Aliens (1986) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The moon from Alien (1979) has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough? Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV a list of 24 titles created 20 Nov 2010 a list of 38 titles created 26 Mar 2011 a list of 21 titles created 29 Mar 2011 a list of 24 titles created 19 Jan 2014 a list of 21 titles created 18 Oct 2015 Search for " Aliens " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 2 Oscars. Another 17 wins & 22 nominations.

See more awards » Videos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as distress call, their landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform. Continuing their journey back to Earth with the attacked crew having recovered and the critter deceased, they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. Director: Ridley Scott After her last encounter, Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina Fury 161, a maximum security prison. When a series of strange and deadly events occur shortly after her arrival, Ripley realizes that she brought along an unwelcome visitor. Director: David Fincher Two centuries after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone who must continue her war against the aliens. Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from a more advanced cyborg.

Director: James Cameron 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X A seemingly indestructible humanoid cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs. Director: James Cameron A team of commandos on a mission in a Central American jungle find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior. Director: John McTiernan Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. Director: Robert Zemeckis Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis.

Director: Steven Spielberg 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X Following clues to the origin of mankind a team journey across the universe and find a structure on a distant moon containing a monolithic statue of a humanoid head and stone cylinders of alien blood but they soon find they are not alone. Director: Ridley Scott During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok. Director: Steven Spielberg When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis. Director: Steven Spielberg A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. Director: Stanley Kubrick Edit Storyline Fifty seven years after Ellen Ripley survived her disastrous ordeal, her escape vessel is recovered after drifting across the galaxy as she slept in cryogenic stasis. Back on Earth, nobody believed her story about the "Aliens" on the moon LV-426.

After the "Company" orders the colony on LV-426 to investigate, however, all communication with the colony is lost. The Company enlists Ripley to aid a team of tough, rugged space marines on a rescue mission to the now partially terraformed moon to find out if there are aliens or survivors. As the mission unfolds, Ripley will be forced to come to grips with her worst nightmare, but even as she does, she finds that the worst is yet to come. Written by Brian Rawlings This time there's more. See more » Genres: Rated R for monster violence, and for language | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 18 July 1986 (USA) See more » Also Known As: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)| Dolby (35 mm prints) Color: Did You Know? Trivia The "special edition" includes seventeen minutes of extra scenes: Newt's parents discovering the abandoned alien ship on LV-426, scenes of Ripley discussing her daughter, Hudson bragging about his weaponry, robot sentry guns repelling first alien raid, and Hicks and Ripley exchanging first names.

Also included is a scene on LV-426 where a child rides a Bigwheel similar to one ridden in The Terminator (1984), also directed by James Cameron . See more » Goofs When the marines are loading the drop-ship aboard the Sulaco, right after Sgt Apone says 'take it away,' to Spunkmeyer, the power-loader pivots - holding a weapon, and a high set light is visible. See more » Quotes [first lines] Salvage Team Leader : Bio-readouts are all in the green, looks like she's alive. Well, there goes our salvage, guys. See more » Crazy Credits As the final credits fade, there is the sound of a facehugger scurrying across from left to right. See more » Connections Spoofed in Coneheads (1993) See more » Frequently Asked Questions (Edinburgh, Scotland) – See all my reviews Seven years after barely surviving events on board the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi horror ALIEN, Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Warrant Officer Ripley for one of the most compelling and critically-acclaimed sequels of all time.

Canadian director James Cameron had already struck gold with the Arnold Schwarzenegger starring vehicle THE TERMINATOR (1984), after his somewhat inauspicious feature film directorial debut with the long-forgotten, Dutch-backed PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING 3 years earlier. ALIENS would further cement Cameron's growing reputation as a first-rate director of high-tech, fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping action thrillers, from which there would normally be no let-up once they got going. When Ripley is rescued from drifting aimlessly through deep space, she is horrified to learn that not only has she been asleep for 57 years, but the planet on which she had encountered the original alien all that time ago has since been colonized. At first no-one will heed her warnings or completely believe the story she gives at an official enquiry as to what happened to her and her fellow Nostromo crew members. But then contact is lost with LV-426, and despite initially throwing Ripley "to the wolves" (as she herself puts in), The Company, through representative Carter J.

Burke (Paul Reiser), suddenly finds itself in a position of having to ask Ripley for help, finally persuading her to return to the planet that still consumes her every nightmare, as an advisor to a motley group of very tough colonial marines expecting this to be just another run-of-the-mill "bug-hunt". But how wrong that assumption turns out to be! I would argue that ALIENS far surpasses its celebrated predecessor in almost every aspect. Obviously the sheer spectacle of what is basically a Vietnam war movie in space is particularly awe-inspiring - the impressive sets, the many excitingly-staged combat sequences, the aliens themselves (interestingly enough, although through fast cutting and appropriate camera placement it seems as though there are hundreds of aliens being blasted to kingdom come - or else picking off the gung-ho marines one by one - in reality no more than 6 aliens are ever seen in any one shot).

But the human drama element of this sequel is also greatly heightened, primarily by the introduction of "Newt" (wonderful little Carrie Henn, in her only film role), who turns out to be the sole survivor of recent events on LV-426, becoming a kind-of surrogate daughter to Ripley, which leads to several touching moments and gives the story a surprisingly effective emotional core in the midst of all the otherwise pre-eminent carnage. Amongst the talented supporting players are Cameron regulars Michael Biehn (THE TERMINATOR, THE ABYSS) and Bill Paxton (bit part in THE TERMINATOR, TRUE LIES, TITANIC), and Cameron's punchy dialogue includes such suitably macho wisecracks as - Hudson (Paxton): "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?" Vasquez (a pumped-up Jenette Goldstein): "No, have you?" Nominated for 7 Oscars, including Weaver as Best Actress (again this confirms the general class on display, as it is fairly rare for the Academy to recognize the acting qualities inherent in this type of predominantly action-driven movie), the film went on to win for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects Editing.

Further, almost inevitable sequels followed in 1992 and 1997, but I prefer to think of the terrifying perils of Ellen Ripley as ending on this high note. 143 of 260 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Alien (1979) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as distress call, their landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform. Continuing their journey back to Earth with the attacked crew having recovered and the critter deceased, they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.

Director: a list of 30 titles created 06 Feb 2012 a list of 29 titles created 24 Aug 2013 a list of 23 images created 24 Jan 2014 a list of 36 titles created 16 Apr 2014 a list of 47 titles created 28 May 2015 Search for " Alien " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 16 wins & 19 nominations. See more awards » Videos The moon from Alien (1979) has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough? Director: James Cameron After her last encounter, Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina Fury 161, a maximum security prison. When a series of strange and deadly events occur shortly after her arrival, Ripley realizes that she brought along an unwelcome visitor.

Director: David Fincher Two centuries after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone who must continue her war against the aliens. Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from a more advanced cyborg. Director: James Cameron 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X A seemingly indestructible humanoid cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs. Director: James Cameron A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. Director: Stanley Kubrick Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.

Director: Robert Zemeckis Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. Director: Steven Spielberg During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok. Director: Steven Spielberg A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader. Director: George Lucas After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to make Vader return from the dark side of the Force. Director: Richard Marquand Edit Storyline A commercial crew aboard the deep space towing vessel, Nostromo is on its way home when they pick up an SOS warning from a distant moon.

What they don't know is that the SOS warning is not like any other ordinary warning call. Picking up the signal, the crew realize that they are not alone on the spaceship when an alien stowaway is on the cargo ship. Written by blazesnakes9 In space no one can hear you scream. See more » Genres: Rated R for sci-fi violence/gore and language | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 June 1979 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Alien: The Director's Cut See more » Filming Locations: £208,081 (UK) (31 October 2003) Gross: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)| Dolby (as Dolby Stereo) Color: Did You Know? Trivia Many of the interior features of the Nostromo were inspired by images from airplane graveyards. See more » Goofs When the chestburster erupts out of Kane, Lambert is shown with a terrified/disgusted expression and can be heard saying, "Oh God," when she is by the blood spatter but her lips don't move.

See more » Quotes Brett : This is the worst shit I've ever seen, man. Parker : What you say? You got any biscuits over there? Ripley : Here's some cornbread. Kane : Oh, I feel dead. Parker : Anybody ever tell you you look dead, man? Alien.....the one that started it all........ 17 April 2009 | by shortround8391 (United States) – See all my reviews Alien....the creature......the film.....the legend. The one that started it all, the one that led to one of the greatest sequels ever made, one that got a comic book mini-series and 2 cross-over films with "Predator". This is THE film. And without a doubt, the greatest horror film ever created, and this totally makes "Halloween" look like "Chicken Little". You can forget about all those rubbish "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, 'cause "Alien" just takes horror up to so many levels! In "Alien", we find ourselves in the distant future with a crew just coming back from a haul of 20 million tons of ore back to Earth.

But while the crew members are in stasis, their ship picks up an "SOS" from a nearby planet, and once the crew is awakened, they are forced by the "Company" regulations to follow that signal. And then when they land on the planet and it turns out that something terrifying is in store for them, when a hostile organism attaches itself to one of the crew members. And later on, it becomes clear that the crew member was being impregnated and then dies a horrible, violent death from a deadly breed of an other-worldly life-form. And now the rest of the crew must fight off the creature. As other classic films should always have, "Alien" does great on the characters. And of course, the most recognizable one is the lead woman, Ellen Ripley who is played then-unknown Sigourney Weaver. She provides a very human face and you're gonna feel like you're actually watching a real-life woman in here, and it could be because of her accent, or her mannerisms. But as the film progresses, she develops into a more mentally tougher woman while combating the Alien.

There are times when she totally keeps it cool, times when she's afraid, times when she's angry, and times when its just Ripley being Ripley. And thanks to Weavers acting talents, she can really dish out one hell of a character. The rest of the supporting cast are nothing short of spectacular, Parker and Brett are the selfish, sarcastic men who only want to make a profit. And through most of the film, you can feel the tension that Ripley and Parker have. Lambert, who one of my favorites from here is the second woman who happens to be the opposite of Ripley, a total coward. Dallas, who the viewer might get the vibe that HE is the main character in the 1st 15 minutes or so, is pretty much the leader here. Kane, is the tired, dead-looking guy who is the one that carries the alien species inside of him. And finally, Ash is the one with the sinister purpose and you start to suspect that he's up to no good at some point. And movie characters need to have their own personalities and that's what "Alien" has. And as for the Alien itself, well what can i say?

It is the most horrifying creature in the history of cinema, period. I mean, how could you stop it? It has acid for blood, and is very lethal to fight face-to-face. And the special effects were over 20 years ahead of its time. The face-hugger on Kane looked so freaking real, that you're gonna be scared just by looking at it, even it doesn't do anything except breathe most of the time. And the sets couldn't have been better, very futuristic, yet there's always something ominous and dark about them. The suspense is impossible to resist as the sequences deliver the chills at times when you least expect it, and when you do expect something to happen, nothing happens. And "Alien" is one of the very few horror films that understands that you can't scare people by raking up the bodies and the blood, but you have to build up the suspense to do it. And director Ridley Scott is such a genius, and he shows that here, he absolutely knows how to make any kind of film, ones that can scare (Alien), one that can sadden (Thelma and Louise), and one that can excite/thrill (Gladiator).

And Ridley really keeps up the dark atmosphere, especially in the beginning when there's no talking for the 1st 5 minutes or so, we get the feeling that something's not right all the time. Some parts are very quiet and very depressing and we feel exactly what we see. This is the legend that I'm talking about here, folks. Don't miss the chance to see this, because it will scare the living daylights outta you more than any other movie you're gonna see in your life. Take my word for it....I'm practically a movie buff, so I know what I'm talking about.... 21 of 27 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes 11 Actresses Who Completely Transformed For Roles, And Lost Their Long Locks On The Way | The Huffington Post 11 Actresses Who Completely Transformed For Roles, And Lost Their Long Locks On The Way 11/05/2014 10:23 am ET | Updated Nov 05, 2014 Erin Whitney Associate Entertainment Editor Warner Bros. Remember, remember the 5th of November... Today is Nov.

5, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, a British holiday that commemorates the Gunpowder Plot, in which the titular conspirator attempted to blow up Parliament in 1605. The political event is a central point of the Wachowski siblings' 2006 film, "V for Vendetta," where Natalie Portman's character, Evey, recites a famous rhyme about Fawkes . In honor of the 5th of November, and Portman's emotional shaved-head scene , we're looking back on all the actresses who rocked a buzz cut for their film roles: 1 Natalie Portman -- "V for Vendetta" Gareth Cattermole via Getty Images In the film, Portman plays Evey, a British woman who gets wrapped up in the revolutionary mission of the masked V. While imprisoned, she's interrogated, tortured and forcibly shaved to her scalp. 2 Cate Blanchett -- "Heaven" Getty Images via Getty Images Not many remember when Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett shaved her head for Tom Twyker's 2002 film, "Heaven," in which she played a woman who goes after the man responsible for her husband's death.

3 Ellen Page -- "Mouth To Mouth" Hellhound Pictures via YouTube Ellen Page shaved her head for the little-known 2005 British film "Mouth to Mouth." Page's character joins a street collective where a group of teens shave their heads and swear off sex and alcohol. 4 Karen Gillan -- "Guardians of the Galaxy" Jon Furniss/Invision/AP The Scottish actress, who currently stars in ABC's "Selfie," shaved her head for her role as Nebula in this year's "Guardians of the Galaxy." Gillan even recorded a video of when she buzzed her long hair off . 5 Charlize Theron -- "Mad Max: Fury Road" Warner Bros. To play Imperator Furiosa in the upcoming "Mad Mad: Fury Road," Theron shaved her head and also donned a mechanical arm loaded with weapons, because why not? 6 Toni Collette -- "Miss You Already" David M. Benett via Getty Images Toni Collette recently shaved her head for her upcoming role in "Miss You Already," in which she plays a woman with breast cancer, alongside Drew Barrymore. 7 Demi Moore -- "G.I.

Jane" Archive Photos via Getty Images In one of the most memorable head-shaving movie scenes , Demi Moore's character, Lt. Jordan O'Neil, took an electric razor to her head. 8 Olivia Cooke -- "Me & Earl & the Dying Girl" Mark Davis via Getty Images You likely recognize Olivia Cookie from A&E's "Bates Motel," but the 20-year-old actress recently shaved her head for the adaptation of the Y.A. novel "Me & Earl & the Dying Girl." 9 Sigourney Weaver -- "Alien 3" Frank Capri via Getty Images Sigourney Weaver's Ripley had long hair for the first two "Alien" films, but finally shaved it all off for David Fincher's "Alien 3" in 1992. 10 Robin Tunney -- "Empire Records" Warner Bros. via YouTube Before Robin Tunney was in "The Craft" she played Deb, a troubled record store employee in 1995's "Empire Records," who shaves off her hair after a suicide attempt.

11 Natalie Dormer -- "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" Gregg DeGuire via Getty Images We know this doesn't totally count, but Natalie Dormer still deserves some credit for rocking a Skrillex cut. Best known as Margaery Tyrell in "Game of Thrones," Dormer revealed her half-shaved head earlier this year in preparation for her upcoming role in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay." Related on HuffPost: 1000+ images about Ripley Jumpsuit on Pinterest | Ash, Aliens and Suits Ripley vs. Ash in the first Alien movie. Great onscreen chemistry between Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm. Talk about palpable tension and antagonism between two characters… See More Sigourney Weaver Sigourney Weaver Alien: Resurrection (1997) .... Lt. Ellen Ripley ... aka Alien 4 (1997) ... aka Grimm Brothers' Snow White, The (1997) ... aka Snow White (1997) (USA: short title) ... aka Snow White in the Black Forest (1997) ... aka Snow White in the Dark Forest (1997) ...

aka 1492: Christophe Colomb (1992) (France) ... aka 1492: La conquï¿½te du paradis (1992) ... aka 1492: la conquista del paraï¿½so (1992) (Spain) ... aka One Woman or Two (1987) (USA) ... aka Woman or Two, A (1985) (International: English title) Terror in the Aisles (1984) (archive footage) .... Ripley (segment "Alien") ... aka Time for Terror (1984) (Europe: English title: video title) Annie Hall (1977) .... Alvy's Date Outside Theatre "Somerset" (1970) TV Series .... Avis Ryan (1976) ... aka "Another World: Somerset" (1970) (original title) ...

aka "Somerset: Bay City" (1970) (original title) Real Name: 8 October 1949, New York, NY Husband: Whether it was work, marriage, or family, I've always been a late bloomer. -- Sigourney Weaver; Trivia: Born in 1949 in New York by former NBC president (1953-55) Sylvester (Pat) and former actress Desiree (Liz) Weaver (a.k.a. ElizabethInglis ), she was named Susan Alexander Weaver, though her father wanted to call her Flavia, because of his intense interest in Roman history. Her brother, though, was named Trajan after the Roman emperor. In a family with unusual names it was natural for her to change her name to something more fitting to the family standard, and after reading The Great Gatsby , she chose the name of one of the minor characters, and at the age of 14, became known as Sigourney Weaver.

The whole family seems to have close ties to showbusiness, the dad president of NBC TV, her mom an actress, and her uncle Winstead Sheffield Weaver (Doodles Weaver) was also an actor and member of the Spike Jones' Troup, and remembered from the Professor Feitlebaum character. She completed an university education at Stanford and Yale Universities, before she started her career on the screen, where she had her breakthrough in Alien with the role as Lt. Ellen Ripley, the astronaut who not only had to face evil, man-eating aliens but also face up to the stupidity of the mining corporation, that wants a new military weapon! Later movies only showed, that she was an actress that mastered most genres; from a gutsy, tough lady as in the Alien Quatrologyand Gorillas in the Mist, through a sexy seductress in Ghostbusters, to a psychotic nervous wreck in Copycat. While portraying Dian Fossey in the motion picture Gorillas in the Mist, Ms. Weaver was so moved by her experiences with the gorillas while filming that she became a supporter of the DFGF (Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund). Now Sigourney is DFGF's honorary chair to the board of trustees.

But even before she started her career on the big screen, she was honing her skills as an actress doing theater work almost five years before debuting in the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall in 1977. Her theater debut was in 1973 in the play Watergate Classics. She's also an alumni of The Yale School of Drama, in company with stars like Paul Newman, Stacy Keach, Charles Dutton, and Meryl Streep to name a few. Though perhaps best known to the general audience for her perfomances in the Alien Quatrology. The role as Lt. Ellen Ripley was originally planned for Veronica Cartwright, but the producers chose Sigourney Weaver instead. Another stunning fact is her salary rise! In 1977 she got $50 for her six seconds appearance in Annie Hall, in 1997 she got $11 million for Alien Resurrection, a pay rise of 220,000% in just 20 years, not bad -- huh? Academy Award Nominations ( Oscar Awards ): 1987 - Nominated for best actress in Aliens.

1989 - Nominated for best actress in Gorillas in the Mist. 1989 - Nominated for best supporting actress in Working Girl. Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations ( SAG ): 1998 - Nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for Snow White. British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards ( BAFTA ): 1998 - Winner of the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in The Ice Storm. 1990 - Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Working Girl. 1980 - Nominated for Most Promising Newcomer to a Leading Film Role in Alien. Other Awards, Nominations & Honors: 1999 - Sigourney Weaver was awarded a star of the celebrity strech of pavement on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 1998 - Nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress in Alien Resurrection. 1998 - Nominated for the Blockbuster Entertainment Award as Best Actress in Alien Resurrection. 1998 - Nominated for the Emmy Award as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie in Snow White.

1998 - Ranked 8th on Backwell's 39th Annual Worst Dressed Women List (The High Priestess of Fashion Pretense is on a chaotic couture journey - if you're looking for an "Alien" just call Sigourney). 1998 - Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline have been named Man and Woman of the Year by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals, for their performances in The Ice Storm. 1997 - Ranked 6th on Blackwell's 38th Annual Worst Dressed Women List (resembles a shrink-wrapped mummy - in a peep-show revue). 1997 - Ranked 71st in the U.K. magazine Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time". 1997 - Ranked 13th of Sci-Fi's Sexy 50 by Femme Fatales magazine. 1987 - Winner of The Saturn Award as Best Actress in Aliens at Academy of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Films, U.S.A. 1986 - NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) Star of the Year Award.

I think if you're five-ten when you're eleven years old, you're just gonna be weird for the rest of your life," says Sigourney Weaver over tea one July afternoon. Weird is no doubt how she felt as child; individualistic is how she appears as an adult. Her lithe frame is showcased in a vaguely Asian outfit -- a spandex, gold-printed blue tank top and a long print skirt. Bright red toenails peek out of slingback shoes. When a mosquito dive-bombs her tea, she elegantly and matter-of-factly picks it out of her cup before taking a sip. There are undeniable contradictions in Weaver's personality. In conversation, the 48-year-old, who lives in New York City with her husband, theater director Jim Simpson, and daughter, Charlotte, alternates between earnestness and self-mocking dryness, sometimes managing both at once. At least one of her directors has noticed this as well. "I'll never forget the look on her face," says James Cameron, recalling their visit to a firing range to pop off a semiautomatic machine gun in preparation for Aliens' superattenuated, monster-crushing Ripley.

"There was shell raining down, and this acrid cloud of machine-gun smoke. She kind of grinned wolfishly and said, 'This is fun.' But you could tell she was also guilty about it, because she's this really liberal, cause-oriented person, down on handguns and all those sorts of things." The daughter of former NBC head Pat Weaver, who created the Today show, and English actress Elizabeth Inglis, Weaver attended the Yale School of Drama and hoped to someday trade witticisms in the films of such greats as Woody Allen and Mike Nichols. While there, she garnered notice among her classmates as a kooky comedienne. In her first notable performance at Yale, she sang "a song called 'Better Dead Than Sorry' while receiving shock treatment," recalls playwright and friend Christopher Durang. "She made her own shock-treatment headdress. It had two spools like the horns of a cow, and out of each spool came little wires." Her professors, however, were not supportive. "They really did tell me I had no talent and I'd never get anywhere. I should get all my money back from that place," says Weaver, laughing.

She did eventually work for her heroes -- for Allen in Annie Hall, and for Nichols as the memorable patrician bitch in Working Girl. The well-brought-up woman from Manhattan's Upper East Side disappeared into the randy confusion of a cellist inhabited by the demon Zool, in Ghostbusters; into the dedication and anger of animal behaviorist Dian Fossey, in Gorillas in the Mist; and into the tortured mind of a vengeful victim, in Death and the Maiden. Along the way, she garnered three Oscar nominations for her work in three different genres -- action (Aliens), comedy (Working Girl), and drama (Gorillas in the Mist). This year Weaver shows her range again with her searing portrayal of a sexually adventurous Connecticut housewife, in The Ice Storm, and her return as Ripley, in Alien Resurrection. Though the Alien franchise has proven Weaver to be the only bankable female action star, Ripley hadn't even been the hero in the original's first script. But producer-writer Walter Hill and producer David Giler thought they'd pull a switcheroo on audience expectations by having the handsome adventurer killed off, leaving Ripley to do battle in her underwear.

Ridley Scott's resulting film has become a sci-fi classic. It was left to Cameron's sequel, however, to delineate the soul of a superwoman, a being whose real power comes from her intelligence, the constantly shifting gears that whirl behind her fear-frozen eyes as she tries to outmaneuver a being she can never simply overpower. "The thing we always differed on was how much she hated the alien," says Cameron. "Sigourney had the response, 'The alien is a creature and I can't blame it for the death of my crew,' and my feeling was, 'You hate that motherfucker.' I was the throttle and she was the brakes. She would always pull back from a moment that was pushing it too far -- that's why you get this incredibly modulated performance. Let's face it, science-fiction films don't usually get nominations for Best Actress." How has each of the Alien directors' conception of Ripley differed? Ridley [Scott] and I were in similar positions -- he'd made one movie, The Duellists.

And he cast me, this nothing, and he would do things like he'd suddenly grab me and say, "Look, I'm not giving you a fucking motivation to pick up your teacup!" And I'd go off and cry. And then he'd come over and say, "I'm so sorry, I wanted to say that to John Hurt but I didn't feel I could, so I thought if I said it to you he would hear me." There was something about Ridley's honesty and lack of bullshit that gave [Alien] so much authenticity. [In that one] I felt that Ripley came from a family of people in the service. She was very by-the-book, and when all this chaos started there was nowhere for her to go but inside, into her instincts. And so her arc was really from this rigid young ensign to this survivor. In [Aliens], Jim [Cameron] just wrote me this great part. I was so incredibly moved that he would take the character of Ripley and so enrich her, and give her such strong things to do. The whole idea of Ripley as a rebel -- the company disenfranchises her when she comes back.

She's persona non grata, she's in rebellion against this system because she knows what they really are. He gave Ripley so much heart and so much integrity in a different way. Of course, she had that minor love story, and in Alien3 the first thing David Fincher does is kill that whole story. He kills the little girl, takes the love interest, Michael Biehn, puts them both in the morgue. Ripley loses everything she had ever looked forward to having a normal life with. And then of course she discovers that she has [an alien] inside her. That to me is the most existential. What were your concerns about doing a fourth Alien? I heard they were doing Alien versus Predator. I wanted nothing to do with that. I was so proud of the three we'd done. The last thing I wanted to do was stick around on a series that was just going to be done to make more money. They called you with a straight face and told you this idea? Or did they take you out to lunch? No, they didn't dare take me to lunch. First of all, I was . . . the whole experience of Alien3 was so difficult.

[The studio] hired David Fincher, they thought he was great, and as soon as he started working on the picture, they panicked. And I thought that was unforgivable, you know, to hire this brilliant young director and not give him any support. But you agreed to a fourth. Tom Rothman and Peter Chernin [at Fox] hired Joss Whedon [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] to do a script that I thought was remarkable. That's what seduced me. For one thing, I wasn't playing the same thing. And it was very intriguing to me to be brought back. Suddenly we're talking about a time where they could bring you back against your will. In Alien3, Ripley kills herself, and in this one she's cloned back from the dead. But she's not quite the same, is she? [In Alien Resurrection] Ripley is part alien. She's not of either world. I feel she misses the alien world more, she's sort of stuck with the [humans], who seem ridiculous to her because they're always squabbling. She's from this landscape of death; if you have actually died, you have a very different outlook on survival.

She's not intent on saving people. She's more of a nihilist. On the other hand, the animal in her would do anything to survive. It's almost as if the alien blood has made her so much more alive and more in her body. She's so strong, she's very sensual, she's very predatory, she has much more of a sense of humor, I think, because she has died. It sounds like a great part. Great part. I'm glad I died. My husband had said, "You're so stupid, you died. This is the biggest franchise in the world and you died." Weren't you the one who wanted Ripley to die? At that point I really wanted to do all these other things. It was perfect -- I got to go off and do other kinds of work and then come back to almost a new character. Was your mother -- who had been an actress -- ambivalent about your becoming an actress? I think both [my parents] thought I was too nice, and I would just get squashed. They knew the business is like a racket and full of rats. So they were very protective of me. Weren't you told at Yale that you were slovenly?

They said that they hated my clothes. In California, where I went to college, I really lived like a hippie. What they saw in me was a leading lady, and I just couldn't go that way. I was constantly in these outrageous [comedies] by Chris Durang, Albert Innaurato. . . . That's not the way they saw me at all. I think Yale was good for me in the sense that I developed spite. You know, to be told by people who really had no business telling you so, "You can't do what you want to do," it's very galvanizing. Fury kept me going for quite a while. They told you that because of how you looked? I think because of the way I looked, because of my height. I was cast as prostitutes and old women. When I went to New York, I started having much more fun. No one was telling me I couldn't act. I started getting acknowledgement for my work. I still couldn't get an agent, but at least within the community of my peers, things were going well. You've said that The Year of Living Dangerously is the movie you learned the most on.

Things happened on that film that gave me a lot of confidence. For instance, there's that scene where I walk through the rain: We shot one take and the fireman promptly knocked me over with this water. I was working off a piece I'd read in The New Yorker about the Holocaust to prepare, and I remember Peter [Weir] saying, "Cut, it's a disaster, I'm gonna rethink this scene, we're gonna shoot it on a sunny day." And then he said, "And whatever you were working on was completely wrong." Why the Holocaust? Because it's when she realizes there's going to be this massive civil war, and there was something in the article that just seemed to resonate with what was going to happen. Anyway, six weeks passed, we're in Australia watching rushes and all of a sudden this scene comes on. We'd already shot the scene sunny, but this scene with the water came on, and the whole thing, the walk, the rain, whatever I was doing, it was so powerful. And the lights came up and Peter stood up and said, "That's the movie." Much of that movie was shot in the Philippines during a time of political unrest. You even got caught in a Muslim uprising.

Were you scared? It was probably one of the weirdest nights I've spent. We'd been getting these death threats because Ferdinand Marcos had just been in Saudi Arabia, so the Philippine Muslims were sort of testing their power -- I had a bodyguard who had a loaded pistol. I was having lunch with [costar] Michael Murphy at the hotel -- which to get into, you had to pass a guy with a machine gun who frisked you -- and this person I'd never seen before came up to us and said, "There's a car waiting outside, we have your passports, don't go upstairs, don't pack, we'll send everything to you, just get in the car and go to the airport." We missed our flight, so we had to spend this very strange night hiding out in an airport motel with Marcos's guards guarding us. It was very depressing because it looked like, after we'd done five weeks, we could easily have been shut down because of the expense of having to re-create everything over in Australia. Everyone was kind of crazy. We took over the lounge, we all performed.

I did some weird Brecht song, and Mel [Gibson] stuck a lot of women's napkins down his pants and did this really lewd performance of "On the Sunny Side of the Street." We were up all night doing these very weird things because we thought, This is it. And then the next morning we flew to Australia and we were able to continue. You're famous for going after parts you want. I don't really do that anymore. I used to, but I never got any part I went after. It always blew up in my face. Which ones did you chase? There was a Fred Zinnemann movie, the one he did with Sean Connery, about climbing the mountain, very obscure [Five Days One Summer]. I wanted to work with Zinnemann so much, I flew myself over [to England], and he was such a gentleman, really from the old school. And he took my hand and said, "Sigourney, the studio doesn't care about what you're doing.

You should never pay your own way over to meet a director," and I said, "I had to, it was the only way I could meet you." In the end, obviously, he chose another actress, who I think was a friend of the writer's. Would you like to do another Woody Allen movie? He's very shy, and I keep raising my hand, hoping he'll pick me. I don't know what to do short of throwing myself at his feet. That's still my dream, to work with Woody Allen. I only worked with him [on Annie Hall] that one day. I've worked with Mike Nichols twice, and he's the best; he's enchantingly funny, very paternal, he always says the right thing. When we were opening Hurlyburly on Broadway, he gathered us together, we were all terribly nervous, it was a difficult play, and he smiled -- he beamed at us -- and said, "Remember, everything depends on tonight," and we howled with laughter. It was just a horrible thing to say, and it relaxed us all. There were certain things he would illuminate, asking us to do a gesture or a line in a certain way.

Is the gorilla you carry off the plane in Working Girl an in-joke? Mike wanted me to be dressed in white and carry the gorilla against the Manhattan skyline -- it was a joke about King Kong and Fay Wray. And I said, "Gosh, Mike, I just did this movie all about gorillas and it may be like this double joke -- I think they might think of Dian Fossey before they think of Fay Wray." And he didn't care. Was Gorillas in the Mist a grueling shoot? I thought, How lucky it is to be an actor -- join SAG and see the world. Suddenly I was being flown to Kenya and Rwanda -- Rwanda is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, with the most wonderful people. It's so amazing to me I was able to see it before all [the recent] tragedy. I told my husband that I wanted to buy a house in Rwanda. And he said, "You know, we have this tiny apartment in New York.

I think if we buy a house, it should be somewhere we can go for the weekend." They needed an actress who would enjoy working with a gorilla and not run screaming down the hill, so they sent me over a month and a half early to see if I'd run down the hill. And I got there and I climbed up into this incredibly beautiful jungle -- the going is very difficult because it's not like hiking, you're actually stepping on top of deep layers of jungle and roots and things, and it's very wet. I was there with Dian Fossey's group. And this little gorilla came over and sat down next to me and put her hand on my arm, and her hand was so hot, I felt it all the way through my windbreaker, and from that moment on, every time I was with the gorillas, I felt such intense joy, like nothing I've ever felt, except maybe being with my daughter. No matter how hard it was or how wet we were and how miserable, as soon as we got with the gorillas, it all fell away. And I was transported with joy, there is no other word for it. I felt it was sort of Dian's spirit looking out for me.

I felt a big responsibility playing Dian, and I'm not sure I was successful. I'd never played a real person before. I think our mistake was that our script covered eighteen years. You could not take eighteen years and show her complexity. Because [director] Michael Apted and I wanted to have this sort of gritty documentary and it turned into this sort of very beautiful Hollywood film. Do you ever regret turning down The Piano? I wasn't asked. Jane Campion always says in interviews that she wanted you. I know. I got mad at my agent, Steve Dontanville, for this. I think I told Steve that I didn't want to work during that period. So he convinced her to take Holly Hunter. When the movie came out, she said in The New York Times that she was looking for a Sigourney Weaver type, so I called Steve and said, "Hey, Holly Hunter is a Sigourney Weaver type? What happened to me? I'm the original Sigourney Weaver type!" I still give him such a hard time. I would have loved to do that. It seems like Hollywood has almost never cast you as a sexy woman.

I'm still hoping that as I mature in this business, I'll be able to play the Simone Signoret parts. I mean, I know it's preposterous, but I'm hoping that I'll actually be given a chance to do some love stories, because I find those really wonderful to do. Now studios would probably consider you too old to play opposite Mel Gibson. I think that would be up to Mel, but certainly it's customary to have men 20 years older than their female costars. I was talking to a [director] friend about this and he was getting kind of upset. But my point was that when a guy is 20 or 30 years older than the woman, it's just taken for granted that that's a proper pairing, but if I play an older woman, and I'm with a guy 15 or 20 years younger, that's got to be the focus of the story, which automatically says that this is a freakish event. And I think [older woman-younger man pairings] happen all the time. But with all the young filmmakers we have coming on, I don't think a lot of these cliches will work the same way.

Aren't you older than your husband? I'm quite a few years older than him. He couldn't have cared less how old I was. I was a little freaked. I think that age is just a number, [but] it matters when the studio is putting together a package. And it's true that in a lot of ways, the camera favors youth and old age, because a lot of cinematographers don't light faces -- it's kind of a lost art, it's not cool. They light rooms, they light everyone kind of dirty, gritty. So it becomes an issue. You have to think about whether you want to get in there and say, "This is the way to light me." It helps to have those patrician bones. I like my face better now than when I was young. When I was young I was pretty, but I had a sort of blank face -- just these big eyes and little nose. Now my face looks more alive to me. More interesting. My rule of thumb is, unless there's a point to it, why make me look uglier than I actually look? I've never worked with a cinematographer who didn't want to light me well.

When things don't go right on a movie, do you get depressed? I try to fix it, actually. I feel that it's truly a collaboration, and there are weeks when directors are completely exhausted, and sometimes it's good to just talk about the movie you're making, kind of remind each other what you're doing. I've never had a situation in which there was something wrong with the director that I had to work out. Occasionally in the beginning with Roman [Polanski, on Death and the Maiden], I found his style hard to take. He comes from that school of directors that thinks the less secure the actor feels, the better. It's not my school, and it was pretty tough, but he's such a brilliant director that I didn't care. How did you get involved with Death and the Maiden? I turned it down at first because I wanted to be with my family and I had never seen the play. I had worked with human-rights groups -- Human Rights Watch and Witness -- for quite a while.

I'd met all these people coming through New York who were human-rights activists and who had experienced a lot that [the character] Paulina had, and I always thought, goddammit, I'm an actor, I'm not a lawyer. [But] when this came along, I thought I would get to tell a story about this, and Roman, surprisingly to me, really wanted me for the part. I think because of the Alien pictures. I had not ventured into the sort of Meryl Streep area of serious drama and my husband said, "You have to do this. Don't stay home." It was a real turning point for me because this part you couldn't think about at all, it had to be from the gut, and it gave me a whole new way of working. Suddenly, in my early 40s, I fell in love with acting all over again. Why is your character, Janey, so unhappy in The Ice Storm? I said to Ang [Lee, the director], "You know, I didn't realize I was playing her so unhappy." He said, "You didn't play her unhappy, she is unhappy." She's upset because she blew it.

She's very frustrated because the thing she'd really wanted to do with her life, she realized later she could have done. But when she was younger it just wasn't open for women in the same way. She was caught like a lot of people in a strange sort of time vacuum, where they wanted to experience their youth again, and the only way they could do it was through these sort of illicit affairs and key parties. So many of the women of that generation got divorced. They suddenly realized so many things. My mother was beyond where she might have changed her life, but I think it percolated in her, a lot of feelings about having given up her career to raise a family. I think that the sexual revolution and the women's movement put a lot of women into anguish, because they realized that there were alternatives that they had never seriously considered for themselves. I don't really think that Janey's a bad, miserable person. I think she's just more impatient with her choices. It sounds like your own opportunities keep expanding. I feel comfortable with Fox [Weaver's company, Goat Cay Productions, is funded by Fox]. I don't feel like an actor looking for a job; with these people I feel part of the creative community.

It's a huge change. It was an important transition for me to make because at some point I hope to do more of my own work, maybe even direct. It would be really fun to write and direct a film -- it would be very low budget -- so I could have freedom. I guess because I'm a New Yorker, I always defined myself by theater. Not that I looked down on film, but I didn't recognize myself in that world. Now I'm able to. Rachel Abramowitz is a writer at large for Premiere.

Question: Who shaved her head to play the character Lt Ellen Ripley in the 1992 film ‘Alien3’?
Answer: Sigourney WEAVER