Hushed dread, monumental scale, and ravishing images from one of modern cinema's great visual architects. From a Montreal massacre to the dunes of Arrakis, Villeneuve's films are ranked here by critics and audiences alike.
The full ranking
Hushed dread, monumental scale, and ravishing images from one of modern cinema's great visual architects. From a Montreal massacre to the dunes of Arrakis, Villeneuve's films are ranked here by critics and audiences alike.
Dune: Part Two
Villeneuve's blockbuster culmination of the Dune saga, following Paul Atreides as he unites the Fremen and ignites a holy war. A staggering feat of spectacle and dread, it drew some of the strongest reviews of his career.
Incendies
The 2010 breakthrough that earned an Oscar nomination, tracing twins who unravel their late mother's brutal secret across a war-torn Middle East. A devastating, formally precise drama that announced a major filmmaker.
Blade Runner 2049
Villeneuve's audacious sequel to Ridley Scott's classic, with Ryan Gosling's replicant detective chasing a buried miracle. Roger Deakins won an overdue Oscar for its breathtaking imagery, a rare follow-up that honors its forebear.
Arrival
A cerebral first-contact drama in which Amy Adams's linguist learns to speak with aliens and bends our sense of time. Soulful and structurally daring, it earned eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture.
Dune
Villeneuve's long-awaited adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic, a gorgeously immersive plunge into desert politics and prophecy. It won six Oscars and proved the unfilmable could be filmed.
Sicario
A coiled, dread-soaked thriller about a federal agent, played by Emily Blunt, pulled into a murky cartel war on the border. Roger Deakins's photography and Johann Johannsson's score make it almost unbearably tense.
Prisoners
A grueling small-town thriller in which a father (Hugh Jackman) takes the law into his own hands after his daughter vanishes, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal's detective. Bleak, gripping, and beautifully shot.
Polytechnique
Villeneuve's stark black-and-white reckoning with the 1989 Montreal massacre, told with unflinching restraint. An early Canadian work that critics single out as a turning point in his career.
Enemy
A hypnotic, unsettling puzzle in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man who discovers his exact double. Cryptic and spider-haunted, it is Villeneuve's strangest and most divisive film.
Maelström
An early surrealist drama, narrated by a fish awaiting slaughter, about a young woman spiraling after a hit-and-run. A bold, oddball calling card that swept Canada's Genie Awards in 2000.
Ranked across 6 sources: IndieWire · Every Denis Villeneuve Movie Ranked · 0.5x Weight (2024); /Film · Every Denis Villeneuve Movie Ranked · 0.5x Weight (2024); ScreenRant · Denis Villeneuve Movies Ranked · 0.5x Weight (2024); Rotten Tomatoes · Tomatometer · 0.5x Weight (June 2026); Rotten Tomatoes · Popcornmeter / Audience · 1.5x Weight (June 2026); IMDb · Ranked by User Rating · 1.5x Weight (June 2026). Full scoring is on the Methodology tab above.
Related lists
Browse every Top 10 List, see the experts and aggregators behind them, or play the day’s puzzles.