The Yautja, known as Predators, are alien hunters who visit Earth and other worlds for sport, taking skulls as trophies and honouring prey that can beat them. The films jump through history, from a Comanche warrior in 1719 to Vikings, samurai and a WWII pilot, a jungle rescue team in 1987, Los Angeles in 1997 and a game preserve planet. Predator: Badlands turns to the Yautja themselves: the young runt Dek kills his father and takes his place, as his mother's clan arrives.
- Recapped
- 9
- Watch time saved
- 15 hours
- Latest
- 2025
No. 01 · 1987 · Film
Predator recap
Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer leads a team of elite commandos into the jungle of Val Verde to rescue a cabinet minister from guerrillas, with his old friend Dillon, now with the CIA, along for the ride. They find the skinned bodies of a Green Beret team hanging from a tree. The team wipes out the guerrilla camp, and Dutch learns Dillon lied: the mission was to recover intelligence, not hostages. They take a prisoner, Anna, and head for the extraction point. Something invisible is stalking them, picking the men off one by one: Blain, then Mac, then Dillon, Billy and Poncho. Anna tells them of a demon that comes in the hottest years and takes men's skins. Dutch sends Anna to the helicopter and runs, falling into a river.
How Predator ends
Covered in cold mud, Dutch discovers the hunter cannot see him through its heat vision. He builds traps and fights it at night, and when the Predator unmasks to face him hand to hand, Dutch crushes it with a log trap. Dying, it sets off a self-destruct device and laughs. Dutch runs, survives the huge blast, and is picked up by the rescue helicopter.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 02 · 1990 · Film
Predator 2 recap
In 1997, Los Angeles is sweltering in a heat wave and a drug war between Colombian and Jamaican gangs. Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, who ignores orders, finds the gangs slaughtered and skinned by an unseen killer, and is told to keep away by a federal team led by Peter Keyes. The killer, a Predator, attacks the Jamaican boss, and Harrigan's partner Danny is killed on a rooftop. On a subway train, the Predator kills passengers carrying weapons but spares Harrigan's colleague Leona because she is pregnant. Keyes reveals his team has been tracking the creature since the jungle mission ten years earlier, and wants to capture it alive in a slaughterhouse. The Predator kills the team, and Harrigan chases it across the city.
How Predator 2 ends
Harrigan follows the wounded Predator to its ship under the city and kills it with its own disc. Other Predators appear, carry away the body and honour Harrigan by giving him an old flintlock pistol inscribed 1715. They leave, and the ship's take-off nearly kills him. The only surviving federal agent arrives, angry that the creature got away.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 03 · 2004 · Film · optional
Alien vs. Predator recap
In 2004, a Weyland Industries satellite detects a heat signature under the ice of Bouvetoya, an island near Antarctica. Billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland gathers a team, including the guide Alexa "Lex" Woods and archaeologist Sebastian, and they find a pyramid that combines Aztec, Egyptian and Cambodian styles. Three young Predators land at the same time. The pyramid is a hunting ground: for thousands of years Predators have come to fight aliens bred from humans as a rite of passage, and an Alien Queen is held frozen below. Humans who enter are used as hosts, and the chambers shift every ten minutes. Two Predators are killed by the aliens, and Weyland dies trying to stop the third.
How Alien vs. Predator ends
Lex teams up with the last Predator, Scar, who makes her a spear and shield from an alien's skull and tail. They blow up the pyramid and escape to the surface, where the freed Queen attacks them. They sink her into the sea, but Scar is mortally wounded. The Predators appear, honour Lex and take Scar's body. On their ship, an alien bursts from his chest: a hybrid Predalien.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 04 · 2007 · Film · optional
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem recap
The Predalien born at the end of Alien vs. Predator kills the Predators on their ship, which crashes in the woods near Gunnison, Colorado. Facehuggers escape and the Predalien begins impregnating townspeople. A veteran Predator, Wolf, sets out from the homeworld to clean up, using acid to erase every sign of the creatures and killing anyone who sees him. In town, Dallas, just back from prison, reconnects with his brother Ricky, and soldier Kelly comes home to her daughter. As the aliens overrun Gunnison, the survivors gather with Sheriff Morales and learn the military plans to evacuate the town centre. Kelly suspects the evacuation is a trap.
How Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem ends
The survivors head for a helicopter on a hospital roof as the military drops a nuclear bomb on the town. Wolf and the Predalien fight to a standstill, and the blast destroys them, the aliens and everyone left behind. The survivors escape and are taken by soldiers. Colonel Stevens brings Wolf's plasma cannon to a woman called Ms. Yutani.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 05 · 2010 · Film
Predators recap
Royce, a mercenary, wakes up falling through the sky and lands in a jungle with other killers dropped the same way: Isabelle, an Israeli sniper; Cuchillo, a cartel enforcer; Nikolai, a Russian soldier; Mombasa, from a Sierra Leone death squad; Stans, a death-row inmate; Hanzo, a yakuza enforcer; and Edwin, a quiet doctor. They realise they are on another planet, a game preserve where Predators hunt the most dangerous prey. They find Noland, a soldier who has survived there for years, who tells them about a feud between two Predator tribes and a captive Predator of the older kind. Noland betrays them and is killed, and the group is whittled down. Royce frees the captive, hoping it will fly them home.
How Predators ends
The freed Predator is killed by its rival, and the ship leaves without them. Edwin turns out to be a serial killer who paralyses Isabelle; Royce kills him and fights the last Predator, distracting it with fire and beheading it. As Royce and Isabelle wait for whatever comes next, more parachutes fall from the sky with new prey.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 06 · 2018 · Film
The Predator recap
Army sniper Quinn McKenna sees a Predator ship crash in Mexico and mails pieces of its armour to his PO box before the government arrests him. His son Rory, who is autistic, opens the package and activates the gear. Quinn is put on a bus with a group of traumatised soldiers, the Loonies, who help him escape after the captured Predator breaks out of a lab run by the agent Traeger. Biologist Casey Bracket joins them. The Predators have been adding human DNA to make themselves stronger, and a giant Upgrade Predator arrives to hunt the fugitive, which had come to Earth to deliver a gift to humanity. The Upgrade kills the fugitive and takes Rory to draw out his father.
How The Predator ends
Quinn and the Loonies fight the Upgrade in the woods; most of the Loonies die, and Quinn and Casey finally kill it. Traeger is killed. Afterward the government opens the fugitive's pod and finds its gift: a suit of armour designed for humans, which a scientist calls the Predator Killer, with Quinn and Rory there to see it.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 07 · 2022 · Film
Prey recap
In 1719, Naru, a young Comanche woman, wants to prove herself a hunter like her brother Taabe, but the tribe sees her as a healer. She notices strange signs in the sky and in the land, and believes a new threat has arrived. A Predator has landed and is working its way up the food chain, killing a snake, wolves and a bear. Naru's first attempts fail and her people doubt her. She is captured by French fur trappers, who have slaughtered buffalo and use Naru and Taabe as bait for the creature. The Predator massacres the trappers, and Naru learns from watching it: it targets only what it sees as a threat, and a plant she uses to cool the body hides her from it.
How Prey ends
Taabe dies fighting the Predator. Naru lures it to the bog where she nearly drowned, tricks it into aiming its own targeting weapon at itself, and kills it, taking its head. She returns to her tribe with the skull and the pistol of a trapper, Raphael Adolini, and the tribe, who doubted her, now honour her as a warrior. Knowing the trappers' people are coming, the tribe prepare to move on.
Post-credits scenes
The end credits are drawn in the style of Comanche ledger art, retelling the story and ending with three Predator ships descending toward the tribe.
No. 08 · 2025 · Film · optional
Predator: Killer of Killers recap
This animated anthology tells three stories of warriors who killed a Predator. In "The Shield", set in Karelia in 841, the Viking Ursa takes her son Anders on a raid to avenge her father against the warlord Zoran, and after the battle a Predator ambushes her clan; she kills it in an underwater fight, but Anders dies in her arms. In "The Sword", set in Japan in 1609, Kenji, exiled after his brother Kiyoshi scarred him in a duel for their father's succession, returns as a shinobi twenty years later for revenge; a Predator attacks the castle, and the brothers kill it together before Kiyoshi dies. In "The Bullet", a mechanic, John J. Torres, becomes a Navy fighter pilot in 1942 and destroys a Predator ship in the air over North Africa; after the war, he is abducted from his garage.
How Predator: Killer of Killers ends
Ursa, Kenji and Torres wake on a Predator ship, are fitted with explosive collars and forced to fight in an arena for the Grendel King. They team up instead, kill a monster and badly wound the King. Kenji loses an arm, and Ursa sacrifices herself so that Torres and Kenji can escape in a ship. Ursa is placed back in suspended animation among other Predator-killers, including Naru from Prey.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 09 · 2025 · Film
Predator: Badlands recap
Dek is a young Yautja, a runt despised by his father Njohrr, the clan leader. Dek plans to prove himself by hunting the Kalisk, an unkillable creature on the deadly planet Genna. Njohrr orders Dek's brother Kwei to kill him; Kwei refuses, helps Dek escape to Genna and is killed by their father. Dek crashes on Genna and loses most of his gear. He teams up with Thia, a Weyland-Yutani android whose legs were torn off by the Kalisk, and carries her on his back. They are joined by Bud, a small creature who helps them. Thia's sister model Tessa leads a company team to capture the Kalisk for its regenerating cells. Dek nearly kills the Kalisk, which spares him after smelling Bud on him, and both are captured by Tessa.
How Predator: Badlands ends
Bud turns out to be the Kalisk's child. Dek escapes, rebuilds his weapons from Genna's wildlife, frees Thia and defeats Tessa with help from the Kalisk and Bud. He returns to Yautja Prime with Tessa's skull, kills his father's guards and defeats Njohrr, and Bud bites off Njohrr's head. A huge Yautja ship arrives, and Dek tells Thia it belongs to his mother.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Common questions
What is the Predator story so far?
The Yautja, known as Predators, are alien hunters who visit Earth and other worlds for sport, taking skulls as trophies and honouring prey that can beat them. The films jump through history, from a Comanche warrior in 1719 to Vikings, samurai and a WWII pilot, a jungle rescue team in 1987, Los Angeles in 1997 and a game preserve planet. Predator: Badlands turns to the Yautja themselves: the young runt Dek kills his father and takes his place, as his mother's clan arrives.
Where did Predator leave off?
Predator: Badlands (2025) is the latest. Bud turns out to be the Kalisk's child. Dek escapes, rebuilds his weapons from Genna's wildlife, frees Thia and defeats Tessa with help from the Kalisk and Bud. He returns to Yautja Prime with Tessa's skull, kills his father's guards and defeats Njohrr, and Bud bites off Njohrr's head. A huge Yautja ship arrives, and Dek tells Thia it belongs to his mother.
Keep reading
Watch order guideHow to watch the Predator movies in order9 titles · 15 hours- Skip guideWhich Predator movies can you skip?3 titles you can skip
Skip guideWhat can you skip in Game of Thrones?2 titles you can skip
RecapChainsaw Man recap: the story so far2 titles recapped
Watch order guideHow to watch the One Piece movies in order8 titles · 498 hours
Skip guideWhich Star Wars movies can you skip?5 titles you can skip