There is nothing so ruinous to good character as to idle away one's time at some spectacle

GLADIATOR II

2024

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Peter Craig and David Scarpa

Spoilers: moderate (arguably high, but not if you've seen the first three minutes of the movie, I'd think)

They love whom they penalize; they bring into disrepute whom they applaud; they extol the art, and brand the artist with disgrace

GLADIATOR

2000

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson

Spoilers: severe

Blownapart

NAPOLEON

2023

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by David Scarpa

Spoilers: inapplicable

In all of your dealings with me, you will do me the courtesy to conduct yourself as a dead man

THE DUELLISTS

1978

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Gerald Vaughan-Hughes (based on the short story "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad)

Spoilers: moderate

Father, son, and House of Gucci

HOUSE OF GUCCI

2021

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna (based on the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden)

Spoilers: N/A

The customary protests

THE LAST DUEL

2021

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener (based on the book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial By Combat In Medieval France by Eric Jager)

Spoiler alert: pretty much inapplicable, but I don't say who dies!

Winter is coming—oh shit, wait... it's here

LEGEND

Practically two movie reviews in one!  Great.  (Luckily, each movie is almost great.)

1985 (them)/1986 (us)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by William Hjortsberg

With Tom Cruise (Jack), Mia Sara (Lili), David Bennent and the voice of Alice Playten (Honeythorn Gump), Annabelle Lanyon (Oona), Bill Barty (Screwball), Cork Hubbert (Brown Tom), Kiran Shah (Blunder), Peter O'Farrell (Pox), Alice Playten again (Blix), Robert Picardo (Meg Mucklebones), and Tim Curry (Darkness)

Spoiler alert: mild

Cells (interlinked)

BLADE RUNNER 2049

I am so Soviet happy.

2017

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Written by Hampton Francher and Michael Green

With Ryan Gosling (K), Ana de Armas (Joi), Harrison Ford (Deckard), Mackenzie Davis (Mariette), Robin Wright (Lt. Joshi), Sylvia Hoeks (Luv), and Jared Leto (Niander Wallace)

Spoiler alert: moderate

But then again, who does?

BLADE RUNNER

The great sci-fi allegory about God and man, or at least—since there are an awful lot of them—one of the greats.

1982

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples (based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick)

With Harrison Ford (Deckard), Sean Young (Rachael), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), William Sanderson (J.F. Sebastian), Joanna Cassidy (Zhora), Brion James (Leon), Daryl Hannah (Pris), and Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty)

Spoiler alert: I want more life, fucker

Alien Week, part VIII: The dark star

ALIEN: COVENANT

About seven weeks too late, we reach the conclusion of our journey—and, in keeping with the anticlimactic nature of our retrospective, we find it lacking not just everything that made Alien great, but even most of the things that made its immediate predecessor Prometheus good, too.

2017

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Jack Peglen, Michael Green, John Logan, and Dante Harper

With Michael Fassbender (David and Walter), Katherine Waterston (Daniels), Billy Crudup (Oram), Danny McBride (Tennessee), James Franco (Capt. Branson), and Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Alien Week, part VII: The space odyssey

PROMETHEUS

Fitfully great, and with far more potential than it ever quite pays off upon, Prometheus is ironic in that it's an Alien film that itself suffers from an unwanted xenomorphic impregnation.

2012

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof

With Michael Fassbender (David), Noomi Rapace (Dr. Elizabeth Shaw), Logan Marshall-Green (Dr. Charlie Holloway), Charlize Theron (Meredith Vickers), Idris Elba (Capt. Janek), and Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland)

Spoiler alert: high

Alien Week, part I: The terror from beyond space

ALIEN

As the film that kickstarted the whole cycle of sci-fi horror in the 1980s, we are forever in Alien's debt; and for being awesome in and of itself, we absolutely must pay it the respect it's due.  But, guys, sometimes a near-masterpiece can just be a near-masterpiece, and you don't need to give it full marks merely to recognize how important, or even how good, it actually is.

1979

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, David Giler, and Walter Hill

With Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), John Hurt (Kane), Yaphet Kotto (Parker), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), Ian Holm (Ash), Helen Horton (Mother), and Bolaji Badejo (the Alien)

Spoiler alert: joking, yes?

This is not heaven, it's the world—and there's troubles in it

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

A plea for tolerance that you think about more than you feel, and which you likely won't think about too hard, at that.  But you must admit, it is made with some truly awesome violence.

2005
Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by William Monohan

With Orlando Bloom (Balian), Liam Neeson (Baron Godfrey of Ibelin), Ed Norton (King Baldwin IV), Eva Green (Sybilla), Jeremy Irons (Tiberias), Marton Csokas (Guy de Lusignan), Brendan Gleeson (Raynald de Chatillon), Alexander Siddig (Imad), and Ghassan Massoud (Salah ad-Din)

Spoiler alert: you may or may not be surprised to learn that the Crusader state of Jerusalem no longer exists

The Adventures of CrusoeBot 5000

THE MARTIAN

The Martian is STEM propaganda with an inhuman bent, but despite the weaknesses inherent in that description, it works.

2015
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Drew Goddard (based on the novel by Andy Weir)
With Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Melissa Lewis), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Jeff Daniels (Terry Sanders), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose), Donald Glover (Rich Purnell), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Michael Pena (Rick Martinez), Kate Mara (Beth Johanssen), Sebastian Stan (Chris Beck), Aksel Hennie (Alex Vogel), and Benedict Wong (Bruce Ng)

Spoiler alert: moderate

The J.D.: the degree so versatile you can fail to deal drugs with it too

THE COUNSELOR

I loved this movie.  You might.  They didn't.  You know who I mean.

2013
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Cormac McCarthy
With Michael Fassbender (The Counselor), Cameron Diaz (Malkina), Javier Bardem (Reiner), Brad Pitt (Westray), Penelope Cruz (Laura), and Ruben Blades (Jefe)

Spoiler alert: everyone either dies, should have died, or wishes they had died let's say moderate