The Predator movie franchise is one of the most iconic in science fiction cinema.
Alongside the Xenomorphs in the Alien franchise, the Predator species – known as the 'Yautja' – are among the most recognisable otherworldly beings ever to grace the silver screen.
Ruthless, relentless killing machines who hunt for sport, their brutality is matched only by how downright cool they look, with futuristic alien technology and dreadlock-like hair.
As if to make the point as to how amazing these alien warriors are, their 'dreads' are not hair in the way we humans would understand it, but sensory organs that form a key part of their anatomy.
Oh, and the Predators' facial armour is pretty badass, too.
As we await the latest instalments in the Predator franchise – animated movie Killer of Killers and upcoming theatrical release Predator: Badlands – let's have a quick recap of the Predator franchise.
This is how to watch the Predator movies in chronological order.
Chronological order
- Prey (2022)
- Predator (1987)
- Predator 2 (1990)
- Alien vs. Predator (2004)
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
- Predators (2010)
- The Predator (2018)
Release date
- Predator (1987)
- Predator 2 (1990)
- Alien vs. Predator (2004)
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
- Predators (2010)
- The Predator (2018)
- Prey (2022)
Prey
- Release year: 2022
- Director: Dan Trachtenberg
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One of the most recent Predator films in terms of release date, Prey is thus far the earliest story in franchise, chronologically speaking.
This Predator prequel is set in 1719 in the Northern Great Plains of America. Prey follows Naru, a young Comanche warrior attempting to prove herself as a worthy hunter in a tribe where she is expected to take on more 'traditional' roles. When an invisible presence begins slaughtering both animals and humans in brutal fashion, Naru suspects this is not the work of any ordinary predator.
The hunter wreaking havoc on Naru's homeland is – you guessed it – a Yautja armed with advanced, alien technology and a thirst for bloodsport. This alien predator is here to test its hunting skills against Earth’s most dangerous species, and now Naru must rely on her wits, tracking skills and deep knowledge of her home environment to confront the alien menace.
So many movie franchises draw out sequel after sequel of duds, never quite matching the excitement and originality of the much-loved original. Prey is one of those sequels that stands up brilliantly on its own and reminds you why you loved the original in the first place. Like Alien: Romulus, this is a back-to-basics Predator movie, yet set in an entirely different environment and era in humanity's history. The movie's success lies in its subtlety, emphasising suspense and survival over spectacle.
Prey being set in the early 18th century, in what would eventually become North America, is a nice touch. We know the Predator species has hunted humanity throughout history, so imagining how it would have fared against our best hunters over 300 years ago is an intriguing thought experiment, and leaves us wondering what other periods in history would work well in a Predator movie (something the Killer of Killers movie is going to delve into).
This is all tied together with a provoking subtext on the colonisation of North America by British and French forces. Who, at the end of the day, is more of a threat to Naru and her tribe? A fellow – albeit alien – hunter, or the might of two empires?
Verdict: A smart, suspenseful prequel that honours the spirit of the original while carving its own path, Prey is the best Predator film of recent times.
Predator
- Release year: 1987
- Director: John McTiernan
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As the first of the Predator movies to be released, this is the one that introduced audiences to the brutality and technological prowess of one of humanity's greatest foes.
In the jungles of Central America, a team of elite commandos led by Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent on a mission to retrieve hostages being held by guerrilla forces. The mission takes a terrifying turn when the team realise they're being hunted not by soldiers, but by an unseen, deadly enemy. One by one, the soldiers are picked off until only Dutch remains.
In the first half of the movie, we're teased with tidbits of information as to what this strange creature is. It's invisible. It uses the treetops to move around the jungle. Its blood is bright green. It's a formidable hunter. What's more, we're introduced to the Predator via a POV perspective that shows off its now iconic heat-seeking vision. These POV segments, a long with the eerie clicking and rattling of the Yautja's vocals that accompany them, have become one of the cinematic hallmarks of the whole franchise.
We learn the Yautja hunts for fun, and that it's very good at it. His team whittled down to one, it's up to Dutch to face the alien hunter alone, in the hope that he might live to tell the tale.
Predator is a genre-defining classic with the unmistakable aesthetic of an '80s action movie, but with real thought and intelligence behind it. Directed by John McTiernan of Die Hard fame, anyone who sat down to watch the movie without knowing the overall plot might initially mistake it as a simple 'US military vs South American guerillas' shoot-em-up. But once the Predator action kicks in, it becomes clear the movie is going be much more than we bargained for.
The first to introduce the tropes we know and love, the first to introduce us to the amazing Predator aesthetic, and with some of the most recognisable lines of Arnie's career ("if it bleeds, we can kill"; "get to the chopper!"), if you haven't seen it yet, where have you been?
Verdict: A landmark sci-fi action film that still holds up, Predator mixes testosterone-fuelled thrills with genuine tension and unforgettable monster design. It launched a franchise and a legend.
Predator 2
- Release year: 1990
- Director: Stephen Hopkins
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The much anticipated sequel to Predator moves the action from the jungle of Central America to the concrete jungle of downtown Los Angeles. Released in 1990, the action takes us just slightly into the future, in the year 1997, when L.A. is facing both a heatwave and a violent crime wave.
LAPD Lieutenant Mike Harrigan is played by Danny Glover, who takes the lead role in Predator 2 off the back of his appearance in 1987's Lethal Weapon. Harrigan is investigating a string of grisly murders, but it seems the killings are too savage to be the work of local gangs. Victims are found skinned and hung upside down. Sound familiar?
Harrigan uncovers a secretive government task force led by Special Agent Keyes, played by the ever-energetic Gary Busey, that's secretly tracking the extraterrestrial hunter. The Predator, hunting purely for sport and indifferent to humanity's ongoing conflicts, is targeting criminals and armed police officers in equal fashion. Harrigan gets closer to the truth, and eventually must confront the Yautja in a final battle that gives audiences a few teasers as to who these extra-terrestrial warriors really are.
Predator 2 is an ambitious sequel that clearly attempts to mark itself from the original, and the prospect of moving the action onto the streets of L.A. must have been a real draw for audiences at the time. While the return of the Predator's heat vision and other familiar tropes are a welcome sight, the movie does fail to capture the excitement of the original.
Yet Danny Glover is a more grounded, everyman lead compared to Schwarzenegger’s super-soldier, making the Predator’s threat feel even greater than before. We, the audience are left wondering how on Earth Glover's character will be able to do this on his own.
One of Predator 2's most celebrated scenes is the now iconic glimpse of the Predator’s trophy case, which includes two notable easter eggs: a 1715 pistol (retrospectively nodded to as the same gun used by Naru at the end of Prey), and a Xenomorph skull, indicating we're in the same Universe as the Alien franchise.
Perhaps one key criticism of the film could be that it doesn't quite manage any real political or social subtext, given its police-vs-armed-gangs subplot, in the same way Prey addresses the historical conquering of North America by European forces.
Verdict: Gritty, bold and darker than its predecessor, Predator 2 doesn’t reach the original’s heights but offers a worthy expansion of the mythos and some memorable thrills.
Alien vs. Predator
- Release year: 2004
- Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
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Alien and Predator fans finally got the mother of all crossovers with the release of Alien vs. Predator, after what felt like a lifetime of teasers and stop-starts before the two extra-terrestrial foes would finally meet in a feature-length movie. And this movie went heavy on the crossover, attempting to tie a single story into both franchises' timelines.
Alien vs. Predator begins when billionaire industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland – of Weyland-Yutani fame, naturally – funds an expedition to Antarctica after satellites detect a heat signature beneath the ice. Scientists, archaeologists and mercenaries join forces to investigate, and find a buried pyramid below the surface.
Inside the pyramid, they discover the structure is a training arena for young Predators, who come to Earth to hunt Xenomorphs as cultural a rite of passage. The inevitable happens: the human explorers accidentally awaken a Xenomorph queen, who promptly begins spewing out face-huggers, leading to a Xenomorph infestation. The expedition guide teams up with one of the remaining Predators, and both must work together if they are to make it out alive.
Alien vs. Predator delivers on its core promise: pitting two of sci-fi’s most iconic monsters against each other. There's a strong production feel to this one, making it more of a high-budget affair than the first two movies. The ancient pyramid aesthetic works well too, and there's a good amount of time paid to each of the alien characters' central tropes.
Action sequences are suitably entertaining and inventive, but there's no real standout performance from the cast. In essence, it feels like much of the script, the time and energy went instead into the Xenomorph and Yautja elements. Which, of course, is ultimately no bad thing.
Verdict: Not going to win any awards for its performances, but nevertheless this is an entertaining romp that ticks most – if not all – of the Xenomorph/Predator boxes.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
- Release year: 2007
- Director: The Brothers Strause
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After Alien vs. Predator and its isolated, pyramid setting, where next could the AVP franchise go? Modern-day Earth, of course. Or more precisely, small-town America.
We pick up immediately after the events of AVP, when a Yautja spacecraft carrying Xenomorph face-hugger specimens and a hybrid Predator-Xenomorph creature – a 'Predalien' – crash-lands in the forests of Gunnison, Colorado. The alien organisms escape and venture into the nearby town, infecting and killing the local population.
A lone, elite Predator is dispatched from his home planet to contain the outbreak and erase all evidence of the infestation. As the Xenomorphs spread through the town, the Predator hunts them down. The human story comes in the form of ex-convict Dallas and military veteran Kelly, who form an unlikely partnership and attempt to defuse the escalating carnage. All the while, the US military is preparing a drastic countermeasure that's sure to wipe out the Xenomorphs and Predator (and anything in the surrounding area) for good.
Requiem feels like a major up-the-ante from the first Alien vs. Predator movie, with more action and creature-on-creature battle sequences. The threat of total world domination by the Xenomorphs gives this a more realistic feel than the first movie, and there are some nice set pieces that provide a good amount of tension. While the first Alien vs. Predator movie saw young, inexperienced Yautja battle the Xenomorphs, there's something satisfying about seeing a more experienced member of the species taking them on.
Verdict: A decent amount of alien carnage makes this an entertaining movie from start to finish, but like the first AVP, it's unlikely to be remembered as a classic work of cinema.
Predators
- Release year: 2010
- Director: Nimród Antal
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Perhaps the crossovers and pyramid sub plots of the AVP movies were felt to be muddying the narrative waters of the Predator franchise too much, because 2010's Predators is very much an attempted return – in both title and aesthetic – to the clean, single focus of the original. Once again, we revisit the cat-and-mouse premise of 1987's Predator, but this time the jungle isn't on Earth.
Adrien Brody plays mercenary Royce, who parachutes into a dense alien jungle and discovers he's not alone. Other elite fighters have been similarly plonked upon this strange planet, and no-one knows how they got there. Instinct kicks in when the group realise they've been abducted by a clan of Yautja and are effectively prey in an alien game reserve. Like the original movie, the crew are picked off one by one, leading to a human vs Predator finale.
This is very much a spiritual successor to the 1987 original, but innovation comes in the shape of its alien world setting, allowing for new creature designs and a more mysterious backdrop. The film introduces a new Predator hierarchy, including 'super Predators', further adding to the Yautja lore. While it's not clear exactly when the movie takes place, Predators is generally considered to slot between the end of AVP: Requiem and 2018's The Predator.
Verdict: A back-to-basics human-vs-Predator movie, but without the grace and imagination we would see in Prey over a decade later. Nevertheless, many fans might argue this is one of the best entries in the franchise since the original.
The Predator
- Release year: 2018
- Director: Shane Black
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2018's The Predator is yet another reboot of the franchise, aiming to capture the imaginations of fans and put the series back on firm footing. A Predator ship crash-lands on Earth during a military operation (here we go again). Army sniper Quinn McKenna survives the encounter and manages to steal a gun from the so-called Fugitive Predator, which he mails to his estranged family for safekeeping.
The Fugitive Predator is captured by government agents and taken to a lab for study, but soon breaks out and sets off to find his missing equipment. Meanwhile, a Yautja known among fans as the Upgrade Predator arrives on Earth in pursuit of the Fugitive. Now it's up to this lone Yautja and humanity's best warriors to save planet Earth from alien invasion.
There are some ambitious, innovative ideas here; notably that the Fugitive Predator might have altruistic motives with humanity's survival in mind. The introduction of the Upgrade Predator is a nice addition to the lore, too, but fans may be left frustrated at the movie's occasional attempts at wisecracking comedy, which kills the tension somewhat.
This is an energetic, fast-moving sequel with interesting design and a lot to keep fans contemplating long after the end credits.
Verdict: A bold vision, let down by tonal inconsistency, The Predator is worth a watch if you happen upon a late-night TV screening. It would be 2022 before fans got the Predator movie they deserved, in the shape of Prey.
Where Killer of Killers and Badlands fit in
Predator: Killer of Killers is a new animated movie set in the Predator universe that will be released on streaming services, Friday 6 June 2025.
An anthology story, it follows Yautja battles with a Viking raider, a ninja in feudal Japan and a WWII pilot. The inclusion of the Viking and feudal Japan stories puts Killer of Killers before Prey in the timeline, making it the first chronological instalment in the Predator franchise.
Predator: Badlands is set on a remote planet far in the future, making it the most recent movie in the franchise, both in terms of release and chronology in the timeline. It follows a young Predator outcast who teams up with human Thia in search of the ultimate adversary.
It's set to be released globally into theatres on 7 November 2025.
