James Cameron's Near-Perfect Sci-Fi Epic Is Officially Streaming on Netflix

Following one of the most acclaimed science-fiction movies ever made would be intimidating for almost any filmmaker, but James Cameron didn't try to replicate what Ridley Scott had accomplished with Alien. Instead, the filmmaker behind The Terminator turned its sequel into something bigger, louder and more action-oriented.

The result was 1986's Aliens, a rare sequel that is routinely mentioned alongside — and sometimes even above — its predecessor. Four decades after its theatrical release, Aliens has found another streaming home, and it officially landed on Netflix in the United States on September 1 alongside Scott's original Alien, allowing subscribers to watch the first two chapters of Ellen Ripley's story back-to-back.

Aliens picks up decades after the events aboard the Nostromo, when Ripley is finally rescued from hypersleep and returns to civilization. After learning that humans have established a colony on LV-426, the same world where her crew first encountered the Xenomorph, Ripley reluctantly agrees to accompany a squad of Colonial Marines there after contact with the settlement is suddenly lost.

The cast is led by Sigourney Weaver (Avatar) as Ellen Ripley, alongside Michael Biehn (The Terminator) as Corporal Dwayne Hicks, Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, Paul Reiser (Stranger Things) as Carter Burke, Lance Henriksen (The Terminator) as Bishop, Bill Paxton (Twister) as Private William Hudson, Jenette Goldstein (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) as Private Jenette Vasquez, and William Hope (Captain America: The First Avenger) as Lieutenant Gorman.

'Aliens' Became One of the Greatest Sequels Ever Made

As we all know, Cameron inherited Ridley Scott's Alien and turned its sequel into a much bigger, louder and bombastic kind of movie without just trying to be a retread of what came before it. Speaking to Collider, Biehn explained that he believes Cameron achieved something monumental with Aliens.

“He did two sequels. He did T2, and he did Aliens. People will argue until I’m gone, well gone and in the grave, about which is a better movie, Alien or Aliens, and Terminator or Terminator 2. But I can tell you one thing: it’s very hard to follow Jim Cameron. [David] Fincher had to do it with Aliens, and then somebody else had to do it for the third Terminator, and it’s just not the same to have expectations that somebody else is going to write something, and they’re going to direct it. People talk about, ‘Well, this guy didn’t play a very good Kyle Reese.’ He didn’t have Jim Cameron writing Kyle Reese. He didn’t have Jim Cameron creating it. That actor who played Kyle Reese didn’t have the words that I got to say.”

Aliens is streaming on Netflix, fuboTV, Philo and YouTube TV.