Ellen Ripley

Ellen Ripley first appears as a warrant officer aboard the commercial towing vessel Nostromo, where she serves as the second-in-command to Captain Dallas. Calm, methodical, and adhering strictly to company protocol, she initially comes across as a by-the-book professional whose decisions often place her at odds with the android Science Officer Ash. Her investigation of the derelict spacecraft on LV-426 and her encounter with the parasitic Xenomorph transforms her from a working-class space trucker into a relentless survivor. She is the sole crew member to escape the Nostromo's destruction, adrift in an escape shuttle for fifty-seven years before being recovered.

Rescued and grilled by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, Ripley refuses to authorize a return mission to LV-426, knowing the lethal truth of what lies within the alien hive. The destruction of the Hadley's Hope colony and the loss of a squad of Colonial Marines on the same planet ultimately forces her back into the fray. Now a civilian advisor rather than a soldier, she develops a fierce protective bond with Newt, the orphaned child survivor, channeling her grief over the loss of her own daughter into a maternal ferocity. Her confrontation with the towering Alien Queen in the colony's hive is one of cinema's most iconic moments of survival horror, fought with raw courage and an exosuit loader.