Ridley Scott on the red carpetAbaca Press/INSTARimages
Director Ridley Scott is set to make his long-awaited return to the sci-fi genre this year with The Dog Stars, and for some of his fans, this couldn’t have happened sooner. Scott has spent the last several years working exclusively on historical movies, some of them set in periods older than others. His last film was Gladiator II, which received solid reviews but was perceived as having underperformed at the box office with around $460 million worldwide against a reported budget in the vicinity of $300 million. Before that, Scott made another big-budget disappointment, Napoleon, which grossed around $220 million worldwide against a budget in that same range. In 2021, however, Scott directed his one bona fide critical gem during this phase. The movie in question is currently streaming on Paramount+ domestically, but will be removed from the platform soon.
It marked two notable reunions: between Scott and Matt Damon following their blockbuster The Martian, and between Damon and Ben Affleck as co-stars and screenwriters. Affleck and Damon broke out in the 1990s after writing the script for Good Will Hunting, in which they also starred. This time around, they partnered up with Nicole Holofcener, mainly in order to do justice to the project’s themes. The movie was based on the events leading up to the last duel in recorded history, between a man who challenges another for the honor of his wife. The movie unfolded from three differing perspectives, utilizing the Rashomon approach with flair.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
Parasite
Everything Everywhere
Oppenheimer
Birdman
No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Watch Ridley Scott’s Acclaimed Period Drama on Paramount+
We’re talking, of course, about The Last Duel. The movie is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 85% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “The Last Duel‘s critique of systemic misogyny isn’t as effective as it might have been, but it remains a well-acted and thought-provoking drama infused with epic grandeur.” However, the positive reviews weren’t quite enough to draw crowds to theaters at a time when the industry was still clawing its way back after a global shutdown. Also starring Jodie Comer and Adam Driver, the movie grossed just $30 million worldwide against a reported budget of $100 million, but has gradually been building a reputation for itself over the last half-decade. You can watch The Last Duel on Paramount+ in the United States, but only until July 1. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
