Ridley Scott’s Favorite Movies: 10 Films the ‘Napoleon’ Director Wants You to See

Ridley Scott’s career is marked first and foremost by its sheer prolificness. There are very few directors of any age who work frequently enough to have two films coming out the same year. Scott’s done it three times in 2001, 2017, and 2021; and those later two times were when he was past the age of 80.

Since he made his debut with the swashbuckling period drama “The Duellists” in 1977, Scott has been a steady, constant presence at the cinema. His longest break has been two four-year gaps between releases — “1492: Conquest for Paradise” and “White Squall” from 1992 to 1996 and “The Martian” and “All the Money in the World” and “The Last Duel” from 2017 to 2021, the latter gap widened by the pandemic. More frequently, Scott only goes two or even just one year before dropping a new film, resulting in an impressively robust 28 filmography.

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What’s even more notable about Scott’s body of work isn’t just its size but its variety. The director is probably best known for his science fiction work, as he practically defined two entire subgenres with the one-two punch of extraterrestrial horror “Alien” and cyberpunk noir “Blade Runner” in 1979 and 1982. He’s also well knwn for his historical epics, which include greats like “Gladiator” and “Kingdom of Heaven” and some…not so greats like “1492: Conquest of Paradise.”

But once you get into his films, you’ll find an incredible array of genres and tones that the English auteur has taken on. He’s made a feminist buddy road trip movie (“Thelma and Louise”), a psychological horror cannibal story (“Hannibal”), several war (“Black Hawk Down”) and crime (“American Gangster”) films, a “Rashomon” riff set in the Middle Ages (“The Last Duel”), and “The Counselor,” which is really in a genre of its own. When his latest film “Napoleon,” a biopic epic starring Joaquin Phoenix as the notorious French ruler, turned out to be more of a comedy and satire than anything else, it felt only fitting that Scott would surprise us.

With the amount of different types of films he’s made, it’s no surprise that Scott has a varied and deep taste in films with a great appreciation for the canonical classics like “Citizen Kane” mixed with some oddball picks like “Muriel’s Wedding.” In honor of “Napoleon,” IndieWire went through Scott’s interviews over the years to find the movies he’s shouted out as his absolute favorites. Read on for nine of Ridley Scott’s favorite movies, along with a TV show thrown in for good measure.

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