Born in England in 1937, Ridley Scott felt fascination for film from a young age, being a faithful follower of the cinema of Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa. Student of the Royal College of Arts in London, where he was a key part to the creation of a Department of Cinema, it wouldn't be until the middle of the 60s, that Scott debuts with his first short film, 'Boy and Bicycle'.
More than a decade later, he returned in style with 'The Duellists', which triumphed at Cannes and that served as his letter of introduction to the world of cinema. Following up his triumph and confirming that Scott was a force to be reckoned with is the following two titles 'Alien', 'Blade Runner', which, to this day, are two of the greatest films ever made.
An All-Terrain Director
In the 1980s Scott also flirted with thrillers, with 'Black Rain', 'Someone to Watch Over Me' and the fantastic 'Legend', and in the 90s he churned out the epic '1492, Conquest of Paradise', 'White Squall' and the war drama 'G.I. Jane'.
Scott started the new century by resurrecting his momentum with the multi-award winning 'Gladiator', the dare with comedy in 'Matchstick Men' and 'A Good Year' (something we hope he doesn't repeat), and then returned to lavish thrillers with 'Body of Lies' and the epic 'Kingdom of Heaven' and 'Robin Hood'. Scott then tried his hand with horror with 'Hannibal' and the neo-noir 'American Gangster'.
In the following list, we have selected the ten best titles from the career of Ridley Scott, a director with over four decades worth of experience, and whose filmography is full of incredible works.
10 Legend
Oddly enough, it was Tom Cruise who dared to fight with sword and sorcery in 'Legend', the fourth feature film by Ridley Scott, which premiered in 1985.
In it, Mia Sara played the Princess Lili who Jack (Cruise) has to save and then fight the Lord of Darkness, a personification of the devil himself, played by Tim Curry, whose appearance is particularly noteworthy as he then became a huge icon in the pop culture of the 80s.
9 Thelma & Louise
Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon became the greatest representation of the feminist movement thanks to 'Thelma & Louise', film winning the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Screenplay in 1991.
A road movie about friendship in which a housewife with a boring life, Thelma Dickinson (Davis), and a waitress who dreams of marrying her boyfriend, Louise Sawyer (Sarandon), decide to embark on a journey that will change their lives.
8 The Duellists
Aside from 'Boy and Bicycle', Ridley Scott debuted in 1977 with 'The Duellists', adapted from the novel by Joseph Conrad and became the prize to the best Opera Prima in Cannes.
Starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, the story takes us to Strasbourg in the 1800s and introduces us to two officers of the army.
7 The Martian
After two busts that us made believe that Ridley Scott had lost his steam as a Director 'The Counselor', 'Exodus: Gods and Kings', in 2015, he had a surprise return to science fiction with 'The Martian', based in the novel of Andy Weir and on a script adapted by Drew Goddard 'The Cabin in the Woods'.
With seven nominations at the Oscars, the film won two Golden Globes, one for Best Comedy (something which no one understood) and Best Actor for Matt Damon. With a cast containing talent such as Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Mara, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean and Kristen Wiig, the story presented to us is a mission manned to Mars goes wrong when the astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) is left for dead during a sandstorm, but his crew mates had already set the course back for Earth. However, Watney survives and wakes up just in the middle of the red planet, where he must resort to his Botanical knowledge and mechanical engineering in order to survive in a hostile place while waiting for rescue.
6 American Gangster
For his 17th film, Ridley Scott was approached by the film noir genre with a neo-noir film based on real events, inspired by the 'The Return of Superfly' article written by the journalist Mark Jacobson.
Located in New York 1968, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, the driver of a Mafia capo from Harlem who tries to build his own criminal empire after the capo's death. On the other side of the scale is Richie Roberts, a police officer played by Russell Crowe, whose character is absolutely honest, and the inevitable confrontation between the two.
5 Hannibal
Ten years after the masterful 'The Silence of the Lambs', Ridley Scott was at the controls to adapt the sequel that Thomas Harris had written, 'Hannibal', in which Anthony Hopkins returned to play Dr. Lecter (The role by which got his Oscar in 1991).
Despite the bad omens that are glossed over as Jodie Foster would not return as Clarice Starling (according to the actress, incompatibility of timetables; and the producer Dino De Laurentiis, because Foster asked for 20 million plus 15% of the benefits at the box office), Julianne Moore ended up replacing her, the decision ended much more positively for spectators as Moore was able to play the FBI agent perfectly.
With many more tricks than its predecessor and with a villain worthy of being part of the monster hall of fame (the unrecognizable Gary Oldman in the role of Mason Verger). After this film, two prequels were made ('Red Dragon', and 'Hannibal Rising', but unfortunately, they did not have the same success.
4 Black Hawk Down
Next to Terrence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line', there is no doubt that 'Black Hawk Down' is one of the best war stories from the turn of the century.
Based on the novel by Mark Bowden, adapted by Ken Nolan, the action takes us to Somalia in 1993, where a group of soldiers in full peacekeeping mission are sent with the intention of capturing Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the somali warlord and main leader of the armed conflict. The complications come when two Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, thus initiating the rescue mission of the soldiers in hostile land, whose faces include Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana and Tom Sizemore.
3 Gladiator
In addition to sweeping to victory at the 2001 Oscars (five awards, including Best Film and Best Actor for Russell Crowe), Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' served to give fashion a genre that had fallen into the ostracism, the peplum.
In this film, we are able to see similarities and make comparisons to 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' by Anthony Mann, along with films such as ('The Last Legion', 'Centurion', 'Alexander'), and even return to mythical stories ('Troy', 'Clash of the Titans', 'King Arthur').
'Gladiator' told us a story of betrayal in which the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) Decides to give his power to Maximus (Crowe), the man in command of the army which has succeeded in the recent victory over the barbarian peoples. Such a situation will raise the ire of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), son of the Emperor whose lust for power will turn him into a ruthless being with Maximus in his crosshairs.
2 Blade Runner
An undisputed cult classic of science fiction, the third film by Ridley Scott was, is and will be one of the great highlights of his career.
Without doubt, his vision of 'Blade Runner', work that adapts the novel by Philip K. Dick, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', is a clear example that not all the classics of today were successes of yesterday; the figures speak for themselves: the budget for the film was 27.5 million dollars, of which in the United States box office raised only 26 million. Scott was years ahead of anyone else, and this film caused Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young to rocket to fame. The plot centres on Replicants, artificial intelligences identical to humans although they possess greater strength and agility.
1 Alien
Welcome to horror. In Space.
'Alien' was only Ridley Scott's second feature film, who brought together two figures who provided the framework for the film.
H.R. Giger with the design of the Xenomorph and Dan O'Bannon with the script, and they were both key for the film to work as a horror. The set design was somewhat gothic, with Lovecraftian elements. The movie was so successful, that it spawned three sequels, 'Aliens', 'Alien 3', and 'Alien: Resurrection'.
Winner of the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1980, Alien starts by showing us the ship Nostromo's return to Earth, when the crew awaken suddenly from cryogenic hibernation. They then discover a distress signal from a nearby uninhabited planet. Contact there will be the beginning of an unimaginable nightmare that Ripley and her crew must face if they want to survive. With this role, Sigourney Weaver was launched into stardom, despite the fact it was originally meant to be a man.