Ridley Scott's 7 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movies, Ranked From Worst To Best

Ridley Scott has returned to the sci-fi genre in 2026 with the movie The Dog Stars. As much as Scott is known for his sci-fi and fantasy movies, it might come as a surprise that he has only directed seven movies in the two genres over a period of 47 years. The new movie is a post-apocalyptic thriller, which is a subgenre that Scott had not approached before, although Blade Runner is a dystopian thriller.

The other Scott movies in the two genres include those involving horror sci-fi, specifically with the Alien franchise, smart sci-fi, such as The Martian, and even epic fantasy like Legend. This is impressive since Scott got his start with a historical drama in The Duellists in 1977, and then he quickly moved on to sci-fi before moving quickly back to both historical dramas and fictional dramas for the next two decades.

It is also important to note the difference between fantasy movies and historical epics. Scott has several movies that some might mistake for fantasy, with releases like Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). All of those are historical movies but are not fantastical in nature. There is even the movie Hannibal, which is pure horror but not fantasy or sci-fi.

7 The Dog Stars (2026)

The Dog Stars is Ridley Scott's most recent sci-fi movie, a post-apocalyptic thriller based on the novel by Peter Heller. In this story, a devastating flu epidemic has wiped out most of humanity, and the movie shows the survivors and how they have to fight other survivors to hold onto what they have. The main character is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a civilian pilot who lives with his dog and ends up finding a new group of survivors who live in a dangerous wasteland.

Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce, Allison Janney, and Benedict Wong round out the cast, and while this is an impressive cast with a legendary director, the movie has received mostly negative reviews. The film has a 39% Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics calling it derivative and slow, one of the worst reviewed of Scott's career. However, its 71% audience score shows that its story connects with viewers more than critics.

6 Alien: Covenant (2017)

Alien: Covenant is the last movie that Ridley Scott made in his Alien franchise, although he had plans for another after this one that never got made. The problem isn't that the movie is bad. It was a case where audiences didn't buy into it as much as they could have, so the box office didn't warrant another movie in Scott's vision at the time. What makes Covenant great is that it returns to the horror aspects of the first movie.

The CGI is not always great, which is what holds this movie down from the other Scott-directed Alien movies, but it is a dark and disturbing sci-fi horror movie with a fantastic cast. Michael Fassbender gives an incredible performance in two different roles, and the Neomorphs are terrifying. However, this is the one Alien movie where the seemingly smart scientists make some of the worst decisions in the franchise.

5 Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus is Ridley Scott's 2012 addition to the Alien franchise. What made his movie so polarizing when it came out was that it wasn't advertised as an Alien movie, and it didn't feel like an Alien movie at all. That said, Prometheus is a better movie than hard-core franchise followers might want people to believe. This film explores different ideas from the Xenomorphs, and it asks more questions than it offers answers.

What works, though, is that it was a great setup for the next movie, Alien: Covenant, as well as for what could have been a third movie. This movie is breathtaking in its visuals, and that is what helps it move ahead of Covenant in quality, as both movies approach the background of this world, and Prometheus does it so much better. Fassbender's performance alone makes this a great addition to the franchise.

4 Legend (1985)

What might be Ridley Scott's most underrated movie is his 1985 epic fantasy film, Legend. This is Scott's only film that is a pure fantasy, as he mostly prefers to deal with sci-fi in his stories. However, here, it is about magic, quests, and all the things that the sword and sorcery genre does so well. This is Scott's first film after making Blade Runner, and it stars Tom Cruise as Jack, a forest-dwelling young man who sets out to save a princess.

One thing that helps Legend stand out is the villain. Tim Curry plays The Lord of Darkness, an evil being who wants to bring the entire world into an endless night. With a fairy tale story and a fantastical storyline, Legend allowed Scott to approach the one genre he never repeated again. That is sad because this is a movie that is nostalgic and is dedicated completely to the fantasy genre.

3 The Martian (2015)

Audiences in 2026 showed up en masse to watch the sci-fi movie Operation Hail Mary, but 11 years ago, Ridley Scott directed The Martian, a movie based on a different book by the same author. This is a sci-fi movie with no monsters, making it different for Scott, but it is one of the smartest and most exciting sci-fi movies of the 21st century. Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars after an accident who has to find a way to survive.

This is a sci-fi movie first and foremost, but it also works as a survival disaster movie, with Damon's character alone for most of the movie. The film was also one of Scott's last major award ceremony success stories, as it earned seven Oscar nominations. It also has the second-highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the director's career.

2 Alien (1979)

In 1979, Ridley Scott directed his second movie following his debut with The Duellists, and what resulted is considered one of the greatest monster movies ever made. Scott directed Alien, a movie that follows the crew of a mining vessel who end up aboard an abandoned spacecraft that turns out to host a malicious alien presence. Sigourney Weaver stars as Ripley, one of the crew who has to survive when the alien attacks.

There is a lot going on here, with a member of the crew turning out to be a robot that is there for ominous reasons, and the entire idea of the company the crew works for being behind the slaughter that is about to take place. James Cameron took over with the sequel, adding more action, but this first movie is a masterful horror film, a haunted house story in space, and Alien remains a masterpiece of horror sci-fi cinema.

1 Blade Runner (1982)

While Alien is the most successful Scott movie, the best of his sci-fi films is Blade Runner, a movie that was a box office failure but went on to become a seminal masterpiece and one of the most influential dystopian movies ever made. Blade Runner stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a cop whose job is to hunt down rogue replicants who return to Earth and take them out. Rutger Hauer is the replicant he is hunting.

This movie is based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and it asks serious questions about what it means to be human. Hauer's monologue at the end remains one of the greatest movie quotes in history, regardless of genre. Blade Runner flopped because it was a dark sci-fi story released the same year as the hopelessly optimistic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but this remains Ridley Scott's masterpiece.