All 9 James Cameron movies ranked from worst to best

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American actress Sigourney Weaver, surrounded by actors Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn, Jenette Goldstein and Lance Henriksen, on the set of Alien, written and directed by James Cameron. (Photo by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images) /

4. Aliens

This won’t be the last time you see a James Cameron-directed sequel on this list, and it also won’t be the last time you see me making a case for why this sequel may even be better than its critically-acclaimed original. Oh yeah, Cameron knows how to make effective follow-ups, even if he didn’t make the first one.

That’s what happened with Aliens. Released in 1986, it’s a sequel to Ridley Scott’s terrifying Alien, but the real mastery here is that it’s nothing like its predecessor, and that’s exactly why it succeeds. Set long after Ellen Ripley first encountered the Xenomorph on her ship in the original movie, she agrees to return to the creatures’ home world with a team of Colonial Marines, where – as the title implies – she faces off against an army of them.

Alien was a slow-moving thriller all about the threat of what you couldn’t see, but Cameron turned that on its head for Aliens, because the sequel was an action-packed showdown all about the threat of what you could see. And what you see is a stunning science fiction movie that doesn’t stop, intimidates you in its own way, and showcases why Sigourney Weaver’s heroine is considered one of the greatest action heroes of all time.

Every bit as good as (if not slightly better than) the first one, Cameron worked wonders with this sequel. And he would do it all again with his own franchise some years later (which we’ll get to a little bit later on…).

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