The Last Duel getting great reviews marks Ridley Scott's biggest hot-streak of "Fresh" Rotten Tomatoes scores. Scott has one of the most diverse filmographies of any director working today, and with The Last Duel at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, standing among Ridley Scott's best movies and well above his average.
Scott's lowest-scoring movie on Rotten Tomatoes was 2006's A Good Year, and nearly half of his movies fall into the "Rotten" range under 60%, yet he also made some of the most famous movies of all time, including multiple with scores over 90%, like Alien and Blade Runner and has also been nominated for the Academy Award for best director three times. Of course, reviews are inherently subjective, and Rotten Tomatoes removes any nuance in the scores by boiling everything down to a thumbs up or a thumbs down, so the spread of review scores Ridley Scott has accumulated over his career shouldn't reflect directly on his talent, but as one of the most comprehensive tools to compare reviews across his filmography, it does show a fascinating diversity.
When it comes to The Last Duel, its 86% score is well above Scott's 64% career average, but it also marks his fourth film in a row to land a "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes following The Martian, Alien: Covenant, and All the Money in the World. Before now, his last streak of Fresh movies was three in a row, marked by his first three films, The Duellists, Alien, and Blade Runner. For a director like Ridley Scott, who's made some of the most iconic movies of all time, it's beyond impressive for him to be hitting his hottest streak yet in 2021 after accumulating dozens of directing credits over several decades in the industry.
Despite serving as a high-water mark for Scott's movies in Rotten Tomatoes, nothing stands out as particularly abnormal about The Last Duel's Rotten Tomatoes score on its own, serving as a bit of a testament to the reliability of Ridley Scott. The movie scores well above his filmography averages in Rotten Tomatoes, but it's right on par with his Fresh-rated movies, where his Tomatometer average of 83% is just below The Last Duel, and his average Fresh review score of 7.5 is just above The Last Duel's 7.4 out of 10 average review score.
Ridley Scott's filmography spans almost every genre imaginable, from science fiction to fantasy to historical drama to war movies to horror, and more. Despite being 83 years old, Scott is constantly working on new movies, and even has another movie, House of Gucci, releasing just over a month after The Last Duel hit theaters, so it'll be interesting to see if the legendary director can extend his current Rotten Tomatoes hot streak.