Alien

Storyline

Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror landmark Alien fundamentally transformed cinema by merging haunted house gothic dread with industrial space realism, grossing over $186 million and winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Aboard the commercial deep-space towing vessel USCSS Nostromo, a blue-collar crew awakened from cryo-sleep investigates an unknown distress signal from the desolate moon LV-426. Inside a derelict alien spacecraft, executive officer Kane (John Hurt) is attacked by a parasitic Facehugger creature that implants an embryonic organism. The film delivers one of the most shocking moments in film history when a serpentine creature violently erupts from Kane's chest during dinner. Growing into a 7-foot tall biomechanical apex predator (designed by Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger), the Xenomorph stalks and executes the crew one by one in the dark, dripping, industrial corridors of the ship. Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in a trailblazing, iconic feminist action performance) must outwit both the unkillable creature and Ash (Ian Holm), a synthetic corporate android programmed to preserve the alien at all costs. Alien remains a timeless, claustrophobic masterclass in suspense and cosmic dread.