Scott, Sir Ridley (1937- ), British film director, known for creating spectacular visual images. Born in South Shields, England, on November 30, 1937, Scott studied art and filmmaking at the Royal College of Art in London. He began his career as a set designer and later worked as a director of television programmes and commercials, many of which won awards.

Scott made his feature film debut with The Duellists (1977, starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel), about a feud between two French military officers during the Napoleonic Wars. Based on the short story “The Duel” by Joseph Conrad, the film was distinguished by its dramatic visual beauty. Scott achieved his first major commercial success with Alien (1979), a science-fiction horror film starring Sigourney Weaver that later spawned a number of commercially successful sequels, and whose manipulative editing and shocking images proved popular among audiences. Scott’s next film, Blade Runner (1982), a futuristic science-fiction detective story starring Harrison Ford that was notable for its striking depiction of a dark, congested urban landscape, won an enthusiastic following, and for its effect on the design and editing style of films by other directors came to be regarded as one of the most influential Hollywood films of its decade. Scott’s other films of the 1980s included Legend (1985, starring Tom Cruise), a fantasy film; Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), a romantic thriller; and Black Rain (1989, starring Michael Douglas), a crime story set primarily in Japan.

In 1991 Scott won great commercial and critical success with Thelma and Louise (starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon), a feminist story of two women on the run in an oppressively male culture. Among Scott’s other films are 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992, starring Gérard Depardieu as Columbus), White Squall (1996, starring Jeff Bridges), G. I. Jane (1997, starring Demi Moore), the Roman epic Gladiator (2000, starring Russell Crowe), which won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 73rd Academy Awards, Hannibal (2001, starring Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman), and the story of a disastrous 1993 US military mission to Somalia, Black Hawk Down (2001), which brought Scott a third Oscar nomination for Best Director. In 2003 he directed Matchstick Men, a comedy-drama about small-time con artists, starring Nicolas Cage, and in 2005 Kingdom of Heaven, an epic set during the medieval Crusades. A Good Year (2006), starring Russell Crowe, is Scott’s adaptation of Peter Mayle’s bestselling novel about British expatriate life in France’s Provence region; while American Gangster (2007) is a 1970s-period thriller based on the face-off between the New York drug lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and his nemesis, detective Richie Roberts (Crowe).

The slick visual flair of Scott’s films owes a great deal to his early work in advertising and set design. Aside from making feature films, Scott owns a television advertising company with his brother, the director Tony Scott, as well as the Shepperton film studios in Surrey, England. He was knighted in the 2003 New Year’s Honours.