Matthew Percefull
This summer, Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars, his 30th feature film, was released. The film received a mixed reaction and didn’t make much of a splash at the box office. However, it got me thinking about Scott’s filmography and his place as a legendary auteur. Ridley Scott’s name is synonymous with undeniably classic films like Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma and Louise. However, in recent years, his status as an auteur has come under question. Has Scott lost his way as a creative and become a work-for-hire filmmaker, or does his recent output have more to it than we think? It’s certainly been hit-or-miss recently. However, I think his work has a more solid throughline than he gets credit for. All of Ridley Scott’s films deal with harmful, violent worlds and the depths we must sink to survive them. This thread has had an interesting evolution throughout Scott’s modern output.
To understand Ridley Scott in the 21st century, we must first reconsider his early work. Ridley Scott has always been a filmmaker who refused to let any specific genre or movement restrict the types of stories or themes that he pursued. His first two features, The Duelists and Alien, are the perfect encapsulation of his range as an artist. The Duelists is a slow, formal historical epic about the dangers of ambition and the futility of war, while Alien explores workers’ rights and the commodification of women’s bodies through the lens of a creature feature. On the surface, these two films could not be more different, yet they both perfectly display Scott as a master of his craft and a weariness towards the meaningless spectacle that fuels our culture. Both the swordsman of The Duelists and the working-class space crew of Alien are thrust into positions they really have no choice over and must make meaning of otherwise cynical situations.
After his first two successes, Scott continued developing these two sides of his artistic persona: the historical epic and the science fiction thriller. His third feature (and maybe his most influential), Blade Runner, has become a cult classic with a rabid fanbase and is viewed as one of the most important sci-fi films ever made, but it wasn’t always that way. When the film was first released in 1982, it underwhelmed financially and critically. Blade Runner came out amongst a historic cinematic summer alongside blockbusters like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Conan the Barbarian, and was just unable to keep up at the time. The initial disappointment of the film did not deter Ridley Scott from pursuing another genre flick.
Legend, an ambitiously flawed dark fantasy film, would be the director’s next effort and unfortunately another financial flop. Much like Alien and The Duelists, these two films feel like a distinct pair in my mind. Both of these films feature sprawling worlds full of fantastical elements, yet both films still end up in a profoundly hopeful place despite the bleakness that surrounds both narratives. Each ending pulls our characters away from the spectacle that they were stuck in the loop of and forces them to take a look at what’s really important: humanity and connection.
Up to this point, Ridley Scott was largely seen as a fantastical director who made interesting and increasingly expensive films. Eager to show his range as a filmmaker, Scott rattled off a run of varied and competent films that included the neo-noir romance Someone to Watch Over Me, the underrated police action thriller Black Rain, and the celebrated road trip dramedy Thelma & Louise. The latter film would go on to become a huge hit that regained confidence in Scott from both the studios and himself.
In perhaps Scott’s most sentimental film, Thelma & Louise was nothing short of an achievement, a victory that Ridley Scott almost walked away from in fears that the seemingly simple structure of two women in a car wouldn’t fit in with his filmography. The usual spectacle that consumes Scott’s narratives is still here. They just take on a different form. To our titular characters, this road trip may be the closest thing to an adventure they’ll ever experience. Does the scale of it discount their feelings towards it? Ridley Scott and writer Callie Khouri don’t seem to think so.
Despite a great start with Thelma & Louise, Ridley Scott’s 1990s were a rough ride. He returned to the historical epic genre in 1992 with his infamous box-office bomb, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The film is not Scott’s first run-in with a historical tale, though it would be the first time he faced backlash for his lack of historical accuracy, a common complaint that would follow Scott throughout his career. The film flopped so badly that it made earlier financial whiffs like Blade Runner or Legend seem like runaway successes in comparison. I’ve never been too much of a stickler for accuracy when it comes to historical fiction, but even I find Scott’s depiction of Christopher Columbus and his voyage to be particularly egregious. 1492: Conquest of Paradise shows us a sanded-down version of Columbus that was outdated upon release. Scott fails to grapple with the atrocities committed in any meaningful way, opting instead for a classic Hollywood-style epic. Despite looking and sounding great, it never lands anywhere meaningful. It’s quite a shame as the story of Columbus, on paper, fits right at home thematically with Ridley Scott’s earlier work: the story of an ambitious young man who feels entitled to adventure no matter who suffers the consequences, as long as it isn’t him, and a world that enthusiastically rewards this apathy.
White Squall, Ridley Scott’s next film, was the director’s attempt to scale back to a character-based story. The 1996 film is a blend of a survival thriller and coming-of-age drama based on a harrowing true story about a group of young adults who find themselves in the middle of a devastating storm. This film came and went upon release and is widely forgotten now, making it one of Scott’s most overlooked films. White Squall is a perfect display of Ridley’s range in a singular film. Moments of pure terror as the boys fight for survival sit right alongside tender displays of compassion as these boys and the adults who accompany them form inseparable bonds through tragedy. While White Squall is one of Scott’s most emotionally profound films, its failure to catch attention in theaters put the filmmaker in a precarious position. His next film, G.I. Jane, would be a moderate success with decent enough reception. Still, it didn’t feel like the same filmmaker audiences fell in love with in the late 1970s and 1980s. If anything, it appeared as if Ridley Scott would be relegated to work-for-hire projects for the rest of his career. That was until the year 2000, when a little film named Gladiator was released.
Gladiator almost instantly rewrote the book on Ridley Scott’s career, earning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, and reminding everyone that he can still make a film full of themes and subtext that simultaneously worked as a crowd-pleaser. He took lessons from his previous attempts, mashing together the artistic intentions of both into something sprawling and relatable. Unlike 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Scott’s refusal to be burdened by historical accuracy lends itself to the story of Gladiator. The film feels like an ancient myth, even without any truly fantastical elements. The heightened version of Rome and its inhabitants just works in this film.
Gladiator is mostly known for its impressive scale and giant battle sequences. The real juice, though, is in the dialogue. The rivalry between slave turned gladiator, Maximus (Russell Crowe in an Oscar-winning role) and tyrannical emperor Commodus (future Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix) is perfectly calculated, and the committed performances add to the tension. Throughout his career, Scott has always been able to pull great, or at least notable, performances from movie stars, and Gladiator is a great showcase of that. Phoenix has played plenty of freaks, and Crowe has played many stoic heroes, but their turns here feel unique. There’s a line between old Hollywood theatricality and grounded realism within many of the performances in Scott’s films that no other director is quite as capable of balancing.
While not my favorite Ridley, Gladiator feels like the thesis statement of his career, and I’m not just saying that because it won him Best Picture. The burden of spectacle is obvious here. Maximus is forced to commit violence to survive, and to make matters worse, it turns out he’s pretty good at it. Many of Scott’s protagonists are stuck aiding harmful systems until they either break out of that system, or it all collapses entirely. Ripley in Alien must work for the nefarious Weyland-Yutani company, which may be somehow scarier than the bloodthirsty alien she must fend off. The protagonists of Blade Runner and Legend find themselves as cogs of flawed systems that they’re fed up with. Black Rain and Thelma & Louise showcase the mundane corruption happening in the background of everyday life. While flawed, even 1492: Conquest of Paradise attempts to tell the story of a figure who was driven by ambition to abandon his humanity. Gladiator is the culmination of this thread, one he’s never quite been able to crack in the same way since.
Ridley Scott didn’t let the momentum of Gladiator’s success go to waste, releasing two feature films the next year: Hannibal and Black Hawk Down. Hannibal is a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs and Scott’s long-awaited return to the horror genre. Hannibal is a slickly made horror film but unfortunately a pretty poor sequel to the 1991 Oscar-sweeping classic. Ridley Scott and company were clearly having fun with the camera movements and set direction. On the other hand, the story is never able to find its footing, making for a bland experience at times. Focusing on Hannibal this time around was an interesting choice and one that fits into the practical malice throughline of his filmography. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t see himself as a malicious force. He sees himself as an apex predator meant to feed on whom he deems prey. In many ways, Hannibal is more like the Xenomorph from Alien than any of Ridley Scott’s other lead characters.
Scott’s second 2001 release, Black Hawk Down, didn’t rake in the same box office as Hannibal. It made up for it by immediately putting Ridley Scott back into the annual awards conversation. Black Hawk Down tells the true story of the Battle of Mogadishu, where two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. Black Hawk Down is technically proficient in every way but lacks any real teeth in its depiction of the military. A story like this should be prime real estate for a Ridley Scott-style look at a harmful system and the people forced to participate in it. Much like 1492: Conquest of Paradise, though, Scott refuses to fully grapple with that dynamic in favor of a shallow war epic. I understand why this film is beloved by some. It certainly helped establish the cinematic language of modern warfare and features an incredible cast of young stars of the era. I just find it to be pretty empty considering the subject matter.
Matchstick Men is a nice reset between these big swings. The Nicolas Cage vehicle is a slyly dark comedy with some emotional bite. For my money, Matchstick Men is the closest Ridley Scott has gotten to rekindling the magic of Thelma & Louise. It tells the story of a con artist who suffers from both Tourette’s Syndrome and OCD. Surprisingly full of heart, Matchstick Men takes shots at the pharmaceutical industry and skewers the American dream while remaining entertaining as ever—proof that Ridley still had his superpower.
It didn’t take long for Ridley Scott to return to the land of historical epics. After Gladiator, large-scale blockbusters set in various eras of human history were everywhere in the early-mid 2000s. In the span of six years, we saw films like Troy, Master and Commander, Alexander, and 300 among many others. Even Ridley Scott took advantage of his own trend with his 2005 release, Kingdom of Heaven. Taking place during the Third Crusade, Kingdom of Heaven is another historical epic that prioritizes spectacle over accuracy. Does this approach fall as flat on its face as 1492: Conquest of Paradise, or does it reach the highs of Gladiator? The answer appears somewhere in the middle.
Kingdom of Heaven is a mess, but boy is it a fun mess. The unhinged performances and memorable costume design win me over despite a pretty clumsy script and overreliance on shaky-cam during action sequences. There, admittedly, isn’t much meat on the bone here, thematically. Impressive in moments, Kingdom of Heaven fails to feel like more than a cynical attempt at recapturing the wild success of Gladiator.
Ridley Scott loves to separate his weighty action-epics with smaller, character-driven films, which is exactly what he did after Kingdom of Heaven. A Good Year, based on Peter Mayle’s 2004 novel, tells the story of investment banker Max (Russell Crowe), who returns to a vineyard where he spent much of his childhood after learning he is inheriting it from his uncle. The film is a quaint yet ultimately empty romance about a man falling back in love with a place he had considered abandoned. Scott and Crowe are both out of their elements here. While it is a nice attempt at something more sentimental, nothing in this film feels like a Ridley Scott film. It could have been made by any filmmaker and have very little stylistic change.
One of Ridley Scott’s most focused 21st-century efforts is his 2007 film American Gangster. Starring Denzel Washington as infamous drug lord Frank Lucas opposite Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the detective who is after him, American Gangster makes for one of my favorite gangster flicks and a consistent rewatch. The film has a firm view of class systems and human motivations that can sometimes be missing from this subgenre in lieu of romanticized excess. Many critics have knocked points off this film for being so referential to crime thrillers of the past. I do not think that Scott or screenwriter Steven Zaillian were cynically retreading tropes. Rather, they were framing them in a way that makes the audience culpable. Both Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts are fighting the same strain of corruption as one another, just in different battlefields. They’re both flawed and disciplined men who do what they must to survive, choosing said survival over empathy. In many ways, these two are like Maximus split into two characters at odds with each other.
For the first time in his career, Ridley Scott doubled up on the same subgenre with another crime thriller, resulting in 2008’s Body of Lies. Unlike American Gangster in the previous year, Body of Lies is nowhere near self-aware about its usage of generic spy-movie tropes. Mixed with some bland plotting and an iffy post-9/11 portrayal of the Middle East, Body of Lies is pretty muddled. Leonardo DiCaprio is great here as grizzled CIA agent Roger Ferris. This film is an example of Scott attempting to apply Hollywood’s black-and-white moral spectrum to nuanced source material, in this case the 2007 novel by David Ignatius.
Adaptations have become a major part of Ridley Scott’s repertoire as a filmmaker. A major portion of his output has been adapted from novels or historical events. His approach to adaptations seems to vary wildly depending on the project. In some cases, the films subvert their original stories in interesting ways. Others are told as straight-laced as possible, skipping over major thematic threads. Scott’s 2010 Robin Hood reimagining is somehow neither, ending up as a lifeless slog that feels like a parody of Scott’s previous epics. Not even Russell Crowe can save this overly gritty version of the timeless moral tale. Scott does not seem interested in unpacking the character of Robin Hood or his shifting reputation as a pop culture figure. Instead, Scott seemingly used the character as an excuse for increasingly bland set-pieces.
It’s impossible to revisit the career of Ridley Scott without considering the impact of his brother. Tony Scott had a formidable career of his own, known for his bombastic action films and collaborative relationship with Denzel Washington. Tony and Ridley worked separately, yet their work has always felt linked together. The Scott brothers often worked with one another in producer roles, founding Scott Free Productions in the mid 1990s. Ridley and Tony fueled and guided each other in their filmmaking journeys until tragedy eventually struck. In August of 2012, Tony Scott took his own life in a sudden and shocking turn of events. Ridley Scott hasn’t said much about this unimaginable tragedy. What he has said would leave ripples across his career and the world of cinema as a whole. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Scott ended the conversation with a simple but devastating statement: “I miss my brother.”
Ridley never slowed down after the death of Tony, yet his work began to feel different from that moment. In some ways, Ridley began adopting some of his brother’s tastes, making films that have a Tony Scott feel to them. 2012’s divisive Alien prequel, Prometheus, is an indirect response to grief and a powerful look at the entitlement of humanity. Written and filmed before losing his brother, this work is a meditation on life, death, and the invisible forces that bind them. Prometheus features an overconfident crew of scientists who believe they have discovered the origin of human life. The film is about the consequences of chasing the intellectual meaning of the unexplainable aspects of our world. As we watch our tragically human characters waltz onto a strange planet like it was their own backyard, only to fall victim to the whims of a rogue AI on board. This was Ridley Scott’s first contribution to the storied franchise that he started all the way back in 1979, and it immediately threw a wrench in what fans thought was the franchise’s identity.
I consider Prometheus to be one of Ridley Scott’s last truly great films. He crafts a gloriously tense atmosphere that combines wonder with dread. Our diverse cast of characters, led by Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender, is deliciously overzealous, constantly making fatal mistakes driven by pure hubris. Fassbender delivers a career-defining performance as the physical manifestation of Ridley Scott’s malice as mundanity thread. Fassbender plays this cyborg character with an obsessive drive that collides with his cold demeanor. Everybody is so wrapped up in their own proximity to authority that they don’t ever stop to end or even notice his scheme until it’s too late. The burden of creation eventually eats at all of our characters regardless of species. The cyborg, the humans, and the mysterious race of aliens who created us are all stuck in a cycle of destruction.
The Counselor, a collaboration with legendary novelist Cormac McCarthy, is, sneakily, one of Ridley Scott’s smartest films. Coming directly off of their collaboration in Prometheus, Michael Fassbender returns here in another juicy role, this time as the titular Counselor—a lawyer from Texas who finds himself in the center of a drug deal. At times, The Counselor feels more similar to a stage play than your typical Ridley Scott film. The usually heightened set pieces or character interactions are softened so the world of the film is allowed to breathe as a result. While Ridley Scott is a director known for large-scale action sequences featuring larger-than-life characters, he’s also proven himself to be quite capable at the exact opposite, especially as he ages. In many aspects, Ridley has adopted some of his late brother Tony’s filmmaking instincts. Scott’s more recent films thrive within conversations and the quieter moments of stories amid the mayhem. Matchstick Men and The Counselor are funny and breezy and still comment on human nature in their own ways. In the case of The Counselor, the film is very observant about the self-fulfilling prophecy that can be created between the legal system and crime; are they meant to punish crime or benefit from it? It can’t be both, can it?
The mid-2010s are Ridley Scott at his most inconsistent. For every smart and handsomely made film like The Martian, you get a couple of Exodus: Gods and Kings. Exodus: Gods and Kings is easily Scott’s worst effort. This whitewashed Egyptian epic is loud, frustrating, and lacks anything resembling a competent story. It’s the type of film that would end the careers of 90% of directors, not Ridley Scott, though. Only Ridley could come back less than a whole year later with another undeniable crowd-pleaser.
Ridley returned to space with The Martian, only this time it wasn’t to visit the Xenomorphs. Matt Damon stars as botanist and astronaut Mark Watney, who is stranded on Mars after a mission gone wrong. The film is full of heart and is Scott’s most optimistic film, in that parts of The Martian may even be a little too cute. Based on the best-selling Andy Weir novel, this is a solid return to form for a director who remained interesting but seemed to be losing his way a bit. The Martian proved that he could still helm a good old-fashioned blockbuster that appealed to all audiences.
Alien: Covenant is one of the best sci-fi horror films ever made for about two acts until it drops the ball for an underwhelming finale that’s more interested in a generic chase than answering any of the questions it asks. Much like Prometheus, Alien: Covenant is stuffed with interesting ideas. Its flaws come from there being too many plot threads to fulfill in a satisfying fashion. Scott and screenwriters John Logan and Dante Harper, throwing out every possible idea in this new planet of proto-xenomorphs, gives us some standout moments and killer visuals, but it unfortunately leaves meat on every bone. Michael Fassbender is again amazing, this time in a double role as two different cyborgs, and Scott may be at his best visually, so it’s a worthwhile watch. It unfortunately feels like a really good rough cut rather than a finished product.
All the Money in the World, Ridley Scott’s attempt at a prestige “Oscar bait” picture, pretty much left the cultural consciousness as soon as it entered, which is a shame because it’s actually a pretty solid look at class divides in America filtered through a true story. Yet again based on a book (Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and the Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty by John Pearson), All the Money in the World is about the real-life 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty and the ultimatum they faced when his billionaire grandfather refused to meet the kidnappers’ demands. This film feels like High and Low meets Spotlight. A tense look into a dark world of crime and intrigue that is still a light watch for the most part due to Scott’s masterful control of the tone. It’s all the more impressive that this film had to replace its lead performance only months before it would premiere. After accusations against Kevin Spacey were made public, Scott and Sony Pictures made the decision to replace his performance with Christopher Plummer, who does a great job as John Paul Getty.
In a rare occurrence, there was a four-year gap between All the Money in the World and the next Ridley Scott film. Part of this was, of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, many cinephiles and pundits began to question if this absence meant he was slowing down after a prolific four-decade run. The answer was an emphatic no. Ridley Scott came back swinging with two high-profile films in 2021, the former of which is an overlooked masterpiece.
The Last Duel is Ridley Scott confronting tropes present throughout his own career while still tackling his usual themes of unwilling participants in corrupt institutions and the limits of violence as a means of justice. The Last Duel tells a Rashomon-esque story of an alleged rape in Medieval France from three different perspectives, leading to the titular duel between the accused man (Adam Driver) and the victim’s husband (Matt Damon). Based on a 2004 book by Eric Jager, the narrative feels tailored for a post-#MeToo era when we began to unpack the exploitation that is rampant in the film industry. Adapted by the screenwriting pair of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, The Last Duel is patiently potent in the way that these character dynamics play out. Ridley Scott gets the most out of this star-studded cast, with Jodie Comer delivering a standout performance. There’s not a single wasted frame in this thing. Even against the COVID-era challenges, The Last Duel felt like the old Ridley Scott approach when every single detail was combed over. Over the years, he shifted to a run-and-gun method that allows him to work at such a clip. The Last Duel may be the last we see of Scott’s perfectionist side, and, boy, is it a great late-stage reminder of what he can do.
2021’s second Ridley Scott release, House of Gucci, is nowhere near as successful. This crime-tinged biopic (yet another book adaptation) has no idea what it wants to be. Uneven performances and an unmemorable visual style leave this one feeling like Ridley was asleep at the wheel. When I saw that Ridley Scott was attached to adapt Sara Gay Forden’s novel about the Gucci dynasty and the eventual murder that changed everything. Nothing about how this film looks or feels is reminiscent of the time period it’s meant to depict. Ridley Scott is a master of immersion, so it feels odd to be in a film as lifeless as this.
Napoleon is a film that I think got a bit too much heat when it came out. Yes, it takes many historical liberties in telling the story of Napoleon Bonaparte. Yes, the film is bloated and meandering at points. It also features Ridley Scott’s most awe-inspiring set pieces since Kingdom of Heaven. These battle sequences are truly massive in scale, showcasing the sheer amount of senseless violence that took place through Bonaparte’s insatiable ego. Unlike 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Scott is not afraid to show us the nastier parts of Napoleon’s character. Joaquin Phoenix plays this historical figure like a man-child, similarly calibrated to his turn as Commodus in Gladiator, a franchise that Scott was looking at returning to.
The idea of a sequel to Gladiator is one that started pretty much immediately after the success of the first one. Scott and Crowe, despite the death of his character, were attached to a sequel that was announced back in 2002. Through several decades of creative differences, the project was basically assumed dead until 2024, when Ridley Scott would return to Rome for the first proper sequel of his career. Gladiator 2 promised a big-screen spectacle with a star-studded cast. What it delivers is closer to an overpriced TV movie than anything that rivals the first film. The big battles that Scott specialized in now look plastic, and my eyes struggled to not slide off the screen. Gladiator 2 puts a Shakespearean-level performer, Denzel Washington, in a period-piece epic and completely wastes it. His performance is good (when is he ever bad?), but he plays a tyrannical leader with a similar cadence as Frank Lucas. On paper, this should be one of the best blockbusters ever made. In execution, it leaves much to be desired.
This brings us to The Dog Stars, Ridley Scott’s latest box-office bomb. Many of my complaints for Gladiator 2 carry over to this post-apocalyptic trope fest. Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, and Josh Brolin are all more than capable performers who are relegated to boring versions of their movie-star personas. The source material (yet another novel) by Peter Heller came out in 2012 when post-apocalyptic storytelling was at its peak popularity. For an adaptation in 2026 to work, it has to be willing to confront societal ills and current events, something Scott and crew avoid altogether here. It acts as almost an antithesis to the thesis I had ascribed to Scott’s films.
Rather than telling the story of an unwilling participant in a dying empire, The Dog Stars is about holding on to that empire no matter what it takes. I wouldn’t go as far as to label it far-right propaganda as some critics have, but the conservatism embedded within this film does make it stick out like a sore thumb compared to the larger tapestry. When put against a character like Ellen Ripley or Maximus, Jacob Elordi’s passive protagonist, Hig, is the human representation of the machine winning.
It doesn’t matter what genre or era. Ridley Scott films are at their best when they are interrogating human nature. He rarely sacrificed entertainment value for themes, instead seeing them both as integral parts of the whole that is cinema. So yes, while his recent run of films has been confounding at times, I will always have trust in Ridley Scott to pull it together again. Even at 80 years old, Ridley Scott remains one of our most celebrated and consistent filmmakers to ever touch a camera.
