Ridley Scott

Scott grew up in a military family that moved frequently across England, Wales and Germany before he settled into art school, eventually training at the Royal College of Art in London where he specialized in graphic design and photography. That design background led directly into television, where he spent much of the 1960s directing thousands of British commercials — building, in the process, an unusually disciplined eye for framing, lighting and atmosphere within tight budgets and tighter schedules.

A former commercial director with a painter's eye, Scott made two films back-to-back — Alien and Blade Runner — that between them invented the visual language of "used future" science fiction. His obsessive attention to lived-in, detail-crowded production design traces directly back to his advertising years, where every frame had to communicate instantly and completely. Both films were poorly received by some critics on initial release and are now considered among the most influential science fiction films ever made.

Now in his late eighties, he remains one of the industry's most prolific working directors, having directed dozens of features across nearly every genre, and returned to both the Alien and Blade Runner universes decades later as producer and director respectively. Few filmmakers have sustained a directing career at this pace this late; he has reportedly said in interviews that he simply prefers working to not working.