Ridley Scott, English director, producer, and production designer
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He has directed, among others, the science fiction films Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) and The Martian (2015), the road crime film Thelma & Louise (1991), the historical drama film Gladiator (2000), and the war film Black Hawk Down (2001).
Scott began his career in television as a designer and director before moving into advertising, where he honed his filmmaking skills by making inventive mini-films for television commercials. He made his debut as a film director with The Duellists (1977) and gained wider recognition with his next film, Alien. His work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, spanning 2nd-century Rome in Gladiator, 12th-century Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Medieval England in Robin Hood (2010), contemporary Mogadishu in Black Hawk Down, or the futuristic cityscapes of Blade Runner and distant planets in Alien, Prometheus (2012), Alien: Covenant (2017), and The Martian. Several of his films are also known for their strong female characters. In 2021, his films The Last Duel and House of Gucci were released.Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing, which he received for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and he received a nomination in that category for the 2015 film The Martian. In 1995 both Scott and his brother Tony received a BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. In 2003 he was knighted for services to the British film industry. In a 2004 BBC poll, Scott was ranked 10 on the list of most influential people in British culture. He received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London in 2015 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2018.