Alien currently dominates Alien: Covenant 79–21

The Verdict Director's Cut

The chestburster scene works because nothing before it suggests the film is capable of that level of violence — the Nostromo crew eating dinner, Hurt coughing, and then the most visceral five seconds in sci-fi history. Covenant's violence arrives on schedule. You know the xenomorph cycle by now, the film knows you know, and that mutual awareness drains the tension. Scott returning to his own franchise thirty-eight years later is a director competing against his younger self's capacity for surprise, and at 79 to 21 the younger self wins by a landslide. Covenant has Fassbender playing two androids at once. Alien has a cat surviving a spaceship. The cat wins.