Denis Villeneuve is that most uncommon of contemporary filmmakers, to the degree where he’s pretty much a unicorn in Hollywood terms. Put more plainly, Villeneuve is one of a handful of noteworthy studio directors capable of re-imagining venerated properties in ways that shouldn’t work – like say, for instance, a sequel to Ridley Scott’s beloved “Blade Runner” or an epic take on Frank Herbert’s long-thought-to-be-unfilmable “Dune” – and making them sing onscreen. As such, Villeneuve has cemented a unique niche within the current industry machine: he’s that rare studio hire who has earned the artist label; not only that, but he’s been known to unite the fanboys and the high-minded film snobs, two demographics who have long been at odds with each other.
Then again, Denis Villeneuve wasn’t always this guy. The French-Canadian auteur, born in Quebec in 1967, began making waves with a pair of bizarre indies (“August 32nd on Earth,” “Maelstrom”) before settling on a brooding, near-Gothic temerity that would come to define his signature style in formative early works like “Polytechnique” and “Incendies.” “Prisoners” was Villeneuve’s big swing for the Hollywood mainstream; that disturbing murder procedural led to a slew of high-profile awards nominations (including one for Roger Deakins’ exquisitely decrepit cinematography) and ended up landing on many critic’s Best Of The Year lists. The success of “Prisoners” afforded Villeneuve some blank-check money to make the prodigiously weird psychological thriller/black comedy “Enemy,” which preceded even more critical and commercial success in the form of “Sicario,” “Arrival,” and “Blade Runner: 2049.”
“Dune” is, without question, Villeneuve’s most massive undertaking to date. A downright leviathan adaptation of the cult sci-fi novel – previously attempted in the ’80s by David Lynch – the film boasts an enviably stacked ensemble that features Timothee Chalamet as the reluctant heir/warrior Paul Atreides, as well as Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, and more. The film has been at the center of some unfortunate pre-release controversy relating to the HBO Max/Warner Bros. day-and-date strategy, but the ensuing conversation has only confirmed what many cinephiles already knew about Denis Villeneuve: that he is one of our more intriguing and invaluable widescreen myth-makers, and that he directs films that are meant to be seen on big screens, not on tablets whilst doing laundry.
Here is the official Playlist listing of Denis Villeneuve’s most essential films to date – which, let’s be honest, is basically everything. Enjoy reading!
“August 32nd on Earth” (1998)
Villeneuve’s debut, which premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, sees a distinctive cinematic storyteller finding his footing and establishing an aesthetic that suits his burgeoning obsessions. Here, we have the story of Simone (Pascale Bussières), a woman who begins questioning her life choices after she is nearly killed in a terrible car crash. The ensuing fallout involves an unorthodox bid for motherhood, as well as a trip to the desert badlands of Utah. There’s an almost Bressonian economy at work in this stark drama – which was submitted as Canada’s entry to the Best Foreign Language category at the 71st Academy Awards, where it lost to the treacly and offensive “Life Is Beautiful” – even if the plotting feels somewhat lethargic compared to Villeneuve’s later, tighter work. Visually speaking, “August 32nd” is relatively unadorned, very much a product of the no-frills 90’s independent scene, but each shot is carefully considered and thought-out, and you can see the seeds of a brilliant visual storyteller beginning to blossom. Villeneuve die-hards will want to seek this one out if they haven’t already.
“Maelstrom” (2000)
It’s far from hyperbole to say that “Maelstrom” feels like nothing else in Denis Villeneuve’s filmography: we’re not sure he’s ever made anything like it before or since. For one, the tone here is decidedly quirkier and less menacing than everything that comes later; though dread-suffused flourishes still punctuate the narrative, they’re handled with a lighter touch in this quixotic early effort. “Maelstrom” also incorporates elements of whimsical fantasy into its plot, which is, in the words of its narrator, the tale of “a young woman who sets out on a long journey towards reality.” The movie’s tone is, it must said, occasionally erratic, and “Maelstrom’s” interrogations of difficult subjects like abortion and romantic disenchantment are not always handled with the fine touch that this filmmaker would develop later in his career. “Maelstrom” is most interesting as a left-field curio from a director who would later go on to do much bigger and more interesting things, although it’s certainly not every under-the-radar independent feature that is narrated by a fish who is being sliced open as he addresses the audience.
“Polytechnique” (2009)
In the age of incels, toxic masculinity, and depressingly frequent mass shootings, Villeneuve’s lean, lacerating character portrait “Polytechnique” has lost none of its distressing power in the years since its release. If Gus Van Sant’s stylistically analogous “Elephant” was inspired by the Columbine killings, Villeneuve’s film is openly about the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre, a terrorist shooting in Montreal where fourteen women were slain. The shooter, unnamed in the film, is a rancid misogynist whose vile, nakedly self-serving agenda inevitably morphs into sickening violence. Villeneuve dispassionately sees all this carnage through the eyes of two students, neither of whom had any idea what they were in for on that fateful day. As with “Elephant,” there have been arguments as to the question of responsibility in Villeneuve’s depiction of these troubling events, but there’s no way to look at “Polytechnique” as anything other than ideologically anti-gun: throughout, the director resists the urge to give into sensationalism, and while the film that led to his arthouse breakout, “Incendies,” is every bit as tough to take as you’d expect, it’s also a film with a lot to say about the deadly collateral damage wrought from male entitlement.
“Incendies” (2010)
It’s worth noting that “Incendies” is based on a stage play by the Lebanese-Canadian writer Wajdi Mouawad. This bears mentioning inasmuch as it is one of a few factors that account for this slow, seething psychological drama’s unorthodox structure. A study of diasporic sorrow and the side effects of generational displacement, “Incendies” is about twin siblings united by the passing of their mother, a Canadian immigrant with family ties in the Middle East. A series of revelatory letters leads to long-buried family secrets being unearthed, and the film’s style is rendered with shades of the dense thriller plotting Villeneuve would continue to practice in his later, more Hollywood outings. Really, this is the last time Villeneuve makes a film outside of Hollywood, which is why it’s a shame that “Incendies” isn’t one of the Canadian auteur’s more memorable efforts. There are authorial blind spots that Villeneuve, a white filmmaker, cannot help but stumble into by adapting a culturally specific story penned by a non-white artist, and we find the film’s climactic twist, while beloved by some Villeneuve die-hards, to be ill-conceived, little more than a cheap “gotcha” moment in an otherwise patient, probing work of moral drama.