20 Greatest Summer Blockbusters Ever Made
7. Aliens (1986)
RottenTomatoes Score: 98% (9/10)
Box Office: $131.1183.3 million (what is it with the Alien movies and these ambiguous figures?)
Why It's Awesome: Aliens is the textbook example of how to craft a sequel that's fundamentally different to what came before, yet nevertheless doesn't undermine the original.
Rather than simply repeat Ridley Scott's slow-burn suspense film, James Cameron decided to make of Aliens a high-tech, blisteringly intense war film, with a group of hilariously hot-headed marines getting summarily slaughtered by a fleet of Xenomorphs.
Though this itself would probably have been enough to make Aliens an entertaining sequel, Cameron of course threw Ripley back into the mix for kicks, while transforming her into a fully-able, kick-a** femme fatale, just one of Cameron's many superb female protagonists over the years.
Cameron's direction and script, the production design, editing, score, visual effects and so on are all first-rate, though what really makes Aliens work in conjunction with its stomach-knotting intensity is both Weaver's performance (for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar) and the unexpected character depth, especially in the movie's Special Edition.