Five Scorsese collaborations, a record-breaking shipwreck, and the Oscar that finally came. From con men to fur trappers to fading TV stars, these are the films that built one of the defining careers in modern Hollywood.
The full ranking
Five Scorsese collaborations, a record-breaking shipwreck, and the Oscar that finally came. From con men to fur trappers to fading TV stars, these are the films that built one of the defining careers in modern Hollywood.
The Departed (2006)
Scorsese's Boston cat-and-mouse finally won him the Best Picture Oscar, with DiCaprio as Billy Costigan, a cop sunk so deep undercover in Frank Costello's crew that he is losing himself. It is one of his rawest, most desperate performances.
Django Unchained (2012)
Tarantino's blood-soaked antebellum revenge saga hands DiCaprio his most gleefully vile role: Calvin Candie, the charming, monstrous plantation owner whose Francophile manners barely hide a sadist. He plays the affability and the menace at once.
Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan's dream-heist blockbuster casts DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, a thief who steals secrets from the subconscious while haunted by his own. Beneath the folding-city spectacle sits one of the saddest performances in any summer tentpole.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Spielberg's breezy true-crime caper follows teenage con man Frank Abagnale Jr. as he forges checks and impersonates pilots and doctors a step ahead of Tom Hanks' dogged FBI agent. DiCaprio is all charm with a current of heartbreak underneath.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Scorsese and DiCaprio at their most unhinged: a three-hour bacchanal charting penny-stock huckster Jordan Belfort's rise and spectacular crash. The Quaalude meltdown alone is a physical-comedy tour de force.
One Battle After Another (2025)
Paul Thomas Anderson's screwball action epic casts DiCaprio as Bob, a washed-up, stoned ex-revolutionary forced back into the fight to rescue his daughter. Critics called it a career best and a likely return trip to the Oscars.
Titanic (1997)
James Cameron's record-shattering epic made DiCaprio a global star as Jack Dawson, the steerage artist who falls for Kate Winslet's Rose aboard the doomed liner. Still the defining romantic high point of his early career.
Shutter Island (2010)
Scorsese's fog-bound psychological thriller sends U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels to a fortress-like asylum where the case, and his own mind, slowly come apart. Audiences rank it among DiCaprio's most rewatchable, dread-soaked turns.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Scorsese's sixth film with DiCaprio is a sobering epic about the Osage murders of 1920s Oklahoma. He plays Ernest Burkhart, a weak and complicit husband, in one of the most morally queasy performances of his career.
The Revenant (2015)
The grueling frontier survival saga that finally won DiCaprio his Best Actor Oscar. As fur trapper Hugh Glass, mauled by a bear and left for dead, he carries the film almost wordlessly through ice, blood, and raw bison liver.
Ranked across 8 sources: Variety · Best DiCaprio Movies & Performances · 0.5x Weight (2025); Gold Derby · His 19 Best Movies Ranked · 0.5x Weight (2025); Parade · His 10 Best Movies Ranked · 0.5x Weight (Sep 2025); Rotten Tomatoes · Ranked by Tomatometer · 0.5x Weight (June 2026); Metacritic · Ranked by Metascore · 0.5x Weight (2025); Rotten Tomatoes · Popcornmeter Audience Score · 1.5x Weight (June 2026); IMDb · Ranked by User Rating · 1.5x Weight (June 2026); Metacritic · User Score · 1.5x Weight (June 2026). Full scoring is on the Methodology tab above.
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