10 Film Director's Cuts That Actually Made The Movie Shorter

10. Alien

Shorter by: 1 minute

Alternate cuts of movies have always been around, but the marketing concept of fixing a flawed movie by reissuing a "director's cut" really blew up with the 1992 release of a new cut of Blade Runner more closely aligned to director Ridley Scott's vision. As a result, Scott has become an enthusiastic champion of the potential in releasing multiple cuts of the same movie.

Scott added around 20 minutes to his 80s fantasy Legend and 45 minutes to Crusades epic Kingdom Of Heaven in later director's cuts (the latter significantly improving a previously underwhelming movie). But he hasn't only relied on adding ever more and more scenes back into his movies.

Unlike Blade Runner, Legend or Kingdom Of Heaven, Alien was an instant hit on its original theatrical release. There had been very little studio interference and Scott had delivered a version of the chilling space horror that both he and audiences were happy with. It didn't need a "fix" from a new cut.

Nevertheless, Alien was earmarked by studio Fox for an "extended edition", adding back in material cut for the original release, in order to provide an extra selling point for the Alien Quadrilogy DVD boxset in 2003. However, on adding the four minutes of additional footage back into his earlier classic, Scott felt that they threw off the pacing of the film. To rectify this, he trimmed a further five minutes off the film, leaving what was intended as an "extended" edition actually a minute shorter than the original.