This past Friday marks the release of the ninth installment in the “Predator” franchise, “Predator: Badlands.” How does it measure up against the rest of the movies?
Since the original film released in 1987, the Predator has been an enduring piece of popular culture. Even people who have not seen these movies know the idea, they know the look of the Yautja, and they know classic Arnold Schwarzenegger lines like “Get to the chopper.”
While the success of each entry has been fairly consistent, the quality has been anything but. If you include the crossover films with the “Alien” franchise, we have a total of nine movies that we’ll be ranking. Ironically enough, starting with:
9. “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem”
dir. The Brothers Strause, 2007
Starting off this list is a movie you can barely even watch. The bare bones of this movie is a fine idea. The original AVP was a lot of fun, despite some of its weaker parts. An uptick in over-the-top kills and gore does a lot for this sequel and would generally set it above the previous one. However, the basic fundamentals of making a movie are just thrown out. I may be being hyperbolic, but you genuinely cannot see a single thing in this movie. The lighting is so dark that you have to turn your TV’s brightness up just to watch it. Along with that, the editing just gives me a headache; it feels like something thrown together by obligation rather than care. Dumb fun only gets you so far.
8. “The Predator”
dir. Shane Black, 2018
So much about this film should work on paper. Shane Black is a great director who just came off the back of a Marvel film and his best work yet with “The Nice Guys.” The movie has a handful of good actors in Boyd Holdbrook, Olivia Munn, and Sterling K. Brown. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make a movie worth watching. I am just going to go ahead and get the big thing out of the way: the autism representation is abysmal and borderline offensive. On top of that, the way it is worked into the plot as being something the predators wish to siphon from humanity for themselves is just ridiculous. Treating autism as a superpower seems positive on its face, but is harmful and is something the autistic community has criticized Hollywood over for years. Even removing that, the script is terrible and suffers from annoying post-ironic humor like most new Marvel movies. The movie also does not look very good and has poor editing (but hey, at least you can see what’s happening).
7. “AVP: Alien vs. Predator”
dir. Paul W. S. Anderson, 2004
This (and every movie after on the list), I, at the very least, had a good time watching, even if I would not want to again anytime soon. Pitting titans of horror against each other has been a thing since “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” in 1943. Just a year before this film came out, we had “Freddy vs. Jason,” which showed just how profitable this idea could be. While “AVP” was originally a comic book in 1989, “FVJ” lit the fuse to get this movie made. The result? It’s alright. I cannot deny this movie is fun — anytime the titular monsters are fighting each other on screen, I get a dumb smile on my face. It is too bad that it takes so long for this to happen. Not to mention, the whole movie is so bogged down by boring human characters and a bland arctic pyramid saying. That initial shot of the alien and predator facing each other is one for the history books, though.
6. “Predator: Killer of Killers”
dir. Dan Trachtenberg, 2025
Here is where I would start calling the movies a soft good. This is the second of a trilogy of Predator films helmed by Dan Trachtenberg, who might just be doing all of them now. The only thing really wrong with this movie is that there is not much to talk about. It is a fun experiment, but does not leave a strong impression. The animation is a continuation of the beautiful trend started by “Into the Spider-Verse” in 2018. We get three stories set across time, from the Vikings to feudal Japan to World War II. The action is a good time, if not a little repetitive in its structure. Every section features a bit of story for the humans: the predator tracks them, an action scene with no predator, predator bursts in and gets the upper hand, human outsmarts predator and finally human gets captured. There’s also a fun reference to three other predator defeaters at the end.
5. “Predator: Badlands”
dir. Dan Trachtenberg, 2025
Should you spend your money to go see the newest “Predator” installment right now? The best answer I can give is “if you want.” It is not a must-see, but it is still a good time. This is the first film in the franchise to feature a predator as a main character. Dek is considered a weakling Yautja and is ordered to be killed by his father. His brother saves him, being killed himself, and sends Dek to the planet of an unkillable monster called the Kalisk. Along the way, Dek partners up with Elle Fanning playing a cut-in-half android and a small monkey-like creature dubbed Bud. It is a story about found family and toxic masculinity, with honestly a good amount of heart and fun action sequences. So why is it this low? To put it simply, it just does not feel quite like a “Predator” movie. The intense paranoia of being hunted is thrown out the window for a more basic sci-fi action flick. I would not mind more of these, but I need them interspliced with more films like the original or “Prey.”
4. “Predators”
dir. Nimród Antal, 2010
In true “Alien” fashion, we get a bigger sequel with an ‘s’ at the end of the title. It features a lot of similarities to the 1987 film, but with a few bigger predators. Additionally, the cast is insanely stacked here, even though some of these actors were not A-Listers at this point. In just one movie, we have core characters played by Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins and Mahershala freaking Ali. All of the characters here are some of Earth’s worst killers, such as members of U.S. special forces, Mexican cartels, rebel revolutionaries, the IOF and even a serial killer. They were brought to an alien planet to be hunted by a stronger breed of Yautja. It features a lot of classic jungle mayhem, but never quite reaches the heights of the original.
3. “Predator”
dir. John McTiernan, 1987
Nothing quite like the original (except for the two ranked above this one). This is one of the most popular films of the last few decades of pop culture, so I do not need to tell you too much about the plot. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers lead a military rescue mission through the jungle while being hunted by an unknown alien presence. There is so much good here. All the characters are a lot of fun, my personal favorite being Sonny Landham’s Billy Sole. There’s plenty of machismo gunplay to enjoy before we get into the terrifying anxiety of the team slowly being picked off by the predator. That final act is really something. Schwarzenegger ultimately realizes all his guns and muscles are for nothing and has to use his smarts to survive. Please watch this if you haven’t yet, even just to understand the references.
2. “Predator 2”
dir. Stephen Hopkins, 1990
This may be the most controversial entry on the list. Most people would agree the 1987 film or next one on my list is the best of them. While yes, the original is great, I cannot deny how much I love its direct sequel. Not only do we get Danny Glover as our central character as an LAPD officer hunting the predator, but this movie is so ridiculously campy and over-the-top. Taking place seven years after when this movie came out, Los Angeles is overrun by leatherbound, silly-sounding gangs with shootouts almost every day. There is a ‘Voodoo Jamaican Posse’ in the film as well, and just based on that name, you can tell how respectful they are of the culture. Nobody is a real person in this movie, and I love it. It is so cool to move out of the actual jungle into a concrete jungle, providing a whole new fun playground for predator cat and mouse. Almost no shot in the whole franchise can compare to the Yautja being struck by lightning on the clock tower.
1. “Prey”
dir. Dan Trachtenberg, 2022
The apex predator of the franchise. While the more recent Trachtenberg entries have been okay to decent, he came out swinging with his first. “Prey” goes back to basics after the failure of the 2018 film, giving us a stripped-back human vs. predator in a forested area. They do something super interesting this time by making it a period piece focused on another culture. We have seen people shooting at predators forever, but going back to pre-industrial weapons makes the stakes feel even higher. We know a mini gun cannot take one of these guys out, so what is a flintlock pistol or a bow and arrow going to do? (Spoiler alert: not much). The attention to detail when it came to representing the Comanche Nation is stellar. If the studio were smart, they would start making movies that span time and space (and I mean feature-length, not three short stories). While not her first time on the screen, this was Amber Midthunder’s first leading role. She was fantastic, and I am excited to see all the new projects she has lined up now. On top of all this, the Yautja in this movie is the coolest one of all of them. I just love the bone mask — it looks so menacing. If you watch any of the movies on this list, this should be the one.
You can go see “Predator: Badlands” out now in theaters and stream the rest of the franchise on Hulu or Disney+.
