Only 3 Denis Villeneuve Movies Are Better Than ‘Dune’

The anticipation for Dune: Part Three rises with each new day and with every new fact we learn about the film. With the trilogy’s final part, Denis Villeneuve will become a permanent part of the sci-fi directors’ elite, joining the ranks where greats like Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, and Ridley Scott are settled, among others. His Dune films have successfully translated Frank Herbert‘s complex novel to the big screens, and we forgive the long runtimes and meditative pace because they tend to capture the essence of the novels throughout; adapting Dune hasn’t been as successful before, so Villeneuve can also enjoy the title of being—at this moment—the only director to do it with relative accuracy and technical respect.

And yet, all this talk of Villeneuve’s most ambitious project to date, the Dune trilogy, makes it feel like we put a lot of his works in the back of our minds. It’s easy to categorize him as a sci-fi director, but he’s a lot more than just that; he directs thrillers with an intensity that’s rarely matched and introduces plot twists and truths in ominous ways, leaving viewers slightly unsettled but ultimately impressed by what they witnessed. And though it’s hard to say, we must acknowledge that only three Denis Villeneuve movies are better than Dune, and you might have an idea which ones they are.

‘Arrival’ (2016)

It seems Arrival is quite underrated, possibly because it is a form of introspective science fiction that is also a slow burn, requiring viewers to sit with it, ponder, and learn to forgive it when it ends; not many people have the patience or preference for that, which is totally OK. Arrival represents Villeneuve’s ambitions of combining grandiose visuals and frames with the intimacy of human emotion; while Dune can feel like that, we could say Arrival is the film where he perfected those tendencies, which is why it is the director’s most astounding piece of cinema so far. Arrival was based on Ted Chiang‘s novella Story of Your Life, and it revolves around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which theorizes that language can shape (our perception of) reality. This cerebral premise turns into a meditation on grief and choice, proving the value of sorrow and how it cannot stop us from feeling, wanting, and loving. In parallel with Dune, which is also a meditation on grief, Arrival is motivated by grief to give its protagonist a fuller, more meaningful life (the value of sorrow we mentioned). Dune takes the grief and processes it through Paul Atreides’ anger and desire for revenge after losing a parent, showing two sci-fi masterpieces that end up on the same crossroads and take different paths as they diverge.

Arrival is set in modern times, when twelve mysterious spaceships descend onto different locations across Earth, hovering silently without any communication and causing widespread panic. The U.S. military recruits Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a world-renowned linguist, to lead a team into the spaceship hovering above a field in Montana and try to decipher the aliens’ language and behavior. Together with theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise enters the spaceship almost every day and faces two members of the seven‑limbed heptapod species, realizing that they communicate through complex circular symbols. As she learns their language, something strange begins to happen: her perception of time starts to fragment. Louise suddenly begins experiencing flashes of a life she hasn’t lived yet, which seems to be intertwined with traumatic memories of a painful past. The race to understand the heptapods turns into a quest to understand whether reality and time are truly linear, tearing down the safety of everything we know about these two concepts. Adams gave what many consider the best performance of her career, while the film was nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Though it didn’t win, it’s a testament to the greatness and the beauty of sci-fi that Villeneuve represents.

‘Prisoners’ (2013)

Image via Warner Bros.

Remember how Villeneuve directs intense, ominous thrillers that stay with you long after you’ve finished watching them? Prisoners is one of those movies. It is Villeneuve’s most commercially successful thriller and his first English-language film; however, it is also his most devastating moral tale that poses several agonizing questions. One is, “How far would you go to save your child?” and the other, perhaps more important in the grand scheme of the film, “When do you become indistinguishable from the monster you’re hunting?” Villeneuve’s direction is claustrophobic and patient, very sustained—he lingers on Keller Dover’s (Hugh Jackman) anguish until it becomes unbearable, then cuts to Detective Loki’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) cold, exhausted stare. Roger Deakins‘ cinematography (in the first of four collaborations with Villeneuve) drenches the frame in constant rain, clouds, and bluish-gray and greenish hues, making the suburban setting feel like a labyrinth of despair. This is why, out of any other award, Prisoners—and notably Deakins—was nominated mostly for Best Cinematography, including at the 2014 Oscars.

Prisoners is set in a working-class Pennsylvania town on Thanksgiving when two young girls disappear without a trace. The lead detective, Loki, is methodical and experienced, but the evidence is thin; at this point, he only has his instincts, which are insufficient to arrest anyone. The only suspect is Alex Jones (Paul Dano), a young man with a low IQ who drives and lives in an RV found near the location of the girls’ disappearance. When the police release Alex due to a lack of evidence, Keller Dover, the father of one of the missing girls, takes matters into his own hands, kidnapping him and holding him captive in an abandoned area, determined to extract a confession by any means necessary. As Keller descends deeper into darkness, Loki discovers a trail of cryptic clues, mazes, and ritualistic symbols that point to something far more sinister than a simple abduction. Prisoners maintains the intensity throughout its runtime thanks to Villeneuve’s brilliant, almost instinctive directing style. Here is where he showed us his ability to direct intense but dark stories that strike the very heart of humanity. In Dune, Villeneuve succeeds in capturing the eroding psyche of a character who doesn’t know when to stop (Paul Atreides), as well as his impact on those who love and respect him.

‘Incendies’ (2010)

Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin as Jeanne and Maxim Gaudette as Simon look at a letter in Incendies — Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin as Jeanne and Maxim Gaudette as Simon look at the letter in Incendies

Incendies is the film that announced Villeneuve as a major international voice, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Villeneuve adapted the film from Wajdi Mouawad’s acclaimed play of the same name, which he watched and immediately proclaimed a “masterpiece.” Incendies isn’t his earliest film, but it is the most famous of his non-English-speaking films. It’s also, more notably, a demonstration of Villeneuve’s signature control of tone, as it moves from stark realism to Greek tragedy without ever feeling melodramatic. The cinematography was done by André Turpin, and it pairs desaturated colors with Villeneuve’s unflinching close-ups to trap you inside the emotional turmoil of the film’s protagonist. The structure of the film is non-linear, shuffling between a present-day investigation and flashbacks, creating a detective thriller out of a film that is essentially an anti‑war epic. The film is set in an unnamed country struck by civil war, though many parallels are drawn to the Lebanese Civil War, which took place between 1975 and 1990. Interestingly, Dune itself draws parallels to numerous wars on Earth, moving it into a more cosmic setting; the Fremen are akin to most people who’ve suffered through endless civil wars and foreign invaders on their territory. In some unusual but logical way, Incendies prepared Villeneuve for directing Dune by giving him the necessary methods of depicting empathy against the backdrop of a life-changing event.

Incendies follows the Canadian twins Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette), who, after their mother Nawal’s (Lubna Azabal) death, are tasked with fulfilling a strange provision in her will. A notary hands them two envelopes: one for their father—whom they believed was dead—and one for a brother they never knew existed. To deliver the letters, they must travel to their mother’s native country, which is still scarred by civil war; Jeanne, a mathematician drawn to order and truth, goes first, retracing Nawal’s secret past, while Simon follows after her, though reluctantly. One interesting thing is that the film uses Radiohead‘s “You and Whose Army?” during a key scene; this selection remains as memorable as the film’s final haunting scene, often becoming an example of how movies feel more complete and hard-hitting when the right musical choices and soundtracks are made. Moreover, what Villeneuve does best in Incendies compared to any of his other films is providing a final revelation so shocking that viewers frequently rewatch it to see how he managed to hide the truth in pretty much plain sight. So, if Dune is a symphony, Incendies is a single, prolonged, agonizing chord that lingers for a long time. This movie is far from an easy watch, but it’s highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand why Villeneuve is regarded as one of the greatest directors of his generation.