Ridley Scott has been working, as a director, pretty consistently for about half a century now. His feature-length debut was in 1977, and, as of 2026, there are 30 movies in his filmography, which is a nice round number, so why not have a go at trying to rank everything?

There’s a lot, and the quality here differs greatly, too.

Oh, and on top of all that, there’s also an eclectic mix of genres that Ridley Scott has tackled over the decades. So, quite a few things here working to make a ranking hard, but if Scott’s soldiered on and made a ton of movies, it feels right, in spirit, to get ambitious with talking about all those movies.

This is everything Ridley Scott has directed (so far), ranked from worst to best. Probably the least compelling and well-made Ridley Scott movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings is just a disappointment all around.

The filmmaker’s done various other classics that belong to the epic genre, but Exodus: Gods and Kings falls very short, and suffers in comparison to other movies about Moses and the Ten Commandments (see 1956’s The Ten Commandments and 1998’s The Prince of Egypt).

In that sense, it’s a little like 1959’s Ben-Hur versus 2016’s Ben-Hur. 1956’s The Ten Commandments (1956) is huge in a way that still impresses, and a better take on the story than the 2014 version.

The 1950s versions of Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments both starred Charlton Heston, and both also served as remakes/updates of silent films from the 1920s.

All these things are more interesting than actually talking about Exodus: Gods and Kings (don’t watch it). The most recent Ridley Scott movie, at the time of writing, is The Dog Stars, which is him returning to the sci-fi genre for the first time in almost a decade… and honestly, most of the time, when Scott does sci-fi, you're in for something good.

It’s only “most of the time” because The Dog Stars is the unfortunate exception. This one’s honestly pretty bad, and definitely very meandering.

It’s a post-apocalyptic film where very little happens for a bit over an hour, and then too much happens in the final 45 minutes, and then it ends, leaving you feeling underwhelmed and kind of in a daze where everything feels forgotten within minutes of leaving the cinema.

It’s not even accurate to say The Dog Stars will probably be forgotten about before too long, because that would imply anyone remembered or thought about it in the first place. It is just such a nothing movie.

The Counselor is a grim and somewhat disappointing film, but it's only classifiable as the latter because it really should've been better than it was.

It had a great deal going for it, what with it being Ridley Scott directing a screenplay Narratively, it’s about a lawyer getting tangled up with drug traffickers, and the consequences that ensue from being involved with such a business. The Counselor is a messy and inconsistent crime/thriller, and though some parts of it come close to almost clicking, there's a sense that it overall should've been much better than it was.

It's dark in the way you'd expect something Cormac McCarthy-related to be, though without satisfying as much – or feeling as coherent – as some of the other stories/films that carry the legendary author's name. When Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe work together on a movie, they usually make something that belongs to the action, thriller, or crime genres, or some combination of the above, as a few soon-to-be-mentioned movies will show.

That's definitely not the case at all for their 2006 film, A Good Year, which stands out as being Scott’s attempt at making a romantic dramedy. Most of A Good Year is set in a vineyard, and revolves around two people who believe they've inherited shared vineyard from a family member.

Is A Good Year a good movie, though?

It almost gets the job done, as far as romantic comedies go, but so much of it proves incredibly boring, and it’s very hard to remember much about it even just minutes after it’s concluded, The Dog Stars-style. The most G.I.

Jane has It’s another Exodus: Gods and Kings situation, where trying to find anything interesting to talk about leads to trivia, like that Oscars situation.

As for the film itself, if anything about it does have to be discussed, it at least has an interesting premise, revolving around a military program set up to allow women to join the U.S. It’s just that the execution is a bit ho-hum, and makes the premise more tedious in the end.

Like many other Ridley Scott movies that weren't critically well-received, G.I.

Jane was quickly forgotten about (maybe Chris Rock was one of the only people who genuinely remembered it). Before there was a new Moses movie in 2014 that wasn’t necessary, Ridley Scott was responsible for directing yet another Robin Hood movie that, in 2010, also wasn’t necessary.

The legend of the titular character is one most people are already very familiar with, which isn't the worst thing in the world if you're willing to do something interesting with it, but Robin Hood (2010) ain't very interesting.

It’s at least another team-up between Scott and frequent leading man Russell Crowe, and maybe an ever so slightly more watchable one than A Good Year. Those who are continually looking for a genuinely good Robin Hood movie beyond the animated Disney version and 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood might have to keep on searching, though, because this one just isn't really it.

Ridley Scott's name gets associated more with the sci-fi genre rather than the fantasy one (as many of his very best films attest to), but Legend represents the filmmaker indeed taking a stab at that latter genre. It's got the kind of fantasy premise that’s almost comically familiar, with a princess that needs saving and a great evil that needs defeating, and a young hero and his fairly useless comedic sidekicks being the ones to do it.

When The Princess Bride does clichés but gently parodies those clichés while somehow celebrating them at the same time, it’s great. That works. But Legend doesn’t really have the confidence to do anything like that.

It’s most interesting for its casting, having a young Tom Cruise feeling out of place (this is one of his rare appearances in a fantasy movie), but then Tim Curry very much does feel in the right place as the villain. Curry and the film’s sometimes eye-catching visuals are probably the best reasons to watch this otherwise kind of irritating movie.

Someone to Watch Over Me does not have many people who've watched it, with it being Scott’s follow-up to Legend, and maybe a slight improvement on that film, though it does lack the mild cult following Legend has. This film’s probably best defined as a neo-noir one, with it being about a detective who’s tasked with watching over a woman who was a witness to a murder.

The detective starts to have some feelings towards this witness, because of course he does, and that makes his already tense marriage start to develop further problems. It’s all familiar and kind of uninteresting, as far as the story and the characters in it are concerned… yet as is often the case for otherwise middling Ridley Scott movies, Someone to Watch Over Me doesn’t look bad (or lack a certain cinematic quality), Even if it’s not an especially great action/thriller film, Body of Lies is a kind of decent one, so maybe this is the point where things are going to start getting a little more interesting, as far as this ranking’s concerned.

In Body of Lies, there are two men wrapped up in a hunt for the mastermind behind a series of terrorist attacks, with one being on the ground and consistently in danger, and the other observing events from the other side of the world. There are talented people involved with this, both in front of and behind the camera, but most seem to be going through the motions, to some extent.

Body of Lies sits in the middle of the Scott and Crowe collaborations quality-wise, and it’s watchable enough. Decent, gets the job done, but is potentially a bit unexciting and a little forgettable overall.

A bit like The Counselor, Hannibal is a dark crime/thriller movie (albeit it’s got a bit more of a lean toward horror) that should be better than it is.

It may well have always been doomed, given it's a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, which is more or less unbeatable. Though Hannibal gives Anthony Hopkins the chance to reprise the role of Dr.

Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling is distractingly played Also, Moore’s not particularly good in the role, which is weird to say, because she’s usually pretty great.

The plot is built around both Lecter and Starling reuniting two years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, though things are noticeably less exciting than they were before. Seeing Hopkins as Lecter once again ensures Hannibal isn't a total waste of time, and it's a competent enough film if it's not compared too directly to the 1991 film it follows.

As a sequel, though, it disappoints (again, kind of inevitably). Ridley Scott has been working, as a director, pretty consistently for about half a century now.

Read More: The 10 Most Intense Superhero Movies of All Time, Ranked

His feature-length debut was in 1977, and, as of 2026, there are 30 movies in his filmography, which is a nice round number, so why not have a go at trying to rank everything?

There’s a lot, and the quality here differs greatly, too. Oh, and on top of all that, there’s also an eclectic mix of genres that Ridley Scott has tackled over the decades.

So, quite a few things here working to make a ranking hard, but if Scott’s soldiered on and made a ton of movies, it feels right, in spirit, to get ambitious with talking about all those movies.

This is everything Ridley Scott has directed (so far), ranked from worst to best . Probably the least compelling and well-made Ridley Scott movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings is just a disappointment all around.

The filmmaker’s done various other classics that belong to the epic genre, but Exodus: Gods and Kings falls very short, and suffers in comparison to other movies about Moses and the Ten Commandments (see 1956’s The Ten Commandments and 1998’s The Prince of Egypt ).

In that sense, it’s a little like 1959’s Ben-Hur versus 2016’s Ben-Hur . 1956’s The Ten Commandments (1956) is huge in a way that still impresses, and a better take on the story than the 2014 version .

The 1950s versions of Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments both starred Charlton Heston , and both also served as remakes/updates of silent films from the 1920s.

All these things are more interesting than actually talking about Exodus: Gods and Kings (don’t watch it). The most recent Ridley Scott movie, at the time of writing, is The Dog Stars , which is him returning to the sci-fi genre for the first time in almost a decade… and honestly, most of the time, when Scott does sci-fi , you're in for something good.

It’s only “most of the time” because The Dog Stars is the unfortunate exception. This one’s honestly pretty bad, and definitely very meandering.

It’s a post-apocalyptic film where very little happens for a bit over an hour, and then too much happens in the final 45 minutes, and then it ends, leaving you feeling underwhelmed and kind of in a daze where everything feels forgotten within minutes of leaving the cinema .

It’s not even accurate to say The Dog Stars will probably be forgotten about before too long, because that would imply anyone remembered or thought about it in the first place. It is just such a nothing movie.

The Counselor is a grim and somewhat disappointing film, but it's only classifiable as the latter because it really should've been better than it was.

It had a great deal going for it, what with it being Ridley Scott directing a screenplay Narratively, it’s about a lawyer getting tangled up with drug traffickers, and the consequences that ensue from being involved with such a business. The Counselor is a messy and inconsistent crime/thriller, and though some parts of it come close to almost clicking, there's a sense that it overall should've been much better than it was.

It's dark in the way you'd expect something Cormac McCarthy-related to be, though without satisfying as much – or feeling as coherent – as some of the other stories/films that carry the legendary author's name. When Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe work together on a movie, they usually make something that belongs to the action, thriller, or crime genres, or some combination of the above, as a few soon-to-be-mentioned movies will show.

That's definitely not the case at all for their 2006 film, A Good Year , which stands out as being Scott’s attempt at making a romantic dramedy. Most of A Good Year is set in a vineyard, and revolves around two people who believe they've inherited shared vineyard from a family member.

Is A Good Year a good movie, though?

It almost gets the job done, as far as romantic comedies go, but so much of it proves incredibly boring, and it’s very hard to remember much about it even just minutes after it’s concluded , The Dog Stars -style. The most G.I.

Jane has It’s another Exodus: Gods and Kings situation, where trying to find anything interesting to talk about leads to trivia, like that Oscars situation.

As for the film itself, if anything about it does have to be discussed, it at least has an interesting premise, revolving around a military program set up to allow women to join the U.S. It’s just that the execution is a bit ho-hum, and makes the premise more tedious in the end .

Like many other Ridley Scott movies that weren't critically well-received , G.I.

Jane was quickly forgotten about (maybe Chris Rock was one of the only people who genuinely remembered it). Before there was a new Moses movie in 2014 that wasn’t necessary, Ridley Scott was responsible for directing yet another Robin Hood movie that, in 2010, also wasn’t necessary.

The legend of the titular character is one most people are already very familiar with, which isn't the worst thing in the world if you're willing to do something interesting with it, but Robin Hood (2010) ain't very interesting.

It’s at least another team-up between Scott and frequent leading man Russell Crowe, and maybe an ever so slightly more watchable one than A Good Year . Those who are continually looking for a genuinely good Robin Hood movie beyond the animated Disney version and 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood might have to keep on searching, though, because this one just isn't really it .

Ridley Scott's name gets associated more with the sci-fi genre rather than the fantasy one (as many of his very best films attest to), but Legend represents the filmmaker indeed taking a stab at that latter genre. It's got the kind of fantasy premise that’s almost comically familiar, with a princess that needs saving and a great evil that needs defeating, and a young hero and his fairly useless comedic sidekicks being the ones to do it.

When The Princess Bride does clichés but gently parodies those clichés while somehow celebrating them at the same time, it’s great. That works. But Legend doesn’t really have the confidence to do anything like that.

It’s most interesting for its casting, having a young Tom Cruise feeling out of place (this is one of his rare appearances in a fantasy movie), but then Tim Curry very much does feel in the right place as the villain. Curry and the film’s sometimes eye-catching visuals are probably the best reasons to watch this otherwise kind of irritating movie.

Someone to Watch Over Me does not have many people who've watched it , with it being Scott’s follow-up to Legend , and maybe a slight improvement on that film, though it does lack the mild cult following Legend has. This film’s probably best defined as a neo-noir one, with it being about a detective who’s tasked with watching over a woman who was a witness to a murder.

The detective starts to have some feelings towards this witness, because of course he does, and that makes his already tense marriage start to develop further problems. It’s all familiar and kind of uninteresting, as far as the story and the characters in it are concerned… yet as is often the case for otherwise middling Ridley Scott movies , Someone to Watch Over Me doesn’t look bad (or lack a certain cinematic quality), Even if it’s not an especially great action/thriller film, Body of Lies is a kind of decent one, so maybe this is the point where things are going to start getting a little more interesting, as far as this ranking’s concerned.

In Body of Lies , there are two men wrapped up in a hunt for the mastermind behind a series of terrorist attacks, with one being on the ground and consistently in danger, and the other observing events from the other side of the world. There are talented people involved with this, both in front of and behind the camera, but most seem to be going through the motions, to some extent.

Body of Lies sits in the middle of the Scott and Crowe collaborations quality-wise, and it’s watchable enough . Decent, gets the job done, but is potentially a bit unexciting and a little forgettable overall.

A bit like The Counselor , Hannibal is a dark crime/thriller movie (albeit it’s got a bit more of a lean toward horror) that should be better than it is.

It may well have always been doomed, given it's a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs , which is more or less unbeatable . Though Hannibal gives Anthony Hopkins the chance to reprise the role of Dr.

Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling is distractingly played Also, Moore’s not particularly good in the role, which is weird to say, because she’s usually pretty great.

The plot is built around both Lecter and Starling reuniting two years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs , though things are noticeably less exciting than they were before. Seeing Hopkins as Lecter once again ensures Hannibal isn't a total waste of time , and it's a competent enough film if it's not compared too directly to the 1991 film it follows.

As a sequel, though, it disappoints (again, kind of inevitably).