Dan O'Bannon

Dan O'Bannon

1946-09-30 St. Louis, Missouri, USA 51 Credits

Biography

Daniel Thomas "Dan" O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American screenwriter and director of science fiction and horror films. He is best known for his work on "Alien" (1979), "The Return of the Living Dead" (1985) and "Total Recall" (1990).

Known For

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Complete Filmography

The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault

The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault

2025

as Self

Acting

THE AGFA MYSTERY MIXTAPE VAULT is a 2-disc, 500-minute odyssey that collects eight feature-length VHS mixtapes from the crackpots at AGFA—including tw...

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus

2024

Characters

7.2

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in ...

AGFA MYSTERY MIXTAPE #1

AGFA MYSTERY MIXTAPE #1

2020

as Self

8.0
Acting

Unleashed from the video vaults of the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), AGFA MYSTERY MIXTAPE #1 is a brand new compilation of the most electrifying...

Alien: Specimen

Alien: Specimen

2019

Characters

6.1

During the night shift in a colony greenhouse, a botanist does her best to contain suspicious soil samples that have alarmed her sensitive lab dog.

Alien: Ore

Alien: Ore

2019

Characters

6.2

When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony is forced to choose...

Alien: Containment

Alien: Containment

2019

Characters

6.1

Aboard a small escape pod, four survivors try to discover what caused the destruction of their spaceship.

Alien: Alone

Alien: Alone

2019

Characters

6.3

An abandoned crew member aboard a derelict chemical hauler is trying to keep her ship and herself alive. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it ...

Alien: Night Shift

Alien: Night Shift

2019

Characters

6.1

When a missing space trucker is discovered hungover and disoriented, his co-worker suggests a nightcap as a remedy. Near closing time, they are reluct...

Alien: Harvest

Alien: Harvest

2019

Characters

6.5

The surviving crew of a damaged space harvester has a motion sensor as their only navigation tool leading them to safety, while a creature in the shad...

Memory: The Origins of Alien

Memory: The Origins of Alien

2019

as Self (archival footage)

6.3
Acting

The untold origin story behind Ridley Scott's Alien - rooted in Greek and Egyptian mythologies, underground comics, the art of Francis Bacon, and the ...

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

2017

Characters

6.2

The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise but ...

Shock Value: The Movie — How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror

2014

Writer

Writing

Image Archive archivist Dino Everett assembled a feature-length compilation of SCA student works from the late ’60s and ’70s. The compilation feature...

Jodorowsky's Dune

Jodorowsky's Dune

2013

as Self (voice) (archive footage)

7.8
Acting

Shot in France, England, Switzerland and the United States, this documentary covers director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangr...

Total Recall

Total Recall

2012

Screenstory

6.0
Writing

Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure...

Prometheus

Prometheus

2012

Characters

6.6

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they ...

More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead

More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead

2011

as Himself

7.6
Acting

Retrospective documentary about the making of the horror cult classic "The Return of the Living Dead."

Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star

Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star

2010

as Himself (Archival Footage)

4.6
Acting

Exploring the controversial story behind John Carpenter (Halloween & The Thing) and writer Dan O Bannon's (Alien & Return of the Living Dead) from fir...

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

2007

Characters

5.2

After a horrifying PredAlien crash-lands near a small Colorado town, killing everyone it encounters and producing countless Alien offspring, a lone Pr...

Vision of a Future Passed: The Prophecy of 2001

Vision of a Future Passed: The Prophecy of 2001

2007

as Self

6.0
Acting

This documentary about "2001: A Space Odyssey" looks at some of the things that seemed fanciful in 1968, which don't seem quite as much anymore.

In Search of Moebius

In Search of Moebius

2007

as Himself

10.0
Acting

Documentary about Frenchman Jean Giraud, one of the most influential comic strip illustrators and authors of all time and also one of the genre's best...

Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures

Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures

2007

as Self

6.6
Acting

French artist and author Jean Giraud is one of the most famous and influential comic strip illustrators and authors of all time. He achieved his great...

Ride with the Angels: Making 'Blue Thunder'

2006

as Self

Acting

Making of 'Blue Thunder'

AVP: Alien vs. Predator

AVP: Alien vs. Predator

2004

Characters, Screenstory

5.9
Writing

When scientists discover something near Antarctica that appears to be a buried Pyramid, they send a research team out to investigate. Little do they k...

The Beast Within: Making Alien

The Beast Within: Making Alien

2003

as Self

8.2
Acting

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Alien,” the terrifying classic about a spaceship crew trapped with a hideous monster that's hunting them on...

Dan O'Bannon: Crafting Fear

Dan O'Bannon: Crafting Fear

2003

Acting

Documentary about Dead & Buried.

The Alien Saga

The Alien Saga

2002

as Self

6.6
Acting

In 1979, Alien burst onto the scene with a strong female lead in the form of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) battling the ultimate biomechanical creature. T...

Return of the Living Dead: Designing the Dead

Return of the Living Dead: Designing the Dead

2002

as Self

Acting
The Alien Legacy

The Alien Legacy

1999

as Self

6.9
Acting

A behind the scenes look at the making of 'Alien'

Alien Resurrection

Alien Resurrection

1997

Characters

6.2

Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises...

Bleeders

Bleeders

1997

Writer

4.4
Writing

A man with an unknown disease travels to an island with his girlfriend where his relatives once lived, hoping to find a cure to his illness. Although ...

Area 51: The Alien Interview

1997

as Alien Interviewer

3.5
Acting

A documentary about aliens and UFOs with re-enactments of alien interviews and video of a supposedly real video of an alien being interviewed by gover...

Screamers

Screamers

1995

Screenplay

6.2
Writing

SIRIUS 6B, Year 2078. On a distant mining planet ravaged by a decade of war, scientists have created the perfect weapon: a blade-wielding, self-replic...

Alien³

Alien³

1992

Characters

6.4

After escaping with Newt and Hicks from the alien planet, Ripley crash lands on Fiorina 161, a prison planet and host to a correctional facility. Unfo...

The Resurrected

The Resurrected

1991

Director

6.1
Directing

Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.

Total Recall

Total Recall

1990

Screenplay, Screenstory

7.3
Writing

Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Recall, a company that manufactures memories. When his memory im...

Aliens

Aliens

1986

Characters

8.0

Ripley, the sole survivor of the Nostromo's deadly encounter with the monstrous Alien, returns to Earth after drifting through space in hypersleep for...

Invaders from Mars

Invaders from Mars

1986

Screenplay

5.5
Writing

In this remake of the classic 1950s sci-fi tale, a boy tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his...

Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

1986

as Self

7.0
Acting

Actors, directors and special effects technicians are interviewed at a horror-film convention.

Lifeforce

Lifeforce

1985

Screenplay

6.2
Writing

A space shuttle mission investigating Halley's Comet brings back a malevolent race of space vampires who transform most of London's population into zo...

The Return of the Living Dead

The Return of the Living Dead

1985

Director, Screenplay

7.2
Directing Writing

When foreman Frank shows new employee Freddy a secret military experiment in a supply warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, the two klutzes accidentally ...

Blue Thunder

Blue Thunder

1983

Screenplay

6.2
Writing

Los Angeles, California. Officer Murphy, a veteran Metropolitan Police helicopter pilot suffering from severe trauma due to his harsh experiences duri...

Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal

1981

Original Story, Story

6.5
Writing

The embodiment of ultimate evil, a glowing orb terrorizes a young girl with bizarre stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.

Dead & Buried

Dead & Buried

1981

Screenplay

6.4
Writing

After a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses appear to be coming back to life and living norm...

Alien

Alien

1979

Story, Screenplay

8.2
Writing

During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew...

Dark Star

Dark Star

1974

as Sgt. Pinback alias Bill Fruge

5.9
Acting

A group of scientists are sent on a mission to destroy unstable planets. Twenty years into their mission, they have to battle their alien mascot as we...

Dark Star

Dark Star

1974

Special Effects, Screenplay, Editor

5.9
Writing

A group of scientists are sent on a mission to destroy unstable planets. Twenty years into their mission, they have to battle their alien mascot as we...

Judson's Release

Judson's Release

1971

as Breather

Acting

Dan O’Bannon stars in one of the first iterations of the classic "the babysitter and the man upstairs" urban legend that would go on to influence such...

Blood Bath

Blood Bath

1969

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

A disturbed man makes a few terrible decisions that lead to an unexpected bath.

Good Morning, Dan

Good Morning, Dan

1968

Acting

Set in the future of 2006, an old man forced into a daily routine by an automated system reminisces about his younger years.

Good Morning, Dan

Good Morning, Dan

1968

Writer, Editor, Director

Writing Directing

Set in the future of 2006, an old man forced into a daily routine by an automated system reminisces about his younger years.

Untitled Alien: Romulus Sequel

N/A

Characters

In a dangerous post-apocalyptic world, Rain and her android companion Andy venture into unknown regions while facing deadly threats and uncovering sin...