Ridley Scott Says ‘The Dog Stars’ Is His Best Film in Over a Decade.

The director ranked his upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller above ‘Gladiator II,’ ‘Napoleon,’ and ‘The Last Duel,’ calling it his finest work since ‘The Martian.’

Ridley Scott is 88 years old, has directed more than thirty features across five decades, and has never needed to oversell a film to get people into a theater. Which is what makes his comments about The Dog Stars land the way they have.

Promoting the post-apocalyptic thriller ahead of its debut, Scott called it the best film he’s made since 2015’s The Martian— a claim that places it above an unusually prolific and, at times, acclaimed stretch of his late career.

It’s also a claim Scott has made before— almost word for word, about a film that didn’t live up to it.

Ahead of Gladiator II‘s release in 2024, Scott told Empire it was “the best thing I’ve ever made.” The reception was solid but far short of that billing — a competent legacy sequel, not the career-topping statement he’d promised. That history doesn’t mean The Dog Stars won’t earn the comparison to The Martian.

It does mean the claim arrives this time with a built-in reason for skepticism, and it’s worth holding onto that as the actual reviews start landing this week.

Here’s what Scott is measuring the film against, what he’s said about the story and its star, and what the early critical temperature looks like heading into its August 28 release.

A Bold Statement

The stretch Scott is comparing The Dog Stars to is not a thin one.

Since The Martian, he has directed Alien: Covenant, All the Money in the World, The Last Duel, House of Gucci, Napoleon, and Gladiator II — six films in eleven years, several of them awards contenders, one of them (Gladiator II) a genuine box office and awards success that pulled in more than $460 million worldwide along with Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

To place an unproven film above all six of those is a real statement, whatever the recent precedent.

“It’s probably the best movie I’ve done since The Martian,”

Scott told the liquor trade outlet The Buyer, in an interview that was ostensibly about his wine business before turning into one of the more talked-about quotes of the summer.

The Big Star

Scott was just as direct about what he thinks gives the film its pulse: his leading man. “This guy Jacob Elordi, who’s in it, is going to be a big star,” the director said. “He’s a farm lad from Australia, so he and I got on great.”

Elordi, who has spent the past few years building steadily toward exactly this kind of leading role, plays Hig, and Scott framed the performance as central to the film’s emotional register rather than incidental to its survival-thriller mechanics. “It touches the emotional possibilities,” he said.

“Whatever happens, you need people. If the world ends, how do you deal with it?”

What The Dog Stars is Actually About

Adapted from Peter Heller’s acclaimed novel, The Dog Stars drops audiences into a world hollowed out by a pandemic.

Jacob Elordi’s Hig, a former civilian pilot, shelters inside an abandoned airport, his circle reduced to a dog and Bangley, a hardened ex-Marine played by Josh Brolin.

That fragile routine fractures when a faint radio transmission reaches Hig, and he abandons the safety of his refuge to fly into the unknown, chasing the sliver of hope the signal represents. 20th Century Studios frames the premise as a story where survival is instinct but humanity is a choice.

The kind of logline built for exactly the emotional register Scott says he was chasing. Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, and Benedict Wong round out the cast.

With Scott producing alongside Michael Pruss, Cliff Roberts, and screenwriter Mark L. Smith.

The One Thing Working Against It

There’s a detail worth knowing that has nothing to do with the film’s quality. But rather everything to do with how much confidence the studio actually has in it.

The films disturber, 20th Century Studios has slotted The Dog Stars into the very last week of August.

The final week of the traditional summer season. A placement industry watchers have historically treated as a dumping ground for films a studio isn’t fully behind.

But rather than a launch pad for one it believes is awards-caliber.

That doesn’t settle anything on its own. Nonetheless, it’s the kind of quiet signal that tends to matter more than a director’s press-tour enthusiasm.

What The Industry is Saying

Scott has made his claim, twice now if you count Gladiator II, and this week the critics get their say.

The early industry forecast suggests a film that’s difficult to pin down cleanly. The shape of something critics are expected to respect without necessarily falling for completely.

A slow-burn, character-driven survival story whose restraint could read as either its greatest strength or its most limiting choice depending on who’s watching it.

Whether The Dog Stars actually vindicates Scott’s ranking or simply becomes another strong, unspectacular late entry in a remarkably busy career.

Is something audiences will get to judge for themselves when it reaches theaters on August 28.

What The Market is Saying

Bold statements like Scott’s tend to generate two kinds of reactions before a single review posts.

People who take a director at his word, and people who remember Gladiator II.

Kalshi’s forecast has The Dog Stars’ sitting at 72% as of this report.

Where The Dog Star’s Rotten Tomatoes score will eventually land is where that split is.

The Market will continue to be shift as trailers, early reactions, and now as reviews are published. It won’t settle the question of whether Scott is right. It’s the closest thing available right now to a real-time read on how many people believe him.

See where the full The Dog Stars Rotten Tomatoes market stands right now, updated live, on Kalshi.