Table of Contents
It was the end of the seventies – 1979 to be precise – when cinemas around the world screened something never seen before: a horror film set in… space!
Not only did Alien create a spine-chilling new cinematic genre, space horror, the saga also launched the careers of directors Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher. It also gave Sigourney Weaver her breakout role as Ellen Ripley, the series’ hard-as-nails heroine. And it seared into our imaginations a hair-raising new monster: the xenomorph alien.
The silhouette of this primal, parasitic extraterrestrial species still gives millions nightmares. And at various stages in its lifecycle – from unhatched egg to full-grown adult – the creature has appeared on classic posters for the franchise.
Today we bring you some of the best (and wackiest) posters for the blockbuster Alien franchise – and throw in some interesting anecdotes too!
The poster for Ridley Scott’s Alien: a perfect blend of words and images
Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien was released in 1979. The film is set in a near future in which interplanetary travel is common and spaceship crews enter cryogenic hibernation to survive the long journey times in space. One such ship, the Nostromo, is infiltrated by a mysterious species of parasitic alien: the petrifying xenomorph.
The film is perfectly paced. Scott gradually builds suspense, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats and only revealing the whole alien in all its horrifying glory late in the film.
Both the unnerving trailer and the creepy poster for the film take this approach. Indeed, the Alien poster became an instant classic thanks to its sparing yet anxiety-inducing combination of words and images.
The Alien poster consists of a few carefully chosen elements. First, there’s that strange alien egg with a phosphorescent crack that does not augur well. It was closely modelled on the alien egg created by Swiss surrealist artist Hans Ruedi Giger for the film. In fact, Giger designed all the xenomorph’s onscreen incarnations: from eggs to facehuggers to the full-grown adult. But for the poster, a simpler and less gnarly version was used of the egg seen in the film.
Next, there’s the film title, which uses a modified version of the Helvetica font. And, finally, there’s perhaps the scariest movie tagline of all time: “In space no one can hear you scream”.
The poster was produced by Steve Frankfurt and Philip Gips from design agency Frankfurt Gips Balkind – now known as InSync Plus – which was also behind the poster for Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. This iconic poster was recently paid homage to by Stranger Things.
Fun fact: an alternative poster for Alien was also made. It was designed by Bill Gold, a master of movie poster art with over 2000 projects to his name, including posters for Casablanca, The Exorcist and A Streetcar Named Desire.
This alternative poster came out in 1978, the year before the film hit cinemas. With its type-heavy design, it’s a complete contrast to the Frankfurt and Gips version – and far less impactful, not least due to its underwhelming tagline.
The poster for James Cameron’s Aliens
Seven years after the groundbreaking release of Alien, a much-anticipated sequel was finally released in 1986: Aliens. It was directed by up-and-coming talent James Cameron, who would go on to helm two of the biggest grossing films of all time: Titanic and Avatar.
Aliens swaps the claustrophobic confines of the Nostromo for the planetoid where the ship’s crew originally came into contact with the xenomorphs.
On the first, much-criticised poster for Aliens, we immediately learn that it’s all-out war between humans and xenomorphs. Just as for Alien, the poster reveals very little about the film: it’s a minimalist, type-only design with a tagline that can’t quite match the original for impact.
Cameron – who early in his career also designed posters for a small production company making “horrible movies” – recently revealed why such a pared-down poster was used. At a meeting with 20th Century Fox, Cameron was shown the first version of the poster, which he claims was a photo mashup of dubious taste. His reaction was “if I had a choice between that piece of shit and just an all-black frame, I’d go with the all black frame” – which was interpreted literally by a stressed head of marketing…
With the film’s theatrical release, an alternative version of the poster was commissioned, this time showing Ellen Ripley and Newt amid a sea of alien eggs. But the studio decided that the new poster had overcorrected: it revealed too much about the film! In the end, they settled on a third version, a halfway-house that shows a close-up of a terrified Ripley and Newt set against a black background.
Nineties Alien posters: Alien³ and Alien Resurrection
In 1992, cinemagoers got to see the third chapter of the franchise, Alien³, directed by a young David Fincher. At the time of release, the film was considered a disappointment, not least by Fincher himself, who found production a fraught and frustrating affair, so much so that he openly insulted 20th Century Fox on set. Indeed, the director claims to hate the film to this day.
And the poster for the film is fairly forgettable, too.
Over time, however, fans have warmed to the film, coming to admire its introspective mood and striking cinematography. And while David Fincher may still hate the film, he can take consolation in the fact that for him, like his predecessors, the franchise was a stepping stone to success: he went on to direct masterpieces such as Seven and Fight Club.
This successful directorial tradition continued with Alien Resurrection, released in 1997 and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who would later find fame and acclaim with Amélie.
The poster for the fourth instalment of the Alien franchise does not stray far from its precursors: it is type-led like the first Aliens poster, from which it also reprises the ominously glowing tear. And like Alien³’s promotional art, the dominant colour is fluorescent green, a nod to the xenomorph’s corrosive blood.
Alien in the new millennium: posters for Prometheus and Alien: Covenant
After a 15-year hiatus, Ridley Scott returned to the franchise in the 2010s, directing two more instalments: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
The posters have the same eery effectiveness of those produced for the first Alien film. Prometheus was released in 2012 and is the only film in the series not to have “Alien” in the title. The poster is striking nonetheless.
But it’s the series of posters made for Alien: Covenant that truly honours the original creations of Hans Ruedi Giger, the Swiss artist who conceived the merciless extraterrestrial predator.
Front and centre are xenomorphs, their terrifying power undimmed to this day. Two minimalist posters, one featuring an alien egg, the other a head, simply carry the words Run and Hide. The third is a magnificent frieze containing pretty much all the creature’s stomach-turning incarnations.
Posters for Alien: Romulus.
The latest episode of the Alien franchise was released in 2024. It was directed by young Argentine filmmaker Fede Álvarez and produced by Ridley Scott.
Across the Atlantic, the film was promoted with seven special posters, each designed for a specific format and cinema chain.
But it’s the official poster for Alien: Romulus that we like most. In a departure for the series, the dominant colour is red, while the main image shows a facehugger clinging to a victim. If you’ve seen the first Alien film from 1979, you’ll remember that the very first the time the alien appears on-screen is in this form.
It just goes to show that after all these years, an Alien poster still has the power to petrify!
Weird and wonderful Alien posters from around the world
Now we’ve scared ourselves silly with classic Alien marketing materials, it’s time to turn our attention to some of the more bizarre posters used internationally.
Among the strangest are the two posters below, which were produced in Poland in the eighties. The first was designed by eclectic artist Jakub Erol for Ridley Scott’s original. The second was produced by Andrzej Pągowski for the sequel directed by James Cameron.
In Japan, meanwhile, the distributors for Ridley Scott’s Alien decided to use an alternative poster showing the doomed crew of Nostromo against the backdrop of a brooding spacescape.
Then there are these two homegrown posters from Ghana produced in the eighties for the first two episodes of the franchise. As this site explains, for financial and copyright reasons, in Africa local artists were often commissioned to remake posters to promote screenings of Hollywood blockbusters.
So there we have it: the xenomorph in all its gory guises, as featured in the rich and varied poster art for the Alien franchise. But what do you think? What’s your favourite Alien poster?