Ridley Scottis a filmmaker whose impact on the industry is unparalleled. Despite starting his filmography with the underrated medieval epicThe Duellistsway back in 1977, Scott continues to craft highly anticipated new movies well into the late stage career. This year’s epicGladiator IIhas certainly generated significant hype, as Scott will return to the franchise that broughthome the Academy Award for Best Picture.
While he is often best known for the technical proficiency and epic scale of the projects that he works on,Scott is renowned for his ability to work with great actors.Consideringthe number of intense historical epics, intimate character dramas, and psychological thrillers that he had helmed, it is no wonder why he so frequently works with some of the best performers of their generation. Here are the ten best Ridley Scott movies with great acting, ranked.
10‘Matchstick Men’ (2003)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman
Matchstick Menisn’t a typical crime movie by any stretch of the imagination, as it is much morecentered on a dysfunctional familythat is brought together by a series of strange incidents.Nicolas Cageis an actor who has often been accused of overreacting in his performances, but Cage’s inherently quirky mannerisms are well-suited to play an eccentric con man with serious emotional development issues.
Matchstick Menoffered a significant breakout role for Alison Lohman, whose performance as Cage’s on-screen daughter helped make the film even more charming than it would have been otherwise. AlthoughMatchstick Menpaints a crude picture about what life in con artistry looks like, the terrific chemistry between Cage, Lohman, andSam Rockwelladds a dark sense of humor that reminds the viewer of just how inherently unusual this line of work really is.
Matchstick Men
Rent on Amazon
9‘All the Money in the World’ (2017)
Starring Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, and Christopher Plummer
All the Money in the Worldis based on a wild true storythat would have been deemed to be completely ridiculous if it wasn’t inspired by real facts and accounts by the survivors. After his grandson (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped, the eccentric billionaire John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) refuses to pay off the criminals, despite the outcries of the boy’s mother (Michelle Williams) and a spy (Mark Wahlberg) that works for his company.
The performances do a great job at reminding the viewer that there were real lives involved, and that a story this infamous goes deeper than just a series of headlines lampooning theridiculous excess of capitalism.Kevin Spaceywas originally cast as the elder Getty, but his sexual assault allegations inspired Scott to reshoot these scenes with Plummer, who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
All the Money in the World
Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World is a crime thriller based on the real-life kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in 1973. The film follows Getty’s mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), as she tries to convince his grandfather, the billionaire J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer, replacing Kevin Spacey), to pay the ransom demanded by the kidnappers.
8‘Thelma & Louise’ (1991)
Thelma & Louiseis a feminist masterpiecethat still stands out as one of the most transgressive and inventive projects that Scott has ever worked on. While there are more than a few films from male directors that focus on women’s suffering,Thelma & Louiseis a celebration of friendshipthanks to the excellent performances byGeena DavisandSusan Sarandon, both of who earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for their work in the film.
While much of the film’s attention was rightly placed on Davis and Sarandon,Thelma & Louisealso provided a breakout role for a young Brad Pittbefore subsequent films likeLegends of the Fall, Se7en,andTwelve Monkeyswould turn him into one of the most popular young movie stars of his generation. Pitt’s ability to take on strange character parts has its origin inThelma & Louise.
Thelma & Louise
Two best friends set out on an adventure, but it soon turns around to a terrifying escape from being hunted by the police, as these two girls escape for the crimes they committed.
Watch on MGM+
7‘Black Hawk Down’ (2001)
Starring Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Hardy
Black Hawk Downis one of thebest modern war films ever made, as Scott was able to capture the chaos and scariness that went into one of the most infamously botched operations in the history of the American military. Scott made the brilliant decision to balance out the cast between tons of A-listers; this allowed the viewer to identify and form emotional attachments with characters that had relatively little screen time, and a few that perished early on.
Josh Hartnett got the most significant career boost fromBlack Hawk Down, as his performance as a soldier who is unusually thrust into a leadership position during the midst of combat led to one of the most satisfying character arcs in the film. Although much of the attention of the film was placed on its action, it’s hard to go wrong when great actors likeEwan McGregor, Tom Hardy, Eric Bana,andJason Isaacsare putting in such effort.
Black Hawk Down
The story of 160 elite U.S. soldiers who dropped into Mogadishu in October 1993 to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord, but found themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily armed Somalis.
6‘American Gangster’ (2007)
Starring Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, and Idris Elba
American Gangsterisan inventive crime biopicthat tells the incredible true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a powerful black gangster who rose to prominence in the 1970s by smuggling drugs from planes that were returning from the Vietnam War. While Lucas faced a fair amount of racism at the time, he was able to use this mismanaged expectations about his potential to form a monopoly on New York City’s drug chain.
Washington perfectly conveys the confidence and rage that makes Lucas a compelling figure, withRuby Deeearning a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her emotional performance as his mother. Also strong is the greatRussell Croweas one of the few morally decent cops in the city that is wise to Lucas’ operation, and begins taking the necessary (if laborious) steps to start plotting his downfall.
American Gangster
An outcast New York City cop is charged with bringing down Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas, whose real life inspired this partly biographical film.
Watch on Netflix
5‘Gladiator’ (2000)
Starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, and Oliver Reed
Gladiatoris perhaps Scott’s most successful film,as its Best Picture win and tremendous box office success ensured that it would be a well-remembered work of popular culture. However, it is easy to forget that Crowe also won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film; despitesome of his misgivings about the film’s screenplay, Crowe delivered a powerful performance that captured the pride of a noble warrior and the heartbreak of a grieving father.
Joaquin Phoenix created one of the all-time great film villains in Commodus, the cruel Roman Emperor who murdered his own father in order to be put in a position of power so that he could strip Maximus of his titles and sentence him to a life in slavery. The rousing final duel inGladiatorwould not be nearly as effective if Phoenix didn’t play such a morally reprehensible character.
In ancient Rome, after the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, loyal general Maximus is betrayed and sentenced to death by the new emperor, Commodus. Escaping execution, Maximus is enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator, where his skills and honor lead him toward a path of vengeance and redemption.
Watch on Prime Video
4‘The Martian’ (2015)
Starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, and Jeff Daniels
The Martianis one of themore accurate space movies ever made, as it explores the logical series of events that would occur in the near future if a single astronaut became trapped on Mars.Matt Damonrightfully earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance as Mark Watney, whose intelligence and whimsical sense of humor made him one of the most uplifting heroes in any of Scott’s films.
The Martianhas a very dense supporting cast that brings to life the various departments, subdivisions, and componentsinvolved in securing Watney’s escape and survival on Mars, including such acclaimed actors asChiwetel Ejiofer, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Kristen Wiig, Sebastian Stan, Kate Mara, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, andMackenize Davis.The strength of the ensemble allows Scott to complete his optimistic feelings about humanity.
The Martian
An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue.
Watch on Max
3‘The Last Duel’ (2021)
Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer
The Last Duelis one of the most structurally inventive films of Scott’s career, as it exploresthe final medieval trial by combatin the history of France from three different perspectives. It’s revealed that the two French knights portrayed byMatt DamonandAdam Driverare really not as different as they seem to assume that they are, as they are both guilty of having heightened egos.
The most powerful performance inThe Last Duelcomes from Jodie Comeras a woman whose sexual assault kickstarted the legal proceedings that led to the duel itself. Comer’s section of the film is rightfully labeled as “the truth,” and she gives a powerful performance that pays respect to all the survivors that history has forgotten about when the stories of “great men” are presented without the supported context about their faults.
The Last Duel
2‘Alien’ (1979)
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, and John Hurt
Alienlaid the groundwork for the science fiction horror genre, but it also created one of the greatest heroes in film history. It’s hard to talk about the evolution of the sci-fi genre without directly mentioningSigourney Weaveras Ellen Ripley; it was a character that redefined what heroism looked like, and became prominent in three direct sequels in which Weaver reprised her role.
Aliensucceeds because the audience forms an emotional connectionwith the crew of theNostromobefore the Xenomorph starts rearing its ugly head and picking off its victims one-by-one. Of the entire supporting cast,Ian Holmdeserved credit in particularfor playing a realistic version of what an android character would look like, even though technology relating to robotic and artificial intelligence were far less advanced when the film was in production in the late 1970s than it is today.
In deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
Watch on Hulu
1‘Blade Runner’ (1982)
Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young
Blade Runnerisone of the greatest science fiction films of all-timebecause it asked the fundamental question of what constitutes humanity; although Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is assigned to track down an android (Rutger Hauer) and execute him for living past his allotted time, he begins to suffer a crisis of confidence when he realizes that the android he’s been protecting (Sean Young) is offering him the most stable relationship that he has ever experienced before in his life.
Ford brings the necessary gravitas to the role, capturing the grit and cynicism of a grizzled detective that feels clearly modeled after the classic sleuths in the noir films of the 1940s. However, it is still Hauer who is the heart of the film, as the now iconic “tears in rain” speech is remembered as one of the great monologues in film history.
Blade Runner
A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
