Ridley Scott gets candid about cinema's quality today

Ridley Scott, a well-known filmmaker, has slammed the current situation of cinema, calling it the "quantity over quality" mindset.

This dip in standard, the Gladiator director says, led him to watch his movies after a fan asked him about his regular viewing habits at a talk at London's BFI Southbank.

"Right now I'm finding mediocrity, we're drowning in mediocrity," the filmmaker shares. "So what I do, and it's a horrible thing, but I've started to watch my own movies, and actually they're really good! And also, they don't age."

He continues, "I watched Black Hawk [Down] the other night and I thought, 'how the hell did I do that?' But I think that occasionally there's a good one that will happen, it's like a relief that there's somebody out there who's doing a good movie."

Further, the 87-year-old breaks down the stats which he believes in rating the movies that are made today.

"5% of contemporary movies are great and 10% are pretty good, with around 40% being not bad and the rest, well, those really are ****," he notes.

To compare, the Academy-winning director adds, "I'm not sure about the portion of what I've just said, but in the 1940s, when there were perhaps 300 movies made, 70% of them were similar, for example."

"I think a lot of films today are saved and made more expensive by digital effects, because what they haven't got is a great thing on paper first. Ridley concludes, "Get it on paper."