Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley
Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke
Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks
Lance Henriksen as Bishop
Carrie Henn as Newt
William Hope as
Lieutenant William Gorman
Al Matthews as Sergeant Al Apone
Cynthia Dale Scott as
Corporal Cynthia Dietrich
Bill Paxton as Private William Hudson
Jenette Goldstein as
Private Jenette Vasquez
Mark Rolston as Private Mark Drake
Ricco Ross as Private Ricco Frost
Colette Hiller as Corporal Collette Ferro
Daniel Kash as Private Daniel Spunkmeyer
Tip Tipping as Private Tim Crowe
Trevor Steedman as
Private Trevor Wierzbowski
Awards and Accolades
Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Music, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration.
Time Magazine named Aliens in their Best of '86 list. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named Aliens as the second-best action movie of all time.
In a Rotten Tomatoes analysis of the top 100 science fiction films, Aliens ranks tenth among the best-reviewed films of the genre.
In 2004, Aliens was ranked thirty-fifth on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" for the scene in which Ripley and Newt are attacked by facehuggers.
IGN ranked it third in its "Top 25 Action Films of All-Time", stating that "there won't be an Alien movie as scary – or exciting – as this one made ever again."
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards
1987 Won ASCAP Award Top Box Office Films: James Horner
Academy Awards, USA
1987 Won Oscar Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing: Don Sharpe
Best Effects, Visual Effects: Robert Skotak, Stan Winston, John Richardson, Suzanne M. Benson
Academy of Science Fiction,
Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
1987 Won Saturn Award Best Actress: Sigourney Weaver
Best Director: James Cameron
Best Performance by a Younger Actor: Carrie Henn
Best Science Fiction Film
Best Special Effects: Stan Winston,
Robert Skotak, Dennis Skotak
Best Supporting Actor: Bill Paxton
Best Supporting Actress: Jenette Goldstein
Best Writing: James Cameron
BAFTA Awards
1987 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Special Visual Effects: Robert Skotak,
Brian Johnson, John Richardson, Stan Winston
Hugo Awards
1987 Won Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation
Kinema Junpo Awards
1987 Won Readers' Choice Award Best Foreign Language Film: James Cameron
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA
1987 Won Golden Reel Award Best Sound Editing - Foreign Feature
Critics Praise
"...A flaming, flashing, crashing, crackling blow-em-up show that keeps you popping from your seat.... Weaver is a one-woman army..."
New York Times
"...Technically, the film is superior in all respects. Special effects are varied and always convincing..."
Variety
"...Canny, ironically funny and certainly successful when Weaver's around....Aliens is a perfectly honorable sequel, taut, inexorably paced..."
Los Angeles Times
"...The way the film manages to sustain its high-octane power, while never compromising on its quiet, personal moments, is just incredible...."
Beyond Hollywood
"...With intensity that builds to a fever pitch, Aliens is a true rollercoaster ride that only accelerates to white knuckle proportions right up until the cataclysmic ending....."
Quipster
Aliens Visuals
The two images below are from scenes where the camera pans up or down, but you never see that visual as a whole. I imported multiple frames of those scenes and using layers/merging in Photoshop, you can now see that visual as a whole.
Aliens Soundtrack
Song Listing
01. Main Title
02. Bad Dreams
03. Dark Discovery
04. LV-426
05. Combat Drop
06. Complex, The
07. Atmosphere Station
08. Med. Lab
09. Newt
10. Sub-Level 3
11. Ripley's Rescue
12. FaceHuggers
13. Futile Escape
14. Newt Is Taken
15. Going After Newt
16. Queen, The
17. Bishop's Countdown
18. Queen To Bishop
19. Resolution And Hyperspace
20. Bad Dreams
21. Ripley's Rescue
22. LV-426 (Film Version)
23. Combat Drop
24. Hyperspace
Composed, Conducted, and Produced by: James Horner