The film's budget was around $15 million. Released in the United States on June 12, 1987, it grossed $98,267,558. Initial critical reaction to Predator was mixed, with criticism focusing on the thin plot. However, in subsequent years critics' attitudes toward the film warmed, and it has appeared on a number of "best of" lists. Two sequels, Predator 2 (1990) and Predators (2010), as well as two crossover films with the Alien franchise, Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), have been produced.
During the opening credits an alien spacecraft passes by Earth and jettisons something which descends into the atmosphere.
Some time later, Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) arrives in an unnamed country with his elite team for an operation to rescue a presidential cabinet minister and his aide who had been abducted by guerrilla forces. Dutch's old military buddy, now working for the CIA, George Dillon (Carl Weathers), steps in as a liaison and joins the team: Mac Eliot (Bill Duke), Blain Cooper (Jesse Ventura), Billy Sole (Sonny Landham), Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez (Richard Chaves), and Rick Hawkins (Shane Black). The team is inserted into the jungle by helicopter and begins its hunt.
They soon find the wreckage of a downed helicopter, and later, the remains of Army Special Forces unit, whose presence in the country mystifies Dutch, and also shocks them that the bodies are found to be hanged and their skin removed. They track the guerillas to a heavily defended rebel encampment which they destroy, except for a woman named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo) whom they take prisoner. Dutch is enraged when Dillon confesses the rescue mission had been a ploy to get his group to attack the camp and that the men they found earlier had disappeared in a failed rescue of two CIA agents. As the team make their way to the extraction point, they are observed from afar by an unknown creature using thermal imaging.
Anna briefly escapes, but when Hawkins catches her, he is seized and dragged off. The nearly invisible creature spares the unarmed Anna. Moments later, while the team is looking for Hawkins' killer, Blain is killed. Mac physically sees the creature and opens fire on it, but it disappears into the jungle. Anna offers the team insight on the creature which is something of a local legend. The team sets a trap, but it avoids capture, severely wounding Poncho in the process. Mac and Dillon are killed in the ensuing chase, and Billy is slain making a stand. The Predator catches up to Dutch and engages in a short shootout during which Poncho is killed. Realizing the creature only attacks those possessing weapons, a wounded Dutch sends Anna unarmed to the extraction point. Jumping off a waterfall, he narrowly escapes the creature by inadvertently masking his body's heat signature with mud and witnesses the Predator's true form when its active camouflage fails in the water. Dutch applies more mud, improvises various weaponry and traps, then baits the Predator into coming out by starting a large fire.
Hearing Dutch's war-cry, the Predator arrives to investigate and eventually traps him. Discarding its electronic weaponry, the alien challenges Dutch to hand-to-hand combat. Battered and barely able to move, Dutch manages to drop the counterweight from one of his traps, which falls and crushes the creature. As Dutch asks the mortally wounded alien what it is, the creature mimics his question in garbled English and then activates a self-destruct mechanism on its wrist device while laughing, gradually increasing its laugh into a human-like pitch. Dutch barely escapes the massive explosion and is later rescued by helicopter along with Anna.
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