Apart Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma et Louise, Gladiator… What are the best films by Ridley Scott that we don’t talk about enough?
In 46 years of career and 29 films (the 30th, The Dog Starsarrives), director Ridley Scott has certainly become essential in the Hollywood landscape. Tout-Ã -all and hyper active (nine films in ten years), the British filmmaker has also entered the top 10 of the best subjects of debate-child in recent years, especially Prometheus et Alien : Covenant.
Ridley Scott, who recently chained Napoleon in 2023 and Gladiator 2 In 2024, however, had some films a little forgotten in his filmography. Everyone likes the game of “this film is undercostored”, so here is our little selection of 5 films that deserve more love and attention.
LEGEND
Exit: 1985 – Duration: 1h34
Almost Tristan and almost Iseut
In 1985, Ridley Scott recovered slowly from the bitter failure of Blade Runnerwhich will only get its cult film status until well after its exploitation in theaters. But it is a new fiasco that he must face as a consolation when its Legend Get out on the screens.
If this fantastic film is the fourth feature film of the director who will have previously pointed out with the success ofAlien In 1979, he was one of his oldest projects. Indeed, from the shooting of his first film The Dullistsreleased in 1977, Scott imagines the beginnings of this mythological tale. At that time, he struggled to set up his adaptation of Tristan and Iseutand the fact that le scenararists it Author William Hjortsberg Or tempted to sleep on paper his tale project arrives like a boon.
Tim Curry is even crazier than in the Rocky Horror Picture Show and that
And This story as wonderful as dark only reports 23.5 small million to the box office after having cost 25, it remains a curiosity in the career of its director and her performers. It’s just before flying to Top Gun that a young Tom Cruise embodies Jack here, this young first valiant ready to challenge the forces of evil for Save your beautiful and preserve unicorns. A role of Prince Charming with fairly unique Disney in the actor’s journey. Facing him, Mia Sara finds in Princess Lily the role of her life. And what about Tim Curry, eternal transformist of cinema, who embodies here A demon chilling with a design as majestic as it is terrifying ?
Legend is a nugget of wonderful darkness, in tone sometimes elusive (or missed, perhaps), but of which The enchanting sets, the half-fiddling semi-attractive creatures And the staging that perfectly mimics the engravings of Gustave Doré make it a hypnotizing object. Difficult to like without reservation, of course, but above all impossible to forget.
HANNIBAL
Exit: 2001 – Duration: 2h05
Beauty and the beast
Following the phenomenal success of Silence of Lamb in 1991 (from box office to Oscars), Everyone wanted to make a sequelstarting with the writer Thomas Harris. And when the book Hannibal Finally was released in 1999 … Everyone was cooled, notably director Jonathan Demme, screenwriter Ted Tally and Jodie Foster.
When producer Dino de Laurentiis came to offer him the project during the shooting of GladiatorRidley Scott accepted, provided you can change the end Book (thanks to the scriptwriters David Mamet and especially Steven Zaillian, just that). Anthony Hopkins has signed, Julianne Moore replaced Jodie Foster, and with a very Nice budget almost 90 million (against 20 for The silence of the lambs), the film Hannibal was launched. And unsurprisingly, he disappointed, frustrated, put off the public and the criticism, and was inevitably compared to the Silence of Lamb (and lost).
Clarice Starling V2
Yet, Hannibal deserves better. It’s the continuation of Silence of Lamb But the cards were completely redistributed. Lecter is no longer an animal in a cage but a predator in freedom. Everyone is looking for it, and everyone will get lost. Thanks to the music of Hans Zimmer, the decor of Italy, the photo of John Mathieson and the staging of Ridley Scott, the film becomes a kind tale nightmarish. And The silence of the lambs was a brain game, Hannibal is sensual and poisonous, and gets closer to the bodies – be it the brain of Paul Krendler or the skin and lips of Clarice and Hannibal at the end.
Ridley Scott juggles between love and violence, with some peaks of cruelty (the dead of Pazzi and Mason) and eroticism (the scene against the fridge), but never losing sight of his characters. Because at the end, Hannibal and Clarice are even more fascinating, complex and beautiful than in The silence of the lambs. And yes, Julianne Moore is excellent, and does not have to be ashamed against Jodie Foster.
Associates
Exit: 2003 – Duration: 1h56
Dynamic Duo
Rather appreciated, Matchstick Mena.k.a Associates, is nevertheless rarely quoted among the best films by Ridley Scott. It must be said that it is stuck between the two warrior historic frescoes The fall of the black hawk et Kingdom of Heaven. Written with his brother by Ted Griffin, a screenwriter who then chained the shines (Voracious et Ocean’s ElevenWhat Else?), The film is often considered a harmless entertainment, remarkable for the performance of its actors.
And it must be admitted that he largely draws his interest from his brilliant main duo. To tell the truth, Scott and her legendary casting director Debra Zane would deserve an Oscar only for having proposed to Nicolas Cage the role of a scammer plagued by the Tics. Unsurprisingly, The God of Cabotinage is having a lot of joyoffering some memorable slippages (the pharmacy scene!), While discovering a touching sensitivity. And it is more than well accompanied, since the excellent Sam Rockwell brings what it takes to rigor to the plot.
And an excellent Alison Lohman
However, it would be unfair to be satisfied with it. With his story of scam, feelings and control, as well as with his twist certainly easily detectable, but nevertheless exciting, Associates portrayed a ruthless contemporary worldwhere the slightest form of weakness is exploited and where the beautiful stories straight out of a Hollywood dream are only constructions aimed at destroying its inhabitants.
More than a little narrative sleight of hand, so it’s also a fairly biting ironyunderlined by an impeccable staging and the photograph of John Mathieson (Gladiator), all in shades of white. Scott recalls the place of consumer cinema of which he has become a standard bearer and ultimately delivers one of his most disillusioned films. It therefore fits very well between The fall of the black hawk et Kingdom of Heaven.
CARTEL
Release: 2013 – Duration: 1h57
“A little Delonghi?” »»
When it was released in 2013, Cartel is a critical and public failure as huge as the excitement that surrounds the project originally. It must be said that The association between Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy (Author of novels The road et No Country for Old Men) has enough to dream, the filmmaker taking the reins of the unique original script of the writer. Unlike the works previously adapted to the novelist, Cartel Discontent. And for good reason: in this mafia context where a lawyer (Michael Fassbender) decides to embark on drug trafficking at the Mexico border, we are very far from the expected shots of the genre.
Certainly, Cartel Abstaining colorful characters (we still haven’t recovered from the haircut and Javier Bardem’s shirts), but the supposed vulgarity of this environment, so highlighted by a Bigger Than Life cinema, is contrasting by incessant dialogues. Talkative, the film is certainly. But it is also there that he fascinates, because Scott draws there a misanthropy and a close nihilism.
Americaaaaa, f**k yeah !
Disillusioned, the figures of Cartel Kiss the fact of being silhouettes, empty shells which interpret cogs of the large capitalist machine (hence the ironic importance of its five -star cast, from Brad Pitt to Cameron Diaz). Their comments on the inevitable functioning of the world is full of deaf violence, which Scott ends up staging with His acute sense of shoc image.
The word becomes gesture, and of this emerging meeting Some of the best recent scenes from the filmmaker (The beheading of this biker launched at full speed in the desert, the fatal destiny of Brad Pitt…). The feature film then turned into a total Greek tragedy, clearly badly friendly, but fascinating.
Exodus
Exit: 2014 – Duration: 2h30
It’s bale
Strinted by the general public, disappointing at the box office and accused (rightly) of White-Washing, Exodus : Gods and Kings All of the peplum failed in broad outline, especially since he undeniably suffers from a major problem: An absolutely chaotic assembly. But if it is also forgotten, barely ten years after its release, it is also because it is deliberately against the current trends in Hollywood entertainment in its time.
A few months after the triumph of Galaxy goalkeepers and Captain America 2in full invasion of superheroes, Papy Ridley returns to the spectacle of the old Hollywood par excellence with his biblical fresco necessarily compared to that of Cecil B. Demille. However, no question for the filmmaker to curl up in a sterile nostalgia or to play the temple guards. With Exodushe heard Adapt the great epics that have marked the golden age of American cinema to a contemporary technique and sensitivityrainesas if to prove that symbols with the foundations of Western culture transcend modes and interpretations.
A film that has nose
Even if it means putting part of the audience on the back and as the director will later with The last duel et NapoleonScott and his three screenwriters extract from the original story a series of myths, which they reshuffle as they please. Here, they rationalize almost every aspect of the book of the Exodus and articulate their intrigue around a kind of theological duel in the shadow of an uncompromising God. A reading that is both very critical and full of enthusiasm of the Old Testament, which explains more than ever the complex relationship of the director to religion.
Finally, it is also in terms of technique that Scott modernizes biblical peplum, in particular by literally adding depth to the recipe. Few remember it, but 3D ofExodus was among the most spectacular of her time, especially when she added nuances of details to archi-classic paintings of the great biblical stories. To half -minded, Ridley Scott and his team substitute a mixture of resolutely contemporary processes, which still makes a strong impression today.
