15 Best Alien Movie Deaths
3. Ellen Ripley (Alien 3)
A genuinely shocking moment in a film otherwise devoid of real creativity, the original heroine of the Alien franchise goes out in a heroic blaze of glory. Across three films, Lt. Ripley had survived alien threats that felled her close-knit comrades, hardened squadrons, and her surrogate family alike, but in the end it was her own kind that left her with no other choice.
Through her sacrificial efforts to prevent the devilishly persistent Weyland-Yutani Corporation from harvesting the imminently-arriving Queen inside her, Ripley defies the will of a group that just won’t take the hint; trying to use these creatures is a disaster waiting to happen.
By plunging herself, baby and all, into a chasm of molten lava, Ripley stops the alien from falling into the hands of the Company, and in doing so, thwarting an inevitable alien infestation on Earth at its conception. It’s a fitting end for one of horror’s most famous final girls.
It’s too bad they managed to get a hold of her blood 200 years later, but at least the original Ellen Ripley wouldn’t live to see the events of Alien: Resurrection.