Ariel Escalante (born 1984; San José) is a Costa Rican screenwriter, film editor and director.

He edited Janaína Marqués's 2009 short Los minutos, las horas (The Minutes, the Hours) which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and Clermont-Ferrand, where it won the Special Jury Award, as well as Carlo Guillermo Proto's documentary El Huaso, which premiered at Guadalajara, Lima, Hot Docs, Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival and Quebec, where it won the Audience Award. The Sound of Things, Escalante's feature directorial debut, premiered at Mar del Plata, Biarritz, Panama, and Moscow, where it won the Kommersant Weekend Prize. The Sound of Things was selected as the sixth ever Costa Rican entry for the Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not nominated.