experienced in a big, darken theater where you can almost taste the sweat and feel the claustrophobia. And don?t forget the truly original story, believable dialog, great acting, or amazing production design all executed by one of our truly great directors. A masterpiece other films strive to match - 24 years after the fact.. … Expand

There's not much point in reviewing this masterpiece as I guess most people have already seen it. But it's worth a mention that the soundtrack has been spruced and the famous cut Dallas cocoon scene is inserted. It's also great to see it on the big screen as I was barley born when it was originally released. The cutting and adding really don't upset the pace of the movie and everything looks and feels just as claustrophbic as it always did. Even if you own the DVD and have seen it a thousand times it's worth the admission fee to see it on the big screen. They dont make 'em like this anymore!… Expand

In 1979 this movie had the most active tv promotion ever: IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM! Few video stores, a minimum of "multi" cinemas and tv channels. Greed is the only reason to have ever moved this particular movie to the small screen in any fashion, and the small screen has never done it justice. SEE THIS MOVIE ON THE BIG SCREEN, you will not regret it, you will be entertained, this is the only theatre house movie I ever sat thru that had my ink pen jumping in my shirt pocket and nearly caused me to empty my bladder in public! It is one of the few movies where the tale, actors and commotion overwhelm the special effects.… Expand