Ridley Scott says he made the best Alien movie… and we have to hand it to him.

“I did the best [Alien] by far. Full stop. End of the fucking story,” Scott told Brut. “Then they let it die. After the fourth they killed it. So I sat there thinking: ‘I’m gonna bring it back.’ So I sat down with very good writers and we’ve caught fire… and wrote Prometheus.”

Alien hit theaters in 1979 and became one of the most critically and culturally important sci-fi movies of all time, and would go on to change not only the genre but the art of cinema as a whole. James Cameron taking over for the also-excellent Aliens in 1986, with David Fincher directing 1972’s also-excellent Alien 3. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) helmed Alien: Resurrection in 1997, which became the most controversial of the franchise.

Scott resurrected the Alien franchise in 2012, with Prometheus, with follow-up Alien: Covenant hitting theaters in 2017. Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Alvarez, arrived in 2024 and is regarded as one of the better installments of the franchise (and that’s due in part to the stunning performance given by our new Black Panther David Jonsson).

The filmmaker previously told the LA Times that he was working on a direct follow-up to Covenant, which will see David, the evil, malfunctioning AI, “make a brand new world for himself.”

Scott’s latest release, The Dog Stars, is in theaters now. For more upcoming movies, check out our list of movie release dates.