Every James Cameron Movie Ranked Worst To Best

Ridley Scott's claustrophobic sci-fi classic, Alien, was a near-perfect feat of horror and genre subversion, and it set the stage for one of cinema's greatest-ever sequels, directed by relative newcomer James Cameron seven years later. Aliens takes everything that made Alien great, and dials it up to eleven.

Though it loses some of the scares of its predecessor, Aliens is still a frightening experience, as Sigourney Weaver's weary but badass Ripley and a new team of hardened super soldiers cross paths with the deadly xenomorph, but it's also more compellingly character-driven and violent, the dread turning to panic as war erupts.

As ever, Cameron's ability to centre complex human relationships around large-scale action shines throughout Aliens, but so do does his talent of staging and pace, as the alien becomes more threatening and haunting than ever before. He's directed some truly great films over the years, but this is James Cameron's masterpiece.