Ranking of each Predator movie

Franchises frequently begin with a nobody with a great idea. In reality, Predator was created by two unknowns, brothers Jim and John Thomas, who were struggling screenwriters and imagined what it would be like if an alien-vs.-Rocky sequel were to be filmed. The story, which was originally titled Hunter, made its way to super-producer Joel Silver, who was seeking for their next project after collaborating with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Commando. At this time, Schwarzenegger was just starting to get popularity. His films were considered garbage, but as each one gained popularity, they continued growing a little bit more… well, maybe not ambitious, but at least a little bit more expansive.As a result, Arnold and his commando friends battle a huge, hideous, amazing extraterrestrial designed by the Stan Winston studio, complete with mandibles, long hair, and the power to vanish. Put that man up against Arnold, and you have a winner. Predator received mixed reviews from critics, despite Roger Ebert’s support, but it was a huge hit with viewers. Arnold grew in size, the screenwriters produced Wild Wild West, and a franchise was established.It took 15 years for the subsequent generation of filmmakers, who had all grown up watching Predator on VHS, to revive the series after a disastrous sequel. We attempt to rate the seven Predator films in light of this week’s release of Prey, the first prequel in the series. Yes, even the ones that contain the Alien from Alien.

7. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Hollywood today is very much about protecting the brand and making sure the movie isn’t so horrible that it kills the series. The Alien vs. Predator franchise, of which it was the first and last sequel, was destroyed by Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and the other two were so severely wounded that they would both have to start again in the next four years.Requiem, which was directed by the founders of the special effects studio Hydraulx, has the look and feel of a movie that was simply hired the special effects people to direct in order to keep the cost of the computer graphics as low as possible. Although you can (sometimes) make out their faces in the dark, the human characters—who, regrettably, make up a considerably larger portion of game than the title characters—are not special effects. It’s easy to see the representatives for Predator and Alien begging to have their names removed from this film.

6. Predator 2 (1990)

A complex narrative involving drug traffickers, a heat wave in Los Angeles, and internal LAPD politics takes the place of the original movie’s simplicity, which had humanity stuck in the forest with a space invader killing them one by one. What happened to just allowing Predator to go on the hunt? Predator 2 isn’t entirely terrible, in part because the Predator concept is expanded, eventually leading to the addition of several Predators.They are only hunters, just like us; they are not monsters. The film is nasty, but not necessarily dumb, pseudo-RoboCop ugliness from the late 1980s, and it was a massive disappointment that ended the franchise for decades. Even so, the outtake in which Danny Glover dances with many Predators could make it all worthwhile.

5. The Predator (2018)

This most recent remake sought to adopt a slightly irreverent tone while embracing the hard-R spirit of the original movie and recognizing how out of date it was. Unfortunately, Shane Black, who portrayed one of Schwarzenegger’s buddies in the 1987 movie, acts as co-writer and director of this adaptation of The Predator.Even the director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, films that expertly balanced comedy, action, and character, couldn’t revive this franchise, so the Black Touch wasn’t really much of a help. Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, and Olivia Munn make for an appropriately endearing ragtag group that faces off against the Predator, but the movie lacked the inspired mayhem of director Shane Black’s best work, trying so hard to recreate the anything-goes mentality of ’80s movies that it never feels like anything other than pastiche.Simply said, The Predator plays like the kind of dreadful franchise reboot that the characters in a Shane Black script would mock.

4. Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Instead of making a fifth Alien movie, Fox opted to produce an Alien vs. Predator movie, which James Cameron was in the middle of writing the script for. After declaring that the new movie would “destroy the franchise’s authenticity” and that it “was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf, Universal basically grabbing their assets and trying to play them off against one other,” Cameron immediately stopped writing. (Cameron nailed the next 20 years of popular culture virtually on the head.) It didn’t wind up being the end of the world or the Alien franchise, for that matter, and the movie itself isn’t really all that bad.It turned out to be a great idea to base the movie on a comic book rather than the films that came before it, since this prevented Alien vs. Predator from becoming a McTiernan or Cameron rip-off and allowed it to just be huge stupid fun. Sanaa Lathan had an astonishingly (and excessively) passionate and dedicated lead performance in this dopey, entertaining film, which was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson in usual, brilliantly trashy way.

3. Predators (2010)

Robert Rodriguez had grown up adoring Predator and was only just beginning out, after El Mariachi and Desperado but before Spy Kids. He had created a script that dealt with a number of experienced murderers being dumped on a foreign world where they are pursued by predators, as if Predator 2 had never taken place. After 15 years, Fox executives asked Rodriguez if he would like to adapt the script. With a few changes and Hungarian director Nimrod Antal at the helm, they revived the series with a stellar cast that included Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Topher Grace, a then-unknown Mahershala Ali, and an obscenely bulked-up Adrien Brody, if you can imagine such a. Predators isn’t flawless—it basically unravels by the end—but it’s creative and imaginative, and it was a trailblazer in its attempt to restart a brand by doing something entirely new. It is a B-movie that is both aware of and proud of its status as such.

2. Prey (2022)

Prey is a sincere attempt to change up the formula, much like Predators. (For one thing, the movie’s name doesn’t even mention the Predator.) Director Dan Trachtenberg expands a property by keeping things quite straightforward, as he did with 10 Cloverfield Lane. Back in the early 18th century, an ambitious Comanche warrior named Naru (Amber Midthunder) is tasked with protecting her tribe from the terrifying alien. Prey can be compared to The New World with a lot more bloodshed and frightening alien sightings, which is oversimplifying but not totally incorrect.(The locations in Canada are quite breathtaking.) Thankfully, the crude prejudices that would have been pervasive in the 1987 original did not appear in Trachtenberg’s portrayal of Indigenous North Americans, and the movie even slips in some admirable reflections about colonialism. But what makes Prey so satisfying is its persistent capacity to provide frightening action moments. In addition, Naru is the franchise’s most intriguing lead character since Dutch said, “If it bleeds, we can murder it.” Prey is the first Predator film in a very long time that isn’t overtly horrible, and yet, even if we wish we could have watched it on the big screen instead than Hulu, we fear people will overrate it.

1. Predator (1987)

It began as a rescue operation but turned into a bloody battle with an unknown extraterrestrial warrior. Few movies are more blatantly 80s than the original Predator, which starred rising star Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of Dutch, the commander of a top-secret team of elite commandos who travels to Central America only to encounter an intergalactic killing machine. Predator, which blends shoot-’em-up extravaganza with a clever narrative hook, is a hybrid of Rambo and Aliens, displaying the type of beautiful Reagan-era excess typical of its blockbuster period. Additionally, Arnold found a top-tier action director in John McTiernan who was just beginning to make his mark. (The release of The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard was imminent.)What might be less recalled is how fascinating it is to witness Schwarzenegger, for once, take on someone of his own size — bigger, actually. You already know by heart the famous memes and quotable speech. In all honesty, one of Predator’s scariest scenes is when Arnold is effortlessly lifted up by the alien as his helpless feet are dangling over the ground. Dutch virtually needs to turn into a feral beast to fight the Predator once Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and the rest of his group are gone; this change brings out a wildness and unexpected fragility in that decade’s most hyped action hero.Predator was high-concept and throwaway, yet thanks to its wild excitement, it has managed to endure. It was cheesy, gruesome, kind of silly, and somehow endearing.