In the mid-1960s, Ridley Scott worked for BBC Television as a set designer, an experience that has colored much of his subsequent work as a director. From his first film, "The Duellists" (1977), through "Gladiator" (2000), Scott has consistently turned out visually spectacular features. Though some critics feel this is at the expense of well-rounded characters and coherent stories, Danny Peary, for example, counters that in "Blade Runner" (1982) at least, the "awesome visuals. . . help tell the story and advance the themes."

Scott began his directing career in TV, working on episodes of such series as "Z Cars" and "The Informer." In 1967, he left the BBC and spent much of the next ten years churning out hundreds of TV ads through his commercial production company, RSA (Ridley Scott Associates).

Scott spent a total of five years, from conception through financing and production, on his first feature, "The Duellists" (1977). Although it won a special jury prize at Cannes, some criticized "The Duellists" as little more than carefully posed tableaux of the Napoleonic era that rarely illuminated the human aspects of the two central characters (Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel). Scott's next feature was the influential, stomach-churningly tense sci-fi thriller, "Alien" (1979). The film enjoyed considerable box-office success, made a star of Sigourney Weaver and spawned three sequels (to date): James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986), David Fincher's " 3" (1992) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Alien: Resurrection" (1997).

"Blade Runner" presents a bleak, stunning vision of an over-populated and media-saturated Los Angeles in the year 2019. The story, about a bounty hunter (Harrison Ford) tracking down a gang of outlaw androids, offers an unusually sympathetic treatment of the "replicants" as they search for their maker, hoping he can extend their four-year life span. The film has developed a significant cult following, though some critics had problems with Ford's wooden, cliched voice-over and a tacked-on hopeful ending which presents his point-of-view as he soars over a rural paradise accompanied by his android lover (Sean Young).

Critical reception for "Legend" (1985) was generally poor, centering on a weak, fairy-tale storyline that was swamped by sumptuous production design (impressively enough, the entire film was shot on a soundstage at London's Pinewood Studios). "Someone to Watch Over Me" (1987) was a well-structured, straightforward suspense thriller; finely acted by Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers and untypically devoid of flashy visual effects, it performed poorly at the box-office. Scott then scored his biggest hit since "Alien" with "Black Rain" (1989), a police corruption thriller set in New York and Japan; though the narrative was somewhat confused and insubstantial--a romantic sub-plot between a detective (Michael Douglas) and a nightclub hostess (Kate Capshaw) was dropped and picked up seemingly at random--the Tokyo skyline afforded Scott some of his finest urban compositions to date.

Scott enjoyed one of his greatest commercial and critical successes with the distaff road picture "Thelma & Louise" (1991). The film also engendered a level of controversy rarely witnessed over a mainstream Hollywood film. Relying on many conventions of the buddy-road film, Scott, screenwriter Callie Khouri and stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis angered (mostly male) and delighted (mostly female) viewers by putting the women squarely in charge. Of Scott's subsequent efforts, the less said about his Columbus epic, "1492: The Conquest of Paradise" (1992), the better. This unqualified bomb offered some visual pleasures but the unwieldy international cast failed to bring the costume drama to convincing life.

Scott's follow-up, "White Squall" (1996) was an improvement, yet failed to hit the mark with press or public. Generally referred to as a seagoing "Dead Poets Society", the film featured a young, attractive, mostly male cast in a story of privileged students forced to mature on an exclusive floating prep school. Jeff Bridges received some good notices for his central performance as the demanding skipper and Scott won kudos for the beautiful nautical imagery and his dynamic staging of a severe storm at sea. Nonetheless, the consensus was that "White Squall" was an anticlimactic bore.

The 1990s witnessed Scott's growing interest in producing. He produced Mike Figgis' handsomely mounted remake of "The Browning Version" (1994) starring Albert Finney and executive produced the charming family feature "Monkey Trouble" (also 1994) starring Harvey Keitel and Thora Birch. In 1995, Scott and his brother Tony purchased London's Shepperton Studios for their Scott Free Productions.