Ridley Scott is one of our most prolific living filmmakers, with a knack for world building and story-telling that carries across genres. His early career as a director was marked by groundbreaking titles such as Alien, Legend, and Blade Runner. Each is an incredibly different film, yet all of them share the same attention to craft that Scott is known for.
Scott’s career only gained momentum from there. In 1991, he directed the ever-popular road movie, Thelma and Louise. He took audiences back to the New World in 1492: Conquest of Paradise. And in 1997 he directed Demi Moore in her profound performance in G.I. Jane. But throughout the 2000s, Scott truly hit his stride as a filmmaker, creating an unprecedented number of blockbusters throughout the decade. From the Colosseum of the late Roman Empire, to the hard streets of 1970s Harlem, to the Somalian Civil War, Scott has a talent for bringing a narrative world to life on screen. Here are the best Ridley Scott films from the 2000s, ranked.
8
‘Body of Lies’ (2008)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Mark Strong
This 2008 action thriller, set in the Middle East, follows the CIA and the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, as they pursue a fictitious terrorist, Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul). The screenplay was based on a novel of the same name written by David Ignatius, and spoke to contemporary tensions in the Middle East over Western foreign policy and intelligence operations. The narrative centers around CIA agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) in his efforts to track down Al-Saleem, despite the often frustrating conflicts he finds from within, especially in his relationship with CIA chief Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe). The film builds an intricate web of intersecting agendas and competing motivations.
War films that pre-date the contemporary period, such as Pearl Harbor or Saving Private Ryan, tend to perform well at the box office, whereas war films that address the “war on terror” often fail to draw the same crowds. This is possibly because it is easier for contemporary audiences to project themselves onto the heroic side of victory in conflicts where the lines of morality feel more settled after the passage of time. The conventional spy thriller dynamics of mistrust and misdirection build tension in Body of Lies, but overall the film felt torn between identities. Ferris, who speaks Arabic and demonstrates cultural sensitivity, is meant to provide a figure that contrasts with the typically insensitive attitude many US soldiers are perceived to have modeled while present in Middle Eastern countries. But, overall, the integration of a romance plot and the conventional narrative twists and turns of a spy-thriller detracted from more meaningful social commentary.
- Release Date
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October 10, 2008
- Runtime
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128 minutes
- Writers
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William Monahan, David Ignatius
7
‘A Good Year’ (2006)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, and Marion Cotillard
With his attention to building fantastic worlds from history or fantasy, Scott isn’t known for producing romantic comedies. Yet in 2006, things took a turn for the director, and he signed on to a project with a completely different kind of world building. Rom-coms have their own set of rules, and there is a certain lightning-in-a-bottle quality to some of the best examples of the genre. Films like Sleepless in Seattle or Notting Hill relied on the appeal and star power of their charismatic leading ladies and their charming suitors. But sometimes a quaint picture comes along that surprises audiences, even if it leans more into the dramedy than the comedy side of the genre.
A Good Year follows Max Skinner (Russell Crowe), a young and conceited stock trader in London. Max was raised by his uncle in a vineyard in Provence after his parents passed away in his childhood. When Max is called away from his busy city life to settle his uncle’s estate, through a series of accidents, he makes the acquaintance of a young café owner, Fanny Chenal (Marion Cotillard). As things begin to fall apart with his relationships at the firm he works for, Max begins to reassess his life in the city, and the call of the countryside of his childhood begins to appeal to him more.
6
‘Matchstick Men’ (2003)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman
Matchstick Men is a dark comedy crime film about established con-artist, Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage), that comes with an unconventional twist in the form of an unknown 14-year-old daughter’s arrival on the scene. Roy and his partner Frank Mercer (Sam Rockwell) con unsuspecting individuals into purchasing low-quality, high-priced water filtration systems. As Roy struggles with his obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette syndrome, he finds a new psychiatrist to prescribe him his required medications. Through the course of treatment, the therapist reveals he has discovered the existence of Roy’s daughter from a previous relationship, Angela (Alison Lohman).
In the hands of a less skilled director, the story, based on the 2002 novel of the same name written by Eric Garcia, could have easily lost the plot. Cage and Rockwell are both performers known for delivering high-energy performances. In Matchstick Men, the cool control they both bring to their roles as con men navigating their complex business and personal relationships, as Roy learns to accommodate his new role as a father, drives the film forward. Lohman was just coming off of her breakout role in White Oleandar, and she brought a similar haunting pathos to Alison that earned her such praise as Astrid Magnussen.
- Release Date
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September 12, 2003
- Runtime
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116 minutes
- Writers
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Eric Garcia, Nicholas Griffin, Ted Griffin
5
‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (2005)
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, and Edward Norton
Returning to his fascination with historical world building, Kingdom of Heaven is set initially in Medieval France before following Balian the Blacksmith (Orlando Bloom) as he travels to Jerusalem, after joining his father, Baron Godfrey (Liam Neeson). Balian has lost his wife to suicide, and has murdered his half-brother, a priest who ordered his wife’s head removed from her body to deny her a Christian burial. The bereft blacksmith joins his father and his Crusaders in his return journey to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in a bid to find salvation. When soldiers attempt to overtake them to arrest Balian for fratricide, Godfrey is mortally wounded in the skirmish. Before he passes, he names Balian the Barisan of Ibelin, thus blending this fictional French blacksmith with a true historical figure.
The film, with its truly gorgeous cinematography and intricately choreographed fight sequences, delivered a thoughtful interrogation into the complex historical allegiances of the period. Edward Norton‘s performance as the leper King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was a step outside his typical roles, and earned him praise. Eva Green delivered an intoxicating performance as Queen Sibylla, another historical figure whose biography was fictionalized for the film, as there is no record of the monarch renouncing her claims to the throne to follow her blacksmith lover back to France. The film does much to illustrate the complex personal dynamics at stake for the characters when faith and war collide, and concludes with a chyron that informs the audience that, nearly a millennium later, peace in the region of the Holy Land remains elusive.
4
‘Hannibal’ (2001)
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, and Ray Liotta
This adaptation of the sequel to the inimitable Silence of the Lambs was controversial for recasting the starring role of Clarice Starling, originally played by Jodie Foster in the 1991 film. After the 1999 release of the long-awaited Thomas Harris novel was published, plans for the sequel film could begin. But when Foster seemingly objected to the novel’s portrayal of Clarice, and had a scheduling conflict once production on the film began, she passed on the screenplay and was replaced by Julianne Moore in the leading role. Scott was lucky to find Moore, who brought the same wholesome grit to the role as her beloved predecessor.
Once again, in the hands of a less visionary director, the screenplay for Hannibal would have been difficult to realize. Taking a known monster like Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins), a doctor who cannibalizes people he finds to be distasteful, or “free-range rude” as he refers to them, and turning him into Clarice’s hypnotic romantic interest, as the novel portrays, was too controversial a direction for any director hoping for a commercially successful film to follow. Despite needing to reconfigure the ending, Scott’s film concludes in a way that retains Dr. Lector’s admiration of Clarice’s “incorruptibility,” without taking her disillusionment with the FBI so far that she went over the edge, as in the inverted hunter/hunted relationship portrayed in the novel.
3
‘American Gangster’ (2007)
Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor
American Gangster is a biographical crime film based loosely on the rise of 1970s criminal kingpin, Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington. Lucas works for Harlem crime boss Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, until the death of his mentor leaves a space to be filled. He enters the heroin trade and, under the brand “Blue Magic,” makes a name for himself for the purity of his product. As Lucas’ success grows, his trade becomes hidden in plain sight, as he assumes legitimacy behind the businesses he creates as fronts. But the kingpin’s lavish lifestyle makes him a target for Newark detective, Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe).
The screenplay was developed by Steve Zaillian, using the New York Magazine article “The Return of Superfly” as source material. The film is a deep look at the dark underbelly of the American dream. Early in the film, Lucas demonstrates the lengths he is willing to go to in order to take up space in this world, publicly executing Tango (Idris Elba) in a shocking display of power that translates to instant street credibility. One of the most bizarre elements of the story is actually taken from real life, as the friendship that seems to develop between Lucas and Roberts in the film was based on the relationship that evolved between the two men after Lucas’ capture.
2
‘Black Hawk Down’ (2001)
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, and Ewan McGregor
This war film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was adapted from a 1999 non-fiction book of the same name. The film depicts the experience of the crews of US soldiers whose helicopters were shot down during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia in 1993. UN forces had gained footing in the region to alleviate famine, a result of the ongoing civil war, but their continued efforts to assist the United States in establishing a central government were fraught with resistance. Somali National Alliance leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid (the main target of the US operation in Somalia) was represented in the film by his militia commander, Yousuf Dahir Mo’Alim (Razaaq Adoti).
The film was a vehicle for an all-star ensemble cast of rugged young Hollywood actors to gather together in the band of brothers ethos that war films love to foreground. Where Body of Lies was a spy thriller whose fictional narrative felt out of step with the political climate it emulated, the perspective of Black Hawk Down is not weighed down by the intricacies of preventing a potential global disaster, since the focus remains on the ensemble cast who portray soldiers caught up in their efforts to simply survive the day. The film takes artistic liberties, and obviously has a Western bias, but the commitment to an arm-gripping realism in the film is admirable, especially from a technical perspective. A recent Netflix docuseries titled Surviving Black Hawk Down, produced by Ridley Scott Associates, aims to tell the story of the battle again, this time not only through the eyes of the surviving American military personnel, but also by local Somalians.
1
‘Gladiator’ (2000)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, and Connie Nielsen
Gladiator remains one of Scott’s best-known, and best-loved, films. The film showcased the director’s ability to create large-scale epic historical dramas. Gladiator also established the director’s artistic partnership with Russell Crowe, which flourished throughout the decade. Crowe’s performance as Maximus Decius Meridius was matched in intensity by Joaquin Phoenix‘s sadistic portrayal as Commodus, but the true star of the film was the world Scott was able to bring alive on screen.
The film was so beloved that, in 2024, Scott returned to ancient Rome with the sequel, Gladiator II. Paul Mescal stars as Maximus’ son, Lucius Verus Aurelius, who was banished from Rome by his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the daughter of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, for fear he would be targeted as a rival to the throne. The inciting incident is Lucius’ enslavement after the Roman Army invades Numidia, drawing immediate thematic and narrative parallels to the original film. Gladiator kicked off Scott’s marathon run in the 2000s, and deserves the number one spot on the list.
