Auteur theory is the idea that the director is the major creative force in creating a film and this means that any film bears the unmistakable stamp of its director.

The Maltese Falcon would not be considered to be an auteur film by the standards of the 1940’s due to the fact that it was produced by a major studio (Warner Bros) and that it conforms to all of the cliches that are typical of the genre – the filmmakers were also working within the constraints of the Hays Code which was the set of industry moral guidelines that was applied to most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968 , and this meant that the filmmakers could not show certain subjects within their films and this links to the way that the filmmakers only hint at Joel Cairo’s sexuality.

However , Blade Runner is not an entirely an Auteur film due to the fact that it is not entirely Ridley Scott’s original vision , as there were multiple directors and writers who were attached to the project before Scott took control of the project – but the sci – fi hallmarks that are typical of Scott’s work are present in Blade Runner so this film is immediately identifiable as one of Scott’s films , so it could be argued that Blade Runner is an Auteur film – Blade Runner is more of an auteur film than the Maltese Falcon because at the time of its release , it presented an original vision of the world to the audience while the Maltese Falcon was unoriginal at the time due to the fact that film noir was already a popular genre.