Ridley Scott Birth Chart: The Sagittarius Sun and Aquarius Mars Behind The Dog Stars Buzz at 88
On May 1 2026, Warner Bros. unveiled first-look footage from The Dog Stars at CinemaCon. The director is Ridley Scott, 88, and his birth chart explains why he hasn't slowed down — and won't.
Photo: Peter Kudlacz / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · CC BY 2.0
By Sera Vane·May 2, 2026AI-assisted, editor-reviewed
On May 1 2026, Warner Bros. unveiled first-look footage from *The Dog Stars* at CinemaCon — Jacob Elordi as the lead in a post-apocalyptic survival drama, an August 28 2026 release. The director, again, is Ridley Scott. That same day, *The Martian* dropped onto Peacock. Three weeks later, *Alien* leaves HBO Max. He's 88. He's still booking pages of trades. And his chart, when you actually look at it, doesn't read like someone who was ever going to stop.
Unverified (Rodden X) — rising sign and houses cannot be cited
What's Driving the Ridley Scott Cycle Right Now
On May 1 2026, *The Martian* — his 2015 Matt Damon survivalist Mars-mission picture — landed on Peacock and immediately re-entered the streaming top-ten conversation. That same day, Warner Bros. screened first-look footage from *The Dog Stars*, his next feature, at CinemaCon: Jacob Elordi leading a post-apocalyptic two-hander built for an August 28 release. Three weeks later, on May 21, *Alien* leaves HBO Max for a different streamer.
Three of his films, three different decades, all surfacing in the same May window. This is the kind of cluster that happens to a director once in a career — except for Scott it happens every couple of years. His filmography behaves less like a back catalog and more like a perpetual content engine. The astrology of why is the Sun, Moon, and Mars in his chart — and the slow Pluto-in-Aquarius transit now closing in on his natal Mars.
The Sagittarius Sun: A Storyteller Built for Worlds
Scott's Sun sits at 7° Sagittarius, the same sign you'll find on [Brad Pitt's chart](/blog/brad-pitt-birth-chart-sagittarius-oscars-f1-2026) and on most of the directors who built modern epic cinema. Sagittarius is the sign of the long view — the philosophical traveler who needs scale, foreign locations, mythic stakes, and ideas big enough to fill a 70mm frame. *Gladiator*, *Kingdom of Heaven*, *Black Hawk Down*, *Exodus*, *Napoleon*, *The Last Duel*: that's not a coincidence of taste. That's a Sagittarius Sun reaching for the historical horizon. Compare it to [Alan Ritchson's five-planet Sagittarius stack](/blog/alan-ritchson-birth-chart-sagittarius-guide-2026), where the same fire fuels a singular action-star vehicle; Scott uses the same fuel to build civilizations instead.
His Mercury sits next to it at 25° Sagittarius — same sign, late degrees. Mercury in Sagittarius is the storyteller's mind: it thinks in arcs, not paragraphs. It builds the third-act thesis before it builds the dialogue. And it's the placement of a director famously known for telling actors to *just do it* — Sagittarius Mercury communicates in broad gestures, not micromanagement.
Right now, transiting Saturn in Aries is forming an exact trine to that natal Sun (Saturn at 9° Aries, Sun at 7° Sagittarius — orb just over a degree). Saturn-trine-Sun is a once-every-thirty-year support beam — the transit that legitimizes what you've already built. The Dog Stars buzz at CinemaCon is exactly the texture of that aspect: late-career recognition arriving on schedule, not as a surprise.
But here's the trade-off. Sagittarius Mercury is the placement that overcommits, says yes too fast, and sometimes makes a bad sequel because the *idea* sounded great. *Alien: Covenant* and *Exodus: Gods and Kings* both fit that pattern. The reach is the gift. The reach is also the risk.
Scorpio Moon and Venus: The Cinematic Darkness
This is where the Sagittarius surface ends. Underneath, his emotional palette is Scorpio — Moon at 11°, Venus at 22°. Scorpio Moon is the inner life that doesn't flinch from death, betrayal, decay, or what people don't want to see. Watch the chestburster scene from *Alien*. Watch the agricultural-violence shorthand of *The Counselor*. Watch the half-hour of dread before any actual blood in *Hannibal*. That's a Scorpio Moon working.
The Moon is in an exact opposition to natal Uranus in Taurus — orb less than half a degree. An opposition is the mirror angle, the placement that sets two competing pulls staring at each other across the chart. Moon-Uranus opposition is the emotional wiring of someone who can't stay in a comfortable register; the second the work feels safe, the chart breaks the frame. It's why his filmography refuses to settle into a single genre — sci-fi to historical epic to crime thriller to courtroom drama, sometimes in the same release year.
Venus in Scorpio adds another layer: aesthetic obsession with what's hidden. The slow tracking shots through dim corridors. The H.R. Giger biomechanical body horror. The dust and shadow of *The Last Duel*'s rape sequences, told three times from three perspectives. Venus in Scorpio doesn't make pretty things. It makes things you can't unsee.
Aquarius Mars: Why He Won't Stop at 88
Mars at 13° Aquarius is the most predictive placement in his chart for *why he is still working at 88*. Mars in Aquarius is action through innovation — the drive that doesn't repeat itself, can't be bored, has to find a new genre or a new visual grammar to push against. It's the chart of a director who shoots with many cameras running at once, gives actors little rehearsal, and treats production like a moving puzzle to solve in real time. Conventional process insults this Mars.
It's also forming a square to natal Uranus and a square to natal Moon — fixed-sign T-square energy, where unconventional drive collides with emotional intensity and disrupts itself on schedule. A square is the friction angle, the right-angle pull that won't resolve and so keeps generating work. That tension is the engine. It's also why his sets are famously fast and famously not always serene. A Sagittarius vision pushed through an Aquarius Mars is going to be either revolutionary or messy. Often both.
Now here's the live transit. Pluto entered Aquarius in 2024 and is currently at 5° — moving slowly toward an exact conjunction with his natal Mars at 13°. Pluto-conjunct-Mars is one of the most transformative aspects in transit astrology: it rewires what you fight for, how you assert, and what kind of work you can actually finish. The transit is a multi-year arc — exact around 2027–2028 — and its overture is already audible in the unusual pacing of his late-career run. The fact that *The Dog Stars* is a slow-burn survival drama with a Gen-Z lead suggests the rewiring has already begun. For broader context on the wider sky he's working under right now, see [our breakdown of the May 2026 Mars-Jupiter square](/blog/mars-square-jupiter-aries-cancer-may-2026-transit) — drive meeting excess in real time.
Mercury Square Saturn: The Discipline Behind the Output
Sagittarius dreams big. Saturn cuts it down. Scott has Mercury at 25° Sagittarius squaring Saturn at 28° Pisces — a mutable square that pulls the visionary mind into structural discipline. This is the placement of the storyteller who doesn't just have a big idea — they make it on schedule, under budget, and ready for a Christmas release date. He's famously fast on set, famously frugal with shoot days, and famously known for storyboarding every shot before the crew shows up.
Mercury-square-Saturn is the working-craftsman pattern — the same square that sits in [Jeremy Strong's chart](/blog/jeremy-strong-birth-chart-capricorn-social-reckoning-2026), where it shows up as method-actor obsession with structure. In Scott's chart it shows up as a man who came up through commercial directing — Apple's *1984* Super Bowl ad, Hovis bread, the Chanel No. 5 spots — and never stopped treating film as a problem to be engineered, not just imagined.
The square is also the reason critics complain about emotional flatness in some of his films. Saturn in Pisces compresses feeling into form. The tears land late, if at all. *Black Hawk Down* is technically extraordinary and emotionally clinical. That's not a bug. That's a square asking the question: what gets made when the imagination is on a deadline?
Jupiter Opposing Pluto: Why the Stakes Are Always Civilizational
One last placement explains the *scope* of his stories. Jupiter at 25° Capricorn opposes Pluto at 29° Cancer. Jupiter expands; Pluto transforms; an opposition forces them to negotiate across the whole zodiac. In a natal chart, this is the architecture of someone who can't tell small stories. Civilization, empire, extinction, mythology — Scott's filmography reads like a list of Jupiter-Pluto themes by way of Capricorn institutions and Cancerian motherlands. *Gladiator* (Rome). *Kingdom of Heaven* (Crusades). *Exodus* (the Israelite founding myth). *Alien* (a corporate empire and a planetary parasite).
This is also a generational placement — anyone born in late 1937 carries something close to it — but Scott's is unusually tight (4° orb) and tied to other personal planets. His Pluto sits at 29° Cancer, the anaretic last degree of the sign, which traditional astrology reads as the *unfinished business* point. Late-career Scott keeps returning to founding myths and end-of-world scenarios because that opposition never resolves. It just keeps generating new commissions.
Right now, transiting Jupiter at 19° Cancer is approaching that natal Pluto from below — a once-every-twelve-year sweep that often coincides with reputation-pivot moments for filmmakers. *The Dog Stars* may be the public face of it. The chart suggests something else is fermenting in the slate behind it. For a parallel late-career refusal-to-retire arc, [Jack Nicholson's birth chart at 89](/blog/jack-nicholson-birth-chart-taurus-89th-birthday-2026) reads a different version of the same eighty-something Hollywood blueprint — same instinct, different fuel.
What is Ridley Scott's zodiac sign?
Ridley Scott was born November 30, 1937, in South Shields, England — making his Sun sign Sagittarius at 7°. The fire-sign Sun sits next to Mercury also in Sagittarius, which gives him the visionary, big-picture storytelling instinct that runs through Gladiator, Alien, Napoleon, and his entire late-career epic streak.
What is Ridley Scott's Moon sign?
Ridley Scott has the Moon in Scorpio at 11°. Scorpio Moon shapes the emotional underside of his films — the dread, decay, and refusal to flinch from violence in Alien, Hannibal, and The Counselor. It pairs with Venus in Scorpio for the dark, tactile aesthetic that defines his entire filmography.
Why is Ridley Scott still directing at 88?
Astrologically, his Mars in Aquarius drives constant innovation — it can't repeat itself or settle into formula. Pluto is now slowly transiting through Aquarius and approaching that natal Mars, an aspect that rewires drive and ambition. The transit becomes exact around 2027–2028, suggesting continued reinvention rather than retirement.
What is Ridley Scott's birth time?
Ridley Scott's birth time is not on public record, which puts his birth data in the Rodden Rating X category. Without a verified time, his rising sign and house placements cannot be calculated reliably. Every planetary sign and aspect cited here uses Swiss Ephemeris data; angle-based or house-dependent claims are excluded.
Is The Dog Stars Ridley Scott's last movie?
Nothing in Scott's chart suggests retirement. Mars in Aquarius and the approaching Pluto-conjunct-Mars transit favor reinvention over rest. Industry reports indicate he has multiple projects in development beyond The Dog Stars. The astrology supports an active slate well into his late eighties — and likely beyond.
Type: Guide
Read time: 8 min
Active Transit
Saturn in Aries trine natal Sun; Pluto in Aquarius approaching natal Mars
