Synopsis for
Alien (1979) Plus avec IMDbPro »

Nostromo, a commercial towing-vehicle en route to Earth towing several million tons of mineral ore, carries a crew of seven: Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), Chief Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto), and Engineering Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton). A computer the crew calls "Mother" monitors the ship's operations. At the start of the film, Mother receives an apparently unidentifiable signal from a nearby planet and wakes the crew from their cryogenic sleep chambers to investigate. The tug portion of the Nostromo lands on the planet (with the ore and mining facilities left in orbit) and Dallas, Kane and Lambert leave the ship to investigate the signal. They soon discover a derelict spacecraft of unknown origin, losing contact with the Nostromo upon entering the massive ship. Inside they find the remains of an enormous alien creature in the pilot chair, now fossilized. Meanwhile, Ripley's analysis of the unidentified transmission reveals that it is not an SOS, but a warning. Ash talks her out of going after her shipmates.

Kane descends into a chamber beneath the pilot, discovering thousands of leathery eggs. One of the eggs opens, the lifeform inside leaps out, breaks through the visor of Kane's spacesuit, and attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo. Ripley, who is the commanding officer in the absence of Dallas and Kane, refuses to let them back onboard, citing quarantine protocol. However, Ash disregards Ripley's decision and lets them in.

Dallas and Ash attempt to remove the creature from Kane's face, but they discover they cannot because it will take Kane's skin off. When they try to cut off one of its digits, its acid blood burns a hole through several decks, threatening to breach the hull. Ripley confronts Ash about the fact that he defied her orders and allowed the alien organism back onto their ship, which put all of their lives at risk. She mistrusts him, as well as his inability to give them any useful information about the creature.

Eventually, the creature detaches from Kane's face on its own and the crew find it dead. Kane wakes up, seemingly unharmed, and he and the crew decide to have one last meal before they re-enter hypersleep. During the meal, Kane begins to choke and convulse and an alien creature bursts from his chest. The creature then scurries away, leaving the crew stunned and horrifed.

After disposing of Kane's body, the crew members split up into two teams to capture the small creature. Ash rigs together a tracking device, while Brett assembles a weapon similar to a cattle prod. Picking up a signal, Parker, Brett, and Ripley think they have the creature cornered, only to discover the crew's cat, Jones. Realizing they might pick up the cat on the tracker again later, Parker sends Brett to catch Jones. During his search, Brett encounters the alien, now fully grown and enormous, and it attacks him, dragging him, bloodied and screaming, into an air shaft.

The crew debate their next move. Ripley again questions Ash and his inability to give them helpful information. They all agree that the alien is using the air shafts to move around, so Dallas enters the network of air shafts with a flamethrower, intending to drive the alien into an airlock in order to blow it out into space. Using the trackers, the crew picks up the alien's signal, but the signal vanishes, leaving Dallas unsure of the creature's location. Dallas is disoriented in the cramped space and starts to panic when the signal returns making a beeline for him. In his attempt to escape, he runs right into the creature. The remaining crew members find only his flamethrower left behind.

Ripley queries Mother for advice on destroying the alien, but in the process discovers that "the company" (unnamed in this film, but identified in the sequels as Weyland-Yutani) had recognized the signal as a warning and wanted one of the alien lifeforms brought back for study, considering the crew expendable. Ash attacks Ripley after she learns of the Company's "Special Order", but Parker and Lambert arrive before he can kill her. Parker dislodges Ash's head with a fire extinguisher, revealing Ash as an android. With Ash disabled, Ripley and the others reconnect his disembodied head to see if he can give them any advice on how to deal with the creature. Ash tells them they have no chance against it, as it is "the perfect organism". They destroy him in frustration, deciding to destroy the Nostromo and escape in the shuttle. While Ripley preps the shuttle for launch, Parker and Lambert go to gather coolant for the shuttle's life-support system.

On the ship's open intercom system, Ripley hears the cat and realizes Jones has been left behind. Alone, she goes out into the hallways of the Nostromo to find him. Expecting the alien at every turn, Ripley finally locates the cat and puts him into his traveling container. She then hears the sounds of the alien attacking Parker and Lambert in another part of the ship. The alien sneaks up behind Lambert, but Parker is unable to get a clear shot at it with the flamethrower without killing Lambert, too. Finally he rushes at the creature, but it whirls on him and kills him with its bizarre inner jaws. It then turns back to Lambert and Ripley hears the sounds of it killing her as she rushes to try and save her friends.

Ripley realizes she is now alone on board the Nostromo with the alien. She activates the ship's self-destruct and races to the shuttle with Jones' cat carrier. As she rounds the bend to the shuttle entrance, suddenly the alien leaps up, blocking her path. Ripley drops the cat carrier and backs up, racing back to abort the self-destruct function. Ripley finds that it is too late to stop the countdown, so her choice is either get to the shuttle or perish when the ship explodes. She returns, ready to make her best attempt to fight off the alien and get to the lifeboat. The alien is nowhere to be seen, so Ripley takes off, with only seconds to spare. The Nostromo explodes as the lifeboat barely escapes.

As Ripley prepares for hypersleep, she discovers that the alien has hidden itself inside the shuttle. She succeeds in donning a spacesuit, blasting the alien outside the ship with a grappling-gun. Undaunted, the alien attempts to attach itself to the ship by climbing inside one of the heat thrusters. Ripley sees the opportunity and fires the engines, incinerating the alien. The film ends as Ripley and Jones (the cat) enter hypersleep for their return trip to Earth.