Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve OC CQ RCA OAL (/vɪlˈnuːv/; French: [dəni vilnœv]; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He has received seven Canadian Screen Awards as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Villeneuve's films have grossed more than $1.8 billion worldwide.

Villeneuve began his career in Quebec cinema, directing four French-language dramas: August 32nd on Earth (1998); Maelström (2000); Polytechnique (2009), a dramatization of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre; and Incendies (2010). The last of these gained him international prominence and earned an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film nomination. He subsequently expanded into English-language films, directing the thrillers Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Sicario (2015). Like Incendies, each of these was critically acclaimed.

Villeneuve has since gained further recognition for directing science fiction films. His work on Arrival (2016) earned an Academy Award for Best Director nomination. This was followed by Blade Runner 2049 (2017), which was critically lauded but financially unsuccessful. His next projects were Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel of the same name. Both films were critically and commercially successful, earning him two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture in addition to a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Dune.