The 4 Movies Ridley Scott Picked on Letterboxd

When Letterboxd asked four-time Oscar nominee Ridley Scott what his four favorite movies were, he didn’t hesitate. While many filmmakers who are asked the same question waffle about what their picks are going to be, Scott approached the topic with his typical candor, sharing movies that had a direct influence on his work, including one that he himself directed.

All four titles offer a direct line into understanding where the man behind everything from Alien to Thelma & Louise draws his creative inspiration.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The first of two favorite movies that Ridley Scott called “seminal” was Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Kubrick co-wrote with literary legend Arthur C. Clarke, adapting several of Clarke’s short stories. The heady sci-fi movie, which is set in multiple time periods, follows alien monoliths that connect the past and the future, as well as astronauts who face off against a sentient computer system named HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain).

When breaking down the movie in brief, Scott shared that “the computer knows that the mission is more important than the people, so we copied that in Alien.” This refers to the fact that the classic 1979 sci-fi thriller, which was his sophomore feature, features a storyline where the character of Ash (Ian Holm) is revealed to be an android who is secretly manipulating his human coworkers to serve the needs of the corporation Weylan-Yutani (later renamed Weyland-Yutani in the 1986 sequel Aliens) by bringing the deadly Xenomorph in so it can be studied, in spite of the fact that it has been savagely murdering the crew one by one.

It is quite clear that 2001: A Space Odyssey influenced Alien in a number of other ways. This includes the fact that Scott blends state-of-the-art special effects with cinematic artistry. While the aims of both movies are different (2001 is more about the grandeur of space and the mysteries of life, while Alien is a more straightforward genre thriller), Scott uses the same methodical approach to design, pacing, and atmosphere as Kubrick’s classic.

This adds an elevated aesthetic to Alien’s relatively pared-down plot, in the process creating a sci-fi masterpiece that earned back roughly ten times its budget at the box office and won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Star Wars (1977)

The second movie that Scott called “seminal” is 1977’s Star Wars, which was later retitled as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. George Lucas’ earth-shattering sci-fi epic, which is one of the key movies in shaping the modern blockbuster, shook Scott to his core.

Scott said that, in 1977, “I finished my first film, [The Duellists]... I was gonna do [the medieval romance adaptation] Tristan and Iseult next. I mean, how artistic can you go?” But all of that changed when he saw Star Wars opening night. Scott says, “I sat there. I was depressed for three months, thinking, ‘How can I be doing Tristan and Iseult when this guy does this?”’

However, his story has a happy ending. He was offered Alien by chance just six weeks later, and he said, “I’ll do it.”

In addition to directly inspiring Ridley Scott to make his first sci-fi masterpiece, Star Wars is likely responsible in part for inspiring the filmmaker to embrace more populist storytelling in between historical dramas and artistic epics, combining popcorn thrills with filmmaking craft in crowd-pleasing movies such as Alien, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, and The Martian.

Blade Runner (1982)

The third movie that Ridley Scott listed was one that he himself directed: 1982’s Blade Runner. The movie, which was an adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, was initially a box office disappointment but eventually became a cult classic that spawned a sequel, 2017’s Blade Runner 2049.

Scott explained this pick by saying that Blade Runner “set the pace for many, many, many, many things.” While he didn’t go into detail, it is true that the movie’s DNA can be found in many of Ridley Scott’s subsequent movies, including plenty that aren’t sci-fi titles.

The movie, which followed replicant hunter Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) tracking down four escaped replicants, had heavy neo-noir elements, becoming the first of many Ridley Scott movies to apply his signature style to the noir genre. Those latter titles include the pair of movies with which he closed out the 1980s - Someone to Watch Over Me and Black Rain - as well as 2007’s American Gangster and 2013’s The Counselor.

Blade Runner also saw Ridley Scott perfecting his approach to atmospheric sci-fi, which is something that he would exhibit in later titles like the Alien prequel Prometheus.

Quest for Fire (1981)

The final movie that Ridley Scott picked, which he called “clever,” “brilliant,” and “fantastic,” is something of a curveball: 1981’s Quest for Fire. While it’s of a piece with his previous three films in that it is a sci-fi movie that is more than 40 years old, it is much less of a canonical classic of the genre than 2001, Star Wars, or Blade Runner.

The Canadian-French co-production was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (Enemy at the Gates) from a screenplay by Gérard Brach (Repulsion) and follows a group of Cro-Magnons who explore a treacherous world of monsters in order to replenish their eternal fire, which has mysteriously gone out. While it has been forgotten somewhat since its premiere, the movie was well-regarded at the time and, in fact, won the second-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling (the category was officially introduced the year before, with the Oscar going to An American Werewolf in London).

While it is possible that sci-fi may have been on Ridley Scott’s mind because he was asked to list his four favorites while on the red carpet for Alien: Romulus, his inclusion of Quest for Fire nevertheless indicates a top-to-bottom appreciation for the genre. However, the fact that this particular title is not set in the future, but 80,000 years in the past, also indulges the filmmaker’s clear love of history.

From the beginning, Scott has shown a fascination for depicting history onscreen (The Duellists was set during the Napoleonic Wars), but over the years, he has proven himself to be a true glutton for historical dramas. Rather than focusing on a single era that compels him the most, he has helmed movies with a wide variety of historical settings from many different epochs, including Ancient Rome (Gladiator, Gladiator II), the Third Crusade (Kingdom of Heaven), medieval England (Robin Hood), biblical-era Egypt (Exodus: Gods and Kings), the 14th century (The Last Duel), the 15th century (1492: Conquest of Paradise), and even the 1970s (All the Money in the World, House of Gucci).

These movies occupy a number of different genres, which indicates how much groundwork was laid by viewing Quest for Fire, which combined a heady sci-fi story with a prehistoric setting.

You can read plenty more about Ridley Scott on No Film School, including a list of the most iconic lines from Ridley Scott movies, an exploration of how he shaped modern sci-fi, a breakdown of his favorite shots from his movies, and more.