No filmmaker swings between utter cinema masterpiece and “WTF is this trash” quite like Ridley Scott. He's banged out thirty features across nearly 50 years. Some are among the best movies ever made, some are fascinating messes, and some are genuinely baffling. So I sorted every one of them into the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
- Blade Runner
- Alien
- Gladiator
- The Duellists
- Thelma & Louise
- The Martian
- American Gangster
- Black Hawk Down
- Kingdom of Heaven (director’s cut only, don’t @ me)
- The Last Duel
- Prometheus
- The Dog Stars
- The Counselor
Yes, The Duellists is that high. His debut is a lean, gorgeous, deranged little movie about two men who can’t stop trying to kill each other for 15 years, and it’s criminally underseen. If you haven't seen it - FIX THAT NOW! AndThe Counselor is a cold, nasty, McCarthy-brained weirdo of a movie that I will totally defend to this day.
The Bad
14. Matchstick Men
15. All the Money in the World
16. Alien: Covenant
17. 1492: Conquest of Paradise
18. G.I. Jane
19. Body of Lies
20. Robin Hood
Not terrible, just Ridley on autopilot: handsome, competent, but forgettable.
The Ugly
21. House of Gucci
22. Napoleon
23. Black Rain
24. Gladiator II
25. A Good Year
26. White Squall
27. Hannibal
28. Exodus: Gods and Kings
29. Someone to Watch Over Me
30. Legend
Legend looks incredible and is completely inert. Tim Curry deserved a better movie to be a giant red goat man in.
His latest, The Dog Stars got dogpiled by critics and flopped at the box office but I still thought it soared for most of its runtime before a bumpy landing, so it still sneaks into the good pile.
How would you break out his films?