"I'm a yarn teller. My job is to engage you as much as I can and as often as I can."
Sirnote Ridley Scott GBEnote (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer.
A highly accomplished commercial director at his beginnings (he did some of the early Apple ads), he would rapidly become an auteur filmmaker. Known for an obsession with visual detail rivaling Stanley Kubrick, if not Alfred Hitchcock. Several of his early works helped establish the popularity of the Used Future trope, and he is also one of the (if not the) most prominent directors of epic period pieces (and epic battles set in multiple such eras) since The '90s. He has worked with an incredibly wide variety of genres and budgets, yet somehow maintains his own special touch through it all.
He is the older brother of late director Tony Scott, and the father of Jake, Jordan and Luke Scott, all directors.
Filmography:
- The Duellists (1977)
- "Share the Fantasy"
for Chanel No. 5, the probable Ur-Example for the Perfume Commercial (1979) - The Alien franchise
- Alien (1979)
- Prometheus (2012)
- Alien: Covenant (2017)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- 1984 commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh
- Legend (1985)
- Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
- Black Rain (1989)
- Thelma & Louise (1991)
- 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
- White Squall (1996)
- G.I. Jane (1997)
- Gladiator (2000)
- Gladiator 2 (2024)
- Hannibal (2001)
- Black Hawk Down (2001)
- Matchstick Men (2003)
- Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
- A Good Year (2006)
- American Gangster (2007)
- Body of Lies (2008)
- Robin Hood (2010)
- The Counselor (2013)
- Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
- The Martian (2015)
- All the Money in the World (2017)
- The Last Duel (2021)
- House of Gucci (2021)
- Napoleon (2023)
Series:
- NUMB3RS (as executive producer)
- The Good Wife (as executive producer)
- The Good Fight (as executive producer)
- The Pillars of the Earth (as executive producer)
- World Without End (as executive producer)
- The Man in the High Castle (as executive producer)
- Brain Dead (as executive producer)
- Mercy Street (as executive producer)
- Taboo (as executive producer)
- The Terror (as executive producer)
- The Passage (as executive producer)
- Raised by Wolves (directed the first two episodes, also the executive producer)
- Kaleidoscope (as executive producer)
This director's films contain examples of these tropes:
- Action Girl: Ellen Ripley, Jordan O'Neill, Thelma and Louise and Elizabeth Shaw, for starters. Scott has admitted he prefers strong women in his films.Scott: There are a lot of men who feel they're being emasculated by having Women in charge; I've never had that problem. The stronger the woman, the better for me.
- Artificial Human: Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus have fun with this trope.
- Artistic License – History: He has an infamous reputation of this in any historical film he directs. Rule of Cool prevails in most cases.
- Bittersweet Ending/Downer Ending: More of the former shows up in his films, but the latter is definitely present.
- Cyberpunk: Practically codified how to put cyberpunk onscreen with Bladerunner, yet Alien helped cement the related Used Future just before.
- Duel to the Death: The Duelists, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven have this. The Last Duel takes this further however with said duel being the main focus and the climax of the film.
- Excessive Steam Syndrome: One of the more frequent visual motifs of his Scifi and fantasy films — Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, and Prometheus. Even scenes without it may still have characters cooking noodles or soup and producing a lot of steam as well.
- MegaCorp: Serves as the Greater-Scope Villain of Alien and Blade Runner.
- Military and Warfare Works: He's pretty much the only director who can claim to have directed big budget epic battles set in Roman times, medieval times, Napoleonic times, and a modern war setting.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Every piece of work of his has at least one scene that ratchets the tension up by showing not a damn thing happening. Done very, very atmospherically, too. May include water, smoke or mist.
- Off with His Head!: Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven and The Counselor are rife with decapitations.
- Patricide: Many of his films show some kind of conflict between a son and a parent (either literally or metaphorically) which usually ends with the former killing the latter. The Alien creature kills its host in a way similar to birthing, Batty from Blade Runner murders his creator Tyrell after calling him father, Commodus kills his dad Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator, Moses opposes Seti I in Exodus, and even Black Hawk Down contains a scene of a Somali child accidentally killing his own father. David from Prometheus seems to sum Scott's usage of the trope with the quote "Doesn't everyone want their parents dead?"
- Period Piece: He's been making historical fiction films since The Duellists, but Gladiator really started the trend of seeing him as a modern equivalent of Cecil B. DeMille when it comes to epic historical films (and the Biblical film Exodus made him come full circle).
- Re-Cut: Even when he didn't actually want them. Still, Scott is often labelled as the "Father of the Director's Cut" after how many versions of Blade Runner are running around. In addition, Alien, Legend, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom Of Heaven, American Gangster, Robin Hood, The Counselor and The Martian all had Director's Cuts/Extended Editions.
- Scenery Porn: If there's one thing consistent about his films, it can be said that all of Ridley's films look good.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Almost all of his films lean heavily towards the cynical side (Barring A Good Year and The Martian). This is primarily due to him tackling heavy subject matter, Downer Endings/Bittersweet Endings, and having a dark tone and feel to his films.
- Unicorn: Legend and, oddly enough, Blade Runner.
- Used Future: Alien and Blade Runner.
