The Thing Vs Alien Vs The Shining

This is a very interesting proposition. They are all really great films. How can one truly determine which is better than the others? Do we base our classification on scariness alone? Or do we take into account the quality of effects and overall filmmaking technique? Atmosphere? Mood? Etc.

No. Of course not. That would be too boring.

Luckily, we do not have to do that. We can just go along for the ride. Each of these films are excellent in their own particular ways, and there is really no need to rank them in any objective sense.

I rate them all 10/10 but The Thing is my favorite out of these three.

The Thing
The Shining
Alien

1) Alien
2) The Thing
3) The Shining

I adore all 3

1. Alien
2. The Shining
3. The Thing

Special Effects

The Thing 11 - the Thing is in the conversation for best special effects of all time.

Alien 8 - The best alien design of all time. What’s better? ET? And even better, they barely showed it to us. It took years for fans to really know what it looked like.

Shining 6 - better than average.

Writing/Script

The Shining 10 - Like all Kubrick films, people are still trying to figure out the meaning of the movie. Did it expose the moon landing as a hoax? Was he a pedo?

Thing 9 - Again, people still discussing the plot details. Who did what when. Who had it at the end, Childs or MacReady? Why wasn’t Child’s breath visible?

Alien 6 - one of the all time great twists at the the end.

Overall - really close for different reasons.
Thing 8.1
Alien 7.8
Shining 7.7

All are truly great films. Still discussed today. Compare this to todays so-called “successful blockbusters” like Avatar, there’s no plot discussion, no analysis, hell people don’t even know the main characters names.

Alien is the best of the three for sure.

The Thing and The Shining is closer but I'd probably go for The Shining, I find myself rewatching that one more.