The films of Darren Aronofsky are not subtle. They are films that you have to confront head on, whether you love them, hate them, or waffle between those two extremes.
Throughout his nearly 25 years of directing features, Aronofsky has crafted celebrated character dramas, bizarre biblical epics and trippy horror films, and somehow almost every single one of those seemingly disparate pictures is unified in its dramatic and thematic bombast. He may be the only Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose most conventional work can be found in a violent full-motion video Windows 95 game. (Yes, that’s a real thing; it’s called “Soldier Boyz.”)
Here are the feature films of Darren Aronofsky, ranked from worst to best:
8. “The Whale” (2022)
Brendan Fraser plays a creative-writing professor who, after the tragic death of his boyfriend, gains so much weight that his health deteriorates, and his death is now imminent. Surrounded by people who view him as a project, a burden, a tragedy or a monster, his innate decency always shines through. Unfortunately, Aronofsky’s depiction of this martyr figure is undermined by his determination to capitalize on his audience’s presumed aversion, with chewing sound effects amplified to generate disgust, and a score that treats the character’s very existence like a horror movie. Fraser gives a decent turn, but it’s the contrast between his trademark affability and the filmmaker’s unpleasant presentation that makes this role seem significant, not the material itself, and that makes the whole film feel unconvincing.
7. “mother!” (2017)
Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman whose husband, a writer played by Javier Bardem, keeps letting strangers into her house because they love his work. This leads at first to invasive melodrama, and then a widespread panic as those well-wishers turn destructive, violent and abusive, until finally chaos breaks out in full. It would be cartoonish if it wasn’t so mean-spirited. As a horror movie, “mother!” generates impressive levels of unease and even panic, but as an apologue, it’s embarrassingly straightforward and has very little to say other than, “This is all quite bad, isn’t it?”
6. “The Fountain” (2006)
Aronofsky’s visually and narratively ambitious historical/sci-fi drama finds Hugh Jackman in three roles: a man whose wife, a writer played by Rachel Weisz, is dying of cancer; a conquistador seeking the Tree of Life (which just happens to be the story she is writing as she dies); and a mysterious space traveler who tends a magical tree out in the cosmos. Seemingly heady stuff, but despite the filmmaker’s insistence that this is all very complicated, the film deals in broad, heavy-handed strokes, offering a none-too-subtle allegory about accepting death. Earnest, perhaps, and very handsomely produced, but less complex than its presentation suggests.
5. “Black Swan” (2010)
Natalie Portman won an Academy Award for her impressive performance as Nina Sayers, a young ballerina who pushes herself to the brink of madness to become a great star. Though similar in many respects to Satoshi Kon’s ingenious anime classic “Perfect Blue,” Aronofsky’s film is a strikingly realized character drama in its own right, packed with great actors doing great work, and conveyed with beautifully horrifying — or is horrifyingly beautiful? — imagery. It’s a fine piece of filmmaking, and it says a lot about Aronofsky’s career that this phantasmagoria is neither his most interesting nor bizarre work to date.
4. “Noah” (2014)
Many of Aronofsky’s films are biblical in spirit, so you’d think when he actually got his hands on the Old Testament, it would a natural fit. But there’s very little natural about “Noah,” and the film is all the better for it. Aronofsky sinks himself into the seamier aspects of the Bible to portray a world that even the audience soon thinks should probably get wiped clean and rebooted, but when the time comes to do just that, somehow the movie gets even darker. This is unusually gigantic filmmaking, the rare studio epic that’s somehow unafraid to be off-putting and weird. Plus it’s got rock monsters, which as we all know make every movie better.
3. “Pi” (1998)
Aronofsky’s debut feature finds the filmmaker working at an incredibly small scale, but he fills all the frames in this film with big, mind-bending ideas. “Pi” stars Sean Gullette as a mathematician obsessed with finding a formula that can predict the stock market, a quest which leads him to the intersection between pure logic and religious spirituality, where the secrets of the universe could be sussed out if you’re good enough with numbers. Filmed in stark, high-contrast black and white and riddled with energy and anxiety, “Pi” plays like the work of a filmmaker trying to break out of his own head, even if he has to bust it open in the process.
2. “Requiem for a Dream” (2000)
It might not be his best work, but “Requiem for a Dream” does seem to be Darren Aronofsky’s magnum opus, a grand and impactful drama about a group of people who fall prey, in various forms, to the perils of drug addiction. Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans play young heroin addicts who decide to make it rich as drug dealers, while Ellen Burstyn gives a scene-stealing and haunting performance as Leto’s mother, who becomes addicted to prescription amphetamines so she can lose weight before a once-in-a-lifetime TV appearance. Although the film’s moralizing isn’t a far cry from conventional scare films, the incredible performances, fantastic photography, unforgettable score and character-rich screenplay — courtesy of Aronofsky and novelist Hubert Selby Jr. — elevate every other aspect.
1. “The Wrestler” (2008)
Mickey Rourke gives a career-best performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a once-famous professional wrestler who now barely scrapes by at a trailer park, refusing to stop wrestling even though his doctors say it will kill him. Randy develops a deep connection with a sex worker who, like him, also keeps going past her career’s conventionally expected expiration date, as he struggles with the desire to keep living or to feel as if he truly lived. Impeccable filmmaking, more intimate and nuanced than any other film in Aronofsky’s resumé, capturing the filmmaker’s penchant for allegorical drama with the utmost maturity and emotional heft.
