Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937, in South Shields, England. His father served in the Royal Engineers, and Scott spent parts of his childhood in different British towns before studying at the Royal College of Art. He joined the BBC as a trainee set designer and later directed television programs including episodes of the police series *Z-Cars*. In 1968, he established Ridley Scott Associates, a company that made commercials. His 1973 Hovis advertisement, showing a boy pushing a bicycle up a steep cobbled street, became a widely remembered piece of British advertising. He also directed Apple’s dystopian “1984” commercial, broadcast during the Super Bowl in January 1984.

Scott’s first feature, *The Duellists* (1977), adapted a Joseph Conrad story about rival Napoleonic-era officers and won a prize for first features at Cannes. His next film, *Alien* (1979), placed Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley aboard the spaceship Nostromo, where its crew encounters a lethal extraterrestrial. *Blade Runner* (1982), adapted Philip K. Dick’s novel *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?* and depicted a rain-soaked future Los Angeles inhabited by bioengineered replicants. Its initially mixed reception gave way to substantial critical acclaim, and multiple versions of the film have been released. These two films became central reference points in science fiction cinema.

In *Thelma & Louise* (1991), Scott directed Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as two friends fleeing across the American Southwest after a violent encounter at a roadside bar. It earned Scott his first Academy Award nomination for directing. *Gladiator* (2000), starring Russell Crowe as the betrayed Roman general Maximus, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Scott received another directing nomination. He was nominated again for *Black Hawk Down* (2001), which dramatized the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. His historical epic *Kingdom of Heaven* (2005) followed a blacksmith to Jerusalem during the Crusades; Scott later released a substantially longer director’s cut.

Scott returned to the *Alien* universe with *Prometheus* (2012) and *Alien: Covenant* (2017). In *The Martian* (2015), he directed Matt Damon as astronaut Mark Watney, stranded on Mars and struggling to survive until rescue. For *All the Money in the World* (2017), he reshot scenes with Christopher Plummer replacing Kevin Spacey shortly before release. His later films include *House of Gucci* (2021), *Napoleon* (2023), and *Gladiator II* (2024), starring Paul Mescal as Lucius. Scott was knighted in 2003. His brother, Tony Scott, also directed feature films, including *Top Gun* (1986).