Ridley Scott Stopped Reading Reviews After One Critic's Take 'Killed Me Stone Dead': 'I Was So Offended'

Ridley Scott learned an important lesson from a harsh review of his 1982 film Blade Runner. 

The British director, 86, told The Hollywood Reporter about a negative review he received for his science-fiction movie and the purpose it still serves in his life nearly 40 years later. 

"Pauline Kael in The New Yorker killed me stone dead with her Blade Runner review," Scott recalled. "It was four pages of destruction. I never met her. I was so offended."

The director said he has kept the negative review nearby over the years. "I framed those pages and they’ve been in my office for 30 years to remind me there’s only one critic that counts and that’s you," he said. "I haven’t read critiques ever since."

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Scott said there are consequences of both positive and negative reviews. He feels "good" reviews can lead to one getting a "swollen head" and forgetting who they truly are, whereas "bad" reviews can leave a filmmaker "so depressed that it’s debilitating."

The director spoke more about the reception of his movies, particularly on having never received an Oscar win after being nominated for three directing awards, for his work on Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.

When asked if there is a movie that he believes deserved to win an Oscar, he said, "Not really. There’s always a reason why not. I don’t know how the award system works other than we are voted on by our peers, right?"

Scott criticized the foundation of the Academy Awards, noting that the voters are considered "19,000 'peers' in the Director’s Guild" rather than actual directors.

"I don’t do a film thinking I’m going to get an Academy Award," he added. "I haven’t been to the awards since Gladiator."

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Kael’s 1982 review of Scott’s work offered several personal critiques of his work. "Scott doesn’t seem to have a grasp of how to use words as part of the way a movie moves. Blade Runner is a suspenseless thriller; it appears to be a victim of its own imaginative use of hardware and miniatures and mattes," the critic wrote at the time.

Additionally, Kael criticized his directorial choices, writing, "With Scott, it’s just something unpleasant or ugly."

Scott revisited the negative reviews of his movie in 2023. According to Slash Film, he told Total Film Magazine, "You've got to learn, as a director, you can't listen to anybody. I knew I was making something very, very special. And now it's one of the most important science-fiction films ever made which everybody feeds off. Every bloody film."

He continued, "I hadn't seen Blade Runner for 20 years. Really. But I just watched it. And it's not slow. The information coming at you is so original and interesting, talking about biological creations, and mining off-world, which, in those days, they said was silly. I say, 'Go f--- yourself.' "

Scott, who made his directorial debut in 1977 with The Duelist followed by 1979’s Alien, is now gearing up for the release of his star-studded sequel Gladiator II, starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington. 

The filmmaker teased the movie in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in August. “It's as good as the first one,” Scott said. “I didn't say better. It's as good."

Gladiator II is in theaters Nov. 22.