Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Erik Lundegaard, Seattle Times: The most startling thing watching Alien again is its pacing. For the first 45 minutes, little happens. It's all slow, exquisite build-up, which makes the second half seem all the more horrific. Read more
Vincent Canby, New York Times: These things no longer surprise or tantalize us as they once did. In a very short time, science-fiction films have developed their own jargon that's now become a part of the grammar. Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Besides Weaver and Skeritt, the top-notch ensemble includes two of Britain's best actors -- Ian Holm, as the untrustworthy science officer, and John Hurt. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Alien will upset your mind and upset your stomach. Read more
Keith Phipps, AV Club: Where 2001 and Close Encounters suggested that humanity would bring its best impulses and brightest hopes beyond the clouds, Alien served as a reminder that its worst fears would also be part of the package. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: What's most unusual about the original 24 years later, though, is its elegant minimalism. Read more
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: An empty-headed horror movie with nothing to recommend it beyond the disco-inspired art direction and some handsome, if gimmicky, cinematography. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It's a scream from another era that still echoes around us. Read more
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: A genuine fright classic. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: In space, the famous tagline went, no one can hear you scream. In Alien, you can hear lessons for the sci-fi future in a great milestone from the recent past. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The way [Ridley] Scott meticulously raises the sense of menace and tension is worthy of Hitchcock. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Ridley Scott's 1979 movie is a great original. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A haunted-house movie set in space, Alien also has a profoundly existentialist undertow that makes it feel like a film noir -- the other genre to feature a slithery, sexualized monster as its classic villain. Read more
Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: Ridley Scott's new cut won't change the way people think about the movie, but it reinforces the film's strengths without alienating the series' biggest fans. Read more
Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Seen again a quarter-century later, we marvel at how the filmmaker generates so much tension and sweat with a bare minimum of moving parts. Read more
Frank Rich, TIME Magazine: It is depressing to watch an expensive, crafty movie that never soars beyond its cold desire to score the big bucks. Read more
Paul Taylor, Time Out: The limited strengths of its staple sci-fi horrors always derived from either the offhand organic/ Freudian resonances of its design or the purely (brilliantly) manipulative editing and pacing of its above-average shock quota. Read more