Alien (1979) is Ridley Scott’s science fiction horror film about the crew of a commercial space tug who answer a mysterious signal and bring something deadly back on board. Written by Dan O’Bannon from a story by O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, it introduced two of the genre’s biggest icons: the Xenomorph, designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, and Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver in her first leading film role. Its tagline, “In space no one can hear you scream,” still sums up the idea: a haunted-house film set among the stars.
At a glance
| Release date | May 25, 1979 (US, after a May 24 premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival); wide release June 22, 1979 |
| Director | Ridley Scott |
| Writers | Dan O’Bannon (screenplay); story by O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett |
| Starring | Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto |
| Runtime | 116 minutes |
| Rating | R (US); X certificate (UK) |
| Budget | Disputed: official documents say $11 million; estimates range from $8.4 million to $14 million |
| Box office | Estimated $109.7 million to $188 million worldwide |
| Franchise | Alien |
Plot summary
The commercial towing ship Nostromo is heading back to Earth with its seven crew members asleep in stasis. Then the ship’s computer, which they call “Mother,” picks up a transmission from a nearby moon and wakes them. Company policy says they have to investigate. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), executive officer Kane (John Hurt) and navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) find a derelict alien ship holding a huge fossilized pilot and a chamber full of eggs. Warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) works out that the signal may be a warning rather than a distress call. Then a creature springs from one of the eggs and clamps itself onto Kane’s face.
Ripley tries to keep Kane outside under quarantine rules, but science officer Ash (Ian Holm) lets him back on board. That decision sets off a hunt through the ship’s ducts and corridors in which the crew, armed with tracking devices and flamethrowers, gradually realize that they are not the hunters.
Spoiler section: the ending
Kane seems to recover, but at a final meal a small creature bursts from his chest and escapes into the ship. It grows quickly and kills the crew one by one, including Dallas in the air ducts. Ripley discovers a secret company order: bring the creature back, and treat the crew as expendable. Ash, revealed to be an android, tries to kill her. Ripley sets the Nostromo to self-destruct and escapes in the shuttle with the ship’s cat, Jones. Then she finds the creature hiding on board and blows it out of the airlock.
Production and behind the scenes
O’Bannon had co-written the low-budget comedy Dark Star with John Carpenter and wanted to make it again, “as a horror movie instead of a comedy.” He wrote all the roles generically, and the script noted that any part could be played by a man or a woman. Producers Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill of Brandywine Productions revised the script. 20th Century-Fox was not keen on science fiction until Star Wars became a hit in 1977, and then it greenlit Alien with an initial budget of $4.2 million. The working title, Star Beast, was dropped after O’Bannon noticed how often the word “alien” appeared in his script. Scott later said he first imagined Ripley as a man, until Fox chief Alan Ladd Jr. asked why Ripley couldn’t be a woman.
Filming took 14 weeks, from July to October 1978, at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios near London, with models shot at Bray Studios. O’Bannon showed Scott the art of H. R. Giger, and Scott recruited him to design the creature, the derelict ship and the alien planet. Giger sculpted the adult alien using materials that included snake vertebrae and tubing from a Rolls-Royce. Carlo Rambaldi built its mechanical head, which had a second, smaller mouth on its tongue. Inside the suit was Bolaji Badejo, a 6-foot-10 design student discovered in a bar, who took tai chi and mime classes to perfect the creature’s movements. For the chestburster scene, the cast knew a puppet would come out of Hurt’s chest. They had not been told that pumps would also spray fake blood in every direction.
Release and reception
Alien opened in 90 U.S. theaters over Memorial Day weekend 1979. It grossed $3,527,881 in four days and set 51 house records, then spent three weeks at No. 1. In London it set a record for the biggest opening week at any UK cinema. Estimates of its worldwide gross range from $109.7 million to $188 million. Early reviews were mixed. Variety, Vincent Canby and Leonard Maltin were lukewarm or negative, and Time Out called it an “empty bag of tricks.” Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both voted “yes” but saw it as a haunted-house thriller. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was nominated for Best Art Direction. It also won three Saturn Awards, including Best Science Fiction Film and Best Direction, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score won a BAFTA.
The film’s reputation has grown steadily since. It holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 89, and the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2002.
Legacy and influence
Alien blended slasher pacing with grimy, lived-in science fiction. Ron Cobb’s industrial ship designs and Giger’s biomechanical designs shaped the look of the genre for decades, and imitators rushed to put “Alien” in their titles. Fox followed it with three direct sequels, each made by a different director: James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection (1997). Weaver’s Ripley is the thread that runs through all of them. Scott returned to the universe with the prequels Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), and Fede Ãlvarez’s Alien: Romulus (2024) is set between the first two films. The 2003 Alien Quadrilogy box set added a director’s cut, which Scott pointedly made shorter than the expanded version Fox had proposed, and Fox re-released the film in theaters for its 45th anniversary in April 2024.
Trivia
- The ship is named after Joseph Conrad’s 1904 novel Nostromo, and its shuttle, the Narcissus, is also named after a Conrad story.
- The tagline “In space no one can hear you scream” was written by Barbara Gips. Her husband, Philip Gips, designed the poster.
- Four identical cats played Jones. During filming, Weaver found she was allergic to the mix of cat hair and the glycerin used to make the actors look sweaty.
- Ron Cobb created a system of industrial symbols for the Nostromo‘s signage, which he called Semiotic Standard.
- Soon after release, O’Bannon was sued by a writer who claimed Alien plagiarized his script Black Space. O’Bannon proved that his script came first.
Related links
- Xenomorph and Ellen Ripley (characters)
- Alien (franchise)
- Aliens (1986) and Alien: Romulus (2024)
- Ridley Scott (director)
- Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett (writers)
- H. R. Giger (creature designer)
- Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt and Ian Holm (cast)
- More 1970s horror: The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
