In tracing the origins of the two most famous directors ever to come from the same family (apologies to the Coens and the Farrelys), one can see a military family from an industrial coastal town in England that produced two brothers: Show And Ridley Scott. Ridley, the older brother, studied at the Royal College of Art in London and became a commercial director of advertising in the UK, paving a similar path for his younger brother Tony. From his impressive commercial resume, Ridley worked his way to his feature length directorial debut, The duelistsin 1977. The movie was not a hit, but it got enough attention for Ridley’s breakthrough movie, Alienone of the most visionary sci-fi films of the 1970s.
Similarly, Tony Scott got a start in commercials under the tutelage of his older brother, and made an impressive commercial for Saab featuring fighter jets, which would later lead to his own breakthrough film, Top gunin 1985. By that point, Ridley had already made another revolutionary sci-fi film, blade runner, and it would have been a foregone conclusion that he was destined for a better career than his brother. Still, the next decade seemed to tip the balance again in Tony’s favor, as the younger Scott became a more commercially successful director with Top Gun, Days of Thunder, And Crimson tide.
During this period, Ridley seemed more determined to make more creatively challenging films than his brother, but saw a major career downturn and a lower quality of films, with the exception of Thelma and Louise, which earned an Oscar nomination for Ridley. From then on, the brothers traded commercial and critical success until Tony Scott’s untimely suicide in 2012. While there was no doubt that Ridley had done more period films, Tony was perhaps the better director in terms of pure entertainment. For the sake of discussion, let’s dive deeper into their careers to settle this debate.
Both brothers enjoyed early commercial success
Ridley’s visionary ambition to renew the sci-fi genre certainly opened the door to showbiz for his younger brother, after the older brother used the influence of Stanley Kubricks. 2001: A space odyssey to motivate his own ambitions to project his stories into the future. His first major success in this field was Alien, a film that successfully linked horror and sci-fi to gross $187 million at the box office and spawned one of the most successful action franchises in history. His adaptation of Swiss artist HR Giger’s terrifying visions of a predatory alien into a terrifying film forever changed our idea of what a sci-fi film could be.
Similarly, Tony Scott saw success early in his career – although his first film, The hunger, was a critical and commercial failure. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer saw something in Tony’s slick vampire movie and his advertising work and later asked him to direct Top gun in 1985, a big hit that suddenly made him the more studio-friendly of the two brothers. The partnership between Bruckheimer and Tony Scott continued on the same course, with films that, while critically derided, grossed huge amounts of money at the gate. Beverly Hills Cop II grossed nearly $300 million and Days of thunder had similar success. Both brothers were now set in their own ways – one the more artistic, content-driven filmmaker, the other the more entertaining and commercially viable.
Midway through his career, Ridley continued to experiment while Tony threw himself fully into action
In the 90s, Tony Scott continued to impress with films that eschewed high-brow subjects for total entertainment. The Last Boy Scout, True loveAnd Crimson tide maintained Tony’s penchant for hard-boiled action and electrified audiences while giving Quentin Tarantino his first big break (he wrote the script for True love) and introduce the world to James Gandolfini’s talents in the same film.
Meanwhile, Ridley Scott saw a major downturn in his career. With the exception of Thelma and LouiseRidley’s ’90s movies all underperformed at the gate, with movies like 1492: Conquest of Paradise, White moodAnd GI Jane leaving critics scratching their heads. Would he ever return to the glory of his early career? Indeed, he would — right around the turn of the century along Gladiator won five Oscars including Best Picture.
However, Tony Scott’s brilliance had not wavered and he kept pace with his older brother through his outstanding collaborations with Denzel Washington on four films: Man on fire, Déjà Vu, The Conquest of Pelham 123, And Unstoppable. After his death in 2010, Washington mused E! News“[Tony] had a tremendous passion for life and for the art of filmmaking and was able to share this passion with all of us through his cinematic genius.” High praise from possibly the greatest actor of a generation, and one who had worked with countless other talented directors, including brother Ridley op American gangster. He clearly preferred working with the younger Scott, who was able to coax a side of Washington that took him a step above his work elsewhere.
Settling the debate
While it’s hard to say conclusively whether Tony Scott would have continued his remarkable pace of directing well-earned movies after his tragic suicide in 2010, he gave every indication in his latest film, Unstoppable, that he only intended to continue with the kind of crowd-pleasing films that fueled his passion for filmmaking. That said, it would be hard for Tony Scott or any other director to compare to Ridley Scott’s sheer scope. While he never claimed that elusive Best Director Oscar, he created films that defined genres And defied them and continued his impressive production into his eighties with award-winning films such as The Martian.
While such a debate must inevitably be left to the subjective opinions of their audiences, it would be hard to say that Ridley Scott has played second fiddle to any filmmaker, let alone a filmmaker who grew up in the same house as South Shields , England, all those years before.