Alien (1979) Alien (1979)
Quick Facts
| Director | Ridley Scott |
| Screenplay | Dan O'Bannon |
| Story | Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett |
| Stars | Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto |
| Composer | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematographer | Derek Vanlint |
| Editors | Terry Rawlings, Peter Weatherley |
| Production Designer | Michael Seymour |
| Alien Designer | H.R. Giger |
| Production Company | Brandywine Productions |
| Distributor | 20th Century Fox |
| Budget | $11 million |
| Box Office | $104.9 million (worldwide, original release; sources vary)1 |
| Release Date | May 25, 1979 |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Running Time | 117 minutes (1979 theatrical cut); 116 minutes (2003 Director's Cut) |
| Filmed at | Shepperton, Pinewood, and Bray Studios (UK) |
Key Pages
- _Index — Full guide to this wiki
- Plot Summary (Alien) — Detailed plot walkthrough
- Cast and Characters (Alien) — The seven crew members and who played them
- Production History (Alien) — From Dan O'Bannon's spec script to Shepperton Studios
- Themes and Analysis (Alien) — Corporate expendability, body horror, gender, the used future
- Critical Reception and Legacy (Alien) — Reviews, reassessment, franchise impact
- Physical Media Releases (Alien) — VHS through 4K UHD
- Backbeats (Alien) — Scene-by-scene narrative structure
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NEEDS CITATION — flagged by /rewinder on 2026-04-30. Box Office Mojo reports ~$109.5M; Wikipedia gives a $104M–$188M range depending on whether reissues and inflation-adjusted international totals are included. The $104.9M figure tracks the original-release worldwide gross commonly cited but should be sourced to a specific authority. ↩