From the streets of Montreal to the future deserts of the planet Dune, French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve is known for sweeping, character-driven tales that merge sci-fi, action, and crime drama. While his movies (especially his more recent entries) are polished like big-budget features, Villeneuve adds layers of depth and nuance that many other popular filmmakers don't have in their blockbusters.
Because of this, some of Villeneuve's widely distributed movies, such as Blade Runner 2049, remain critically acclaimed while not always performing well at the box office. Still, fans of sci-fi and thrillers contend that Villeneuve is among the best moviemakers of his day. It's no wonder he was chosen to helm the much-anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune, whose first installment is set to be released in 2021.
Cosmos (1996) - 6.5
Cosmos is a French-Canadian anthology film set in Montreal. Each of its six stories, directed by a different filmmaker, involves the titular Greek cab driver.
Villeneuve is responsible for the short "Le Technétium," which follows a nervous filmmaker en route to a televised interview. Cosmos, Canada's submission to the 70th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, has been compared to Jim Jarmusch's anthology, Night on Earth.
August 32nd On Earth (1998) - 6.5
Villeneuve marks his feature-length debut with August 32nd On Earth, a bizarre road-tripping movie that follows a Montreal couple to Utah. After surviving a car crash, model Simone decides it's time to start having kids, and she asks her best friend Phillippe to help her conceive.
Phillippe agrees, but only if they conceive the child in the desert regions around Salt Lake City. Villeneuve also penned the script for the film, which hinges on compelling performances from Pascale Bussières and Alexis Martin.
Maelström (2000) - 6.9
The second feature film from Villeneuve, Maelström is also centered around a car crash. Set in Quebec, it stars Marie-Josée Croze as Bibiane, a fashion designer who drowns her sorrows in drugs and alcohol.
One night, Bibiane strikes an older man with her vehicle, but she flees without helping him. When she reads about his death in the papers, Bibiane guiltily attends his funeral — where she strikes up a romance with the dead man's son.
Enemy (2013) - 6.9
Adapted from José Saramago's 2002 novel The Double, Enemy sees Jake Gyllenhaal playing both Adam Bell, a college professor, and Anthony Claire, an actor who is physically identical to him. Adam becomes obsessed with his doppelganger, and begins to stalk him.
Both characters grapple with their identities as Enemy delves into Lynchian territory with its emphasis on surreal psychological unraveling. Gyllenhaal handles both roles with aplomb, moving between quiet, elongated sequences and tense, jittery revelations about where both men are headed.
Polytechnique (2009) - 7.2
Another French-language film, Polytechnique is inspired by the tragic 1989 mass shooting at Montreal's École Polytechnique. The shooter, an unstable and misogynistic male, targeted female students, killing 14 of them before taking his own life.
Villeneuve's film dramatizes that day's horrific events, focusing on the experiences of one male and one female student who both survive the ordeal. The movie meditates on violence without glamorizing it, establishing a visible trend in Villeneuve's subsequent films.
Sicario (2015) - 7.6
Sicario interprets the war on drugs at the United States border with an unforgiving and brutal lens. Emily Blunt stars as Kate Macer, an ambitious and open-minded FBI agent chosen to participate in a new task force responsible for taking out the leader of a Mexican drug cartel.
Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin co-star as other members of the task force, cruel CIA assassins set upon shedding as much blood as possible. Sicario refuses to add any romantic twist to its thrilling premise; instead, it relies on blunt, honest portrayals of how these kinds of cross-border operations rarely lead to any good conclusions.
Arrival (2016) - 7.9
Villeneuve flexes his sci-fi muscles with this smart, poignant feature about a linguist who is hired by the U.S. military to learn how to communicate with extraterrestrials who have landed on Earth. Amy Adams gives one of the best performances of her career as the linguist, Louise Banks.
Banks comes to some startling conclusions about the aliens, their language, and their sense of linear time. Arrival is a beautifully-conceived, unique take on the alien invasion trope that co-stars Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - 8.0
Even though it was a box office disappointment, Villeneuve's much-anticipated follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1982 masterpiece Blade Runner wowed fans and critics. Ryan Gosling stars as a replicant named K, who is forced to kill other replicants under the direction of the LAPD.
While on an assignment, K uncovers a long-buried secret that has the ability to flip the human-replicant dynamic forever. He seeks out Harrison Ford's character from the first film, Rick Deckard, for help solving the mystery.
Prisoners (2013) - 8.1
The long, torturous ordeal at the center of Prisoners is a testament to Villeneuve's ability to stretch out cinematic tension far beyond all audience expectations. This ensemble thriller is helmed by Hugh Jackman, who plays Keller Dover, a distressed father reeling from the kidnapping of his young daughter and her friend on Thanksgiving.
Unhappy with how police are handling the disappearances, Keller takes matters into his own hands. Prisoners — which co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, and Viola Davis — comes to a startling, ghastly conclusion.
Incendies (2010) - 8.3
Considered Villeneuve's breakout film, Incendies is his last French-language feature. Adapted from the 2003 play by Wajdi Mouawad, the film follows a pair of twins who travel to their deceased mother's home country in the Middle East, which is being ravaged by a civil war between Muslims and Christians.
The siblings learn a lot about their mother's past as tales ruled by both love and death unfold around them. Incendies demonstrates Villeneuve's ability to transform a thriller into a deep, character-driven exploration of how lives are torn apart by conflict.