Inside Ridley Scott, there are two directorial wolves: The stylistically distinct auteur with towering influence over contemporary cinema, and the semi-anonymous studio journeyman who’s put out a movie a year well into his 80s and possibly his 90s. These days the pendulum of film-snob appreciation may have swung toward a third Scott, Tony—in terms of pure style, he’s my preferred Scott, even if his era-defining megahit, Top Gun, probably deserves to be downed by a xenomorph. But there’s no denying that Tony’s older brother Ridley Scott has made a handful of the most game-changing and beloved films ever, in genres as disparate as dystopian sci-fi, road movie, and large-scale historical action.
In some ways, Ridley’s newest film (for now, that is; this rundown is destined to become outdated as quickly as a “complete” Soderbergh list) dips into all three of those; The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic thriller that’s also something of an episodic road picture. It’s also been called dull and workmanlike, which is what marks it as a true Ridley Scott movie—not because all of his movies share those qualities, of course, but because there always exists a possibility when settling in for one of his films that you’ll get something directed by the journeyman who, especially in the 21st century, seems to value finishing the job as much as the finished product.
Yet Scott never seems quite as process-obsessed as a Soderbergh or Fincher, whose respective work ethics often feel like the true subject of many of their movies; Scott’s films, for one thing, are less intellectualized than Soderbergh’s (for better or worse). While certain themes do recur—characters adrift in a godless world; the terrifying majesty of the unknowable; the psychology of men who lead others into massive and history-altering battles—these movies often feel subservient to some other source, whether it’s a book, the screenplay, or the stars at hand. This lends his work a welcome unpredictability and a fascinating inconsistency. Most of his movies are watchable, by virtue of a technical command of cinematography, art direction, costuming, and (in most cases) visual effects; none will lack memorable mise en scène, and certainly not the way that a Netflix movie often does. (No coincidence that his only streaming-funded movie received a lavish theatrical release first, and seemed to be on streaming largely as a means to securing an even-longer director’s cut.)
Some of them have inflated reputations; others feel terribly overlooked even with the obligatory critical reclamations. There may not be a single director who better embodies the push-pull between highfalutin’ auteurism and the turn-of-the-century demands of anonymized studio filmmaking. May Sir Ridley continue that pushing and pulling for another decade. In the meantime, here are his feature films, ranked by whims as inscrutable as Scott’s own.
30. 1492: Conquest of Paradise
Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
