Aliens is one of my favourite films. It arrived at a time – during the middle 1980s – when science-fiction was a huge box office attraction. Lucas had kicked it all off with “Star Wars”, with Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” continuing the trend. “Aliens” was the perfect follow-up to “Alien” – bigger, more expansive, and equally as scary, it also benefitted from a fast-moving action-movie aesthetic that wryly mocked the war credentials of America’s military in Vietnam. Here was a crowd-pleaser and blockbusting spectacle that had depth, character, and intelligence.

Directed by: David Fincher
Written by: David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Danny Webb, Christopher John Fields, Holt McCallany, Lance Henriksen, Christopher Fairbank, Pete Postlethwaite
Released: 1992 / Genre: Science-fiction Horror / Country: USA / IMDB
Buy on DVD from Amazon.co.uk:
Buy Alien Quadrilogy (9 Disc Complete Box Set) on DVD from Amazon.co.uk
See also our Top 10 Science-Fiction Horror Films
When I first saw Alien 3, shortly after its release in the United Kingdom, I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t like …

Science-fiction and horror seem to go hand in hand. Sci-fi usually involves futuristic foreboding or fear of the unknown, and this works well with the frightening realisation of the darkest depths of the human mind that define the horror genre. Science-fiction horror is also notable for producing some of the best examples of science-fiction regardless of sub-context, as well as some of the worst. And yet, when films such as Norman J. Warren’s awful “Inseminoid”, or the Alien/Aliens clones “Split Second” and “The Dark Side Of The Moon” hit our …

In 2004 The Guardian newspaper in the UK interviewed several prominent scientists to find their take on the greatest science-fiction movies ever made. Their selection makes for interesting viewing – based somewhat on the actuality of the science displayed in the films themselves, as well as the possibility, or rather probability, of the science involved.
This top 10 list is therefore a science-based view on the best of the genre.
The original list was published by The Guardian newspaper and can be found HERE. Each film has comments by prominent scientists.

1. …