How-To
How to Watch the Alien Movies in Order
By Jordan A. · · 4 min read
The Alien films land on Netflix on September 1, 2026, and that is the best excuse in years to run the whole saga back to back. The catch is that the franchise does not play in a straight line. The films came out in one order and take place in another, and which way you watch changes the experience. Here is how to do both, plus which approach actually works better.
First, the simplest path. If you just want to watch them the way audiences first did, go by release order.
The release order
This is the order the films arrived in theaters, and for most people it is the right one.
- Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott
- Aliens (1986), directed by James Cameron
- Alien 3 (1992), directed by David Fincher
- Alien Resurrection (1997), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Prometheus (2012), directed by Ridley Scott
- Alien: Covenant (2017), directed by Ridley Scott
- Alien: Romulus (2024), directed by Fede Alvarez
The appeal of this route is that you watch the series evolve in real time. You start with Ridley Scott's slow, dread-soaked horror movie, then get James Cameron turning the sequel into a full-blown action war film, a swing so bold it basically created the template every franchise sequel has chased since. From there you follow the ups, the downs, and Scott's return decades later to ask where the creatures came from in the first place.
The chronological order
If you would rather follow the story's timeline, the prequels move to the front. Scott made Prometheus and Covenant years after the originals, but they take place long before them, tracing the origin of the xenomorph. Watched by the internal timeline, the run goes Prometheus (2012), then Alien: Covenant (2017), then the original Alien (1979), then Alien: Romulus (2024), then Aliens (1986), then Alien 3 (1992), and finally Alien Resurrection (1997).
Romulus is the interesting wrinkle here. Fede Alvarez set his 2024 film between the events of the first two movies, so in a timeline watch it slots in after the original Alien but before Aliens. It was built as a love letter to the early films, so it fits that gap cleanly.
So which order should you pick?
Release order wins for a first watch, and it is not close. Prometheus and Covenant lean heavily on the mystery of where these creatures come from, and a lot of their power depends on you already fearing the xenomorph from the earlier films. Watching the prequels first spoils the slow reveal that makes the 1979 original so terrifying. Save the origin story for when you already understand what it is the origin of.
Chronological order is the fun rewatch, once you know everything. On a second pass, starting with Prometheus turns the whole saga into a single tragic arc about creation and consequence, and details you missed the first time start to rhyme. It is the connoisseur's route, not the newcomer's.
A quick note on the spinoffs
You may notice the Alien vs. Predator films are missing. They exist, and they cross the xenomorph over with the Predator franchise, but they sit outside the main story and most fans treat them as optional. Skip them on a first run and circle back only if you want the full completist experience. The core seven above are the saga that matters.
However you slice it, this is one of the great runs in science fiction, a series that reinvented itself every few films and still holds up. Landing on Netflix all at once makes a marathon easy, and there is no wrong night to start. For more sci-fi that scratches the same itch, our list of movies like Dune points to the epic end of the genre, while the best horror movies of 2025 roundup covers the scarier side that Alien basically fathered. With the whole franchise arriving at once, it is also worth checking our best Netflix shows of 2026 guide for what else is new on the platform this month.
How the tone shifts across the saga
One of the pleasures of a full Alien run is watching the series refuse to sit still. The 1979 original is a haunted house movie in space, slow and suffocating, more interested in dread than spectacle. Cameron's Aliens throws that out and builds a war film, swapping one creature for an army and one survivor for a squad of marines. Alien 3 goes bleak and stripped down, Resurrection gets strange and gooey, and then Scott returns with Prometheus and Covenant to ask philosophical questions about creators and creations that the early films never bothered with. Romulus swings back toward straight horror, a deliberate return to the claustrophobia that started it all. That range is why the franchise rewards a marathon in a way most do not. You are not watching the same movie seven times. You are watching a group of very different filmmakers each take a swing at the same nightmare, and the disagreements between them are half the fun. Go in expecting each film to feel like its own thing, and the uneven stretches become part of the story rather than a flaw in it.
Not sure whether you are in the mood for the horror of the original or the action of the sequel tonight? BingeNext reads what you want out of your sci-fi and points you at the right entry. Get movie recommendations and start the marathon right.
Topics covered: alien movies, watch order, ridley scott, science fiction, netflix
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.