Every ‘Predator’ Movie, Ranked

9. “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” (2007)

It’s heart was in the right place – in a bloody heap on the floor. “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” is both a direct follow-up to “Alien vs. Predator” and an attempted course correction, returning the franchise to its gnarly, R-rated roots. Bafflingly released at Christmas (the tagline was “This Christmas, there will be no peace on Earth”), the directorial debut of visual effects mavens The Brothers Strause dealt with the fallout of the Predator/alien hybrid introduced at the end of the first film.

It’s set in a small Colorado town, with plenty of viscera splattered at the wall. But the lack of compelling characters and clear direction (the Brothers, for all their visual effects experience, can’t light a set for beans) made this a muddled, hard-to-follow mess. The fact that “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” was such a colossal disappointment that it killed off both the “Predator” and “Alien” franchises for years tells you just how wide of the mark this thing was.

8. “Alien vs. Predator” (2004)

“Alien vs. Predator,” as a concept, had been around for a while, with comic books, video games and consumer products dating back to 1989 pitting the fearsome Xenomorphs from the “Alien” film franchise with the Yautja from the “Predator” series. (There was also an alien skull glimpsed during the climax of 1990’s “Predator 2,” which the series equivalent of seeing Freddy Krueger’s glove at the end of “Jason Goes to Hell.”) Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson, a stylish British filmmaker coming off the success of the first “Resident Evil,” took on the challenge, giving it a vaguely Michael Crichton-ish structure with a disparate group of scientists and engineers traveling to the arctic to uncover a buried pyramid. The snowy setting felt like an immediate betrayal, since the two “Predator” movies established that the Yautja only travel to earth during the warmest recorded periods. But there is something to be said for the way Anderson stages action – it’s always brisk, clean and snappy.

It’s just that the storyline, which involves one of the human heroes (Sanaa Lathan) teaming up with a Predator against the rampaging aliens, feels half-baked and unconvincing. There is a world where the two franchises can coexist successfully; it just hasn’t fully happened yet. But there are a few nods in “Predator: Badlands” that could point to where things are headed.

7. “The Predator” (2018)

This seemed like a slam dunk – co-writer/director Shane Black, who appeared in the original “Predator” as the wise-cracking Hawkins, wanted to “event-tise” the franchise, with the studio coming to him and asking him to make a new “Predator” movie but “treat it like it was ‘Iron Man 3’ instead of just another little movie.” This, theoretically, sounds great. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong.

“The Predator” stumbles at nearly every turn; it’s woefully miscast (led by charisma-free performances from Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn), needlessly complicated (involving Predator DNA and various versions of the monster), cluttered with unconvincing computer animation and the victim of endless studio second-guessing, with whole subplots deleted (including good guy Predators working with the American government) and the climax, originally shot during the day, completely reshot at night. And this is without getting into the, um, questionable portrayal of mental illness and autism (treated here as a superpower that allows a little boy, played by Jacob Tremblay, to communicate with the aliens). There are some nifty elements nestled amongst all the overcrowded junk – namely a pitch-perfect Sterling K. Brown performance and some agreeably nasty violence – but “The Predator,” meant to resurrect the franchise, nearly shuttered it for good.

6. “Predators” (2010)

Back in 1994 Robert Rodriguez wrote a movie called “Predators” for 20th Century Fox. It was insane, involving the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch, Spanish pirate ships, genetic hybrids and – this is actually how the character is referred to in the script – Predator Jesus. When the studio returned to Rodriguez years later about turning that script into an actual movie, he stripped away much of what made it such a page-turning read, instead focusing on a game preserve on a Predator planet, where they have brought the most dangerous men on Earth (Adrien Brody is a Special Forces guy, Alice Braga is an Israeli sniper, Walton Goggins is a convicted serial killer, Louis Ozawa Changchien is a yakuza enforcer, Danny Trejo works for the cartels, etc.) They must survive against the Predators and try and find a way back to Earth.

And “Predators,” directed with aplomb by Nimrod Antal, is downright underrated. Its small budget and modest scale meant that the spectacle never overwhelms the story; instead, you get small bursts of energy from, say, seeing Changchien standing in a field of wheat, his sword drawn, against an advancing Predator. Antal, Rodriguez and writers Alex Litval and Michael Finch have a great sense of tone and while their film is certainly indebted to the 1987 original, complete with Brody covering himself in mud and screaming “Come and get me!” towards the end, it also carves out some new lanes, as when one of the characters, a seemingly mild-mannered civilian, is exposed as a very deadly man. (The title, while an allusion to James Cameron’s “Aliens,” is also a nod to the fact that everyone in the movie is a predator, not just the alien hunters.) And John Debney’s score channels Alan Silvestri beautifully. For a modestly sized movie, it had just as many chills and thrills as films three times its budget. An underappreciated entry in the franchise that is ripe for reappraisal.

5. “Predator 2” (1990)

After the success of the first “Predator,” 20th Century Fox went to screenwriters Jim and John Thomas and asked for their idea for a sequel – they proposed that the Predator visit an “urban jungle” this time around and quickly set the movie in a quasi-futuristic Los Angeles of 1997, where competing cartels have turned the city into an urban warzone. Arnold Schwarzenegger was meant to return, this time teaming up with an LAPD detective (a role originally envisioned for Patrick Swayze and eventually filled by Danny Glover, although Steven Seagal really wanted the part), but dropped out at the eleventh hour.

And as chaotic as the production was, “Predator 2” remains a highlight of the franchise – a grim, stylish, hyper-violent cop movie that happens to have a Predator killing almost everyone at its center. The core mythology (that the Predator is drawn to heat and conflict) carries over from the first film, with enough new elements to keep the concept fresh and exciting. The action is large and memorable, particularly during the movie’s climax, which sees Glover’s character chasing the Predator through an apartment building and through underground tunnels. While it is somewhat dampened by 1990s action movie cliches (particularly the use of drug dealers), “Predator 2” is an absolute thrill, with another terrific Alan Silvestri score and some of the franchise’s very best set pieces.

4. “Predator: Killer of Killers” (2025)

What makes “Predator: Killer of Killers,” the first animated feature in the franchise, so effective is that its trio of stories, spread across human history, served as a perfect follow-up to “Prey,” while the wraparound story, which digs into the mythology of the alien species, acts as the ideal table-setting for “Predator: Badlands.” And all that said, it is a singularly vicious installment in the franchise – as entertaining and emotionally engaging as any of the live-action movies.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, “Predator: Killer of Killers” takes place across three distinct timelines and follows three types of heroes who go against the Predator – Vikings in ninth century Scandinavia, a samurai in 17th century Japan and a fighter pilot in World War II. There’s also a wraparound narrative that takes place on the Predator home world, with our heroes, out of their respective times, forced to fight for their lives and work together. Brutal and bloody, “Predator: Killer of Killers” was further proof that Trachtenberg was the visionary this franchise badly needed. Watch if you haven’t already … and stay tuned during the credits for a new ending that Trachtenberg revealed at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this year that points to several characters potentially returning to the series. Cue Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.”

3. “Prey” (2022)

The franchise was, arguably, at its lowest point following the release of 2018’s “The Predator.” Which made it the perfect time for a bold reinvention. Director Dan Trachtenberg, coming off of the hit “10 Cloverfield Lane” for Paramount and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot, conceived of a story set long before the events of the mainline series (18th century in the Great Plains), with a hero unlike any we’ve seen before (Naru, a young Comanche woman played by Amber Midthunder). Even the Predator itself is different this time around; he still has technology but it is more rudimentary.

Trachtenberg smartly scaled back the action, making for a more intimate and dynamic “Predator” entry, with callbacks to earlier movies and one explicit connection to “Predator 2” that will only enhance your enjoyment and never takes away from the film itself. It was with this back-to-basics approach that Trachtenberg was able to build the more elaborate “Predator: Killer of Killers” and …

2. “Predator: Badlands” (2025)

The latest “Predator” installment is also the best entry in the franchise since the original, “Predator: Badlands.” Dan Trachtenberg, the man behind “Prey” and “Predator: Killer of Killers,” returns, with a wholly original concept. This time out, the Predator, named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the main character. He’s got a chip on his shoulder and something to prove to his family, so he travels to an inhospitable world to bag an unkillable beast. While on the planet, he comes across a damaged droid named Thia (Elle Fanning) and together they traverse the badlands, looking for his target.

Of course, the film has deeper themes – everything from the importance of forming your own family to the essentialness of nature – which make this the most emotionally resonant installment in the franchise, full of unexpected humor and warmth. But, of course, everything else that you have come to expect from the series, like rousing action set pieces, gooey creatures and killer technology, are also all present and accounted for. (This movie is set in the far future, away from other installments in the timeline.) Also, the movie threads in elements from the “Alien” film series (Thia and her sister, also played by Fanning, are Weyland-Yutani synths) in a way that feels more organic and purposeful than anything in the actual “Alien vs. Predator” movies. And the callbacks to other entries in both franchises are never flashy or too wink-wink-nod-nod; they are all just a fabric of the wild, woolly world of “Predator: Badlands.”

With its painted-on-the-side-of-a-van aesthetic and colorful cast of characters, this is another breath of fresh air from a filmmaker who seems to know exactly what “Predator” needs – and when.

1. “Predator” (1987)

John McTiernan’s original “Predator” is one of the greatest action movies of all time and one of the very best movies of the 1980s. The perhaps apocryphal tale of the movie’s origins had writers Jim and John Thomas seeing the increasingly over-the-top boxing matches at the heart of the “Rocky” franchise and thinking the only way to up the stakes further would be if Rocky fought an alien. What they wound up with, originally titled “Hunter,” is smarter and more effective. A team of special forces units are sent into the South American jungle to rescue a cabinet member whose helicopter had been shot down. Of course, they come across something much worse – an intergalactic Predator whose code of honor has them killing the most deadly humans on Earth. Until, of course, it is a showdown between Schwarzenegger and the Predator. Mano-a-mano.

The production of “Predator” was particularly fraught – everything from them filming in Mexico, during a time where foliage was quite light, to a radical redesign of the creature mid-production, going from a gangly-necked freak (inhabited by Jean-Claude Van-Damme) to the immaculately designed creature we have today (courtesy of Stan Winston with an assist from James Cameron). Thanks to McTiernan, who would follow “Predator” a year later with a little movie called “Die Hard,” “Predator” stayed on course and became a classic.

While the testosterone levels are often talked about with regards to “Predator,” it was McTiernan who was actually commenting on macho behavior and the ultimate futility of oversized weapons (think about the scene where they’re all firing their guns into the jungle and hitting nothing). If you didn’t think “Predator” had subversive elements about male impotence, think again! Endlessly quotable, funny and scary and fresh, “Predator” is still the high-water mark for the franchise and one that has yet to be toppled, all of these years later.