Abstract
- Requiem for a Dream is Aronofsky’s masterpiece, delving into the horrors of dependancy and its excessive penalties.
- Black Swan, a mental horror masterpiece, showcases intense performances and explores psychological well being in efficiency artwork.
- The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, highlights the brutal international of wrestling and earned Rourke essential acclaim and awards.
If you wish to discover advanced subjects, philosophical concepts, and a few actually superb mental drama, Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky is the very best filmmaker to show to. With works like Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, and A24’s The Whale, he brings an authentic auteur high quality to his movies that in point of fact dive into the psychology of his characters in tactics no different filmmaker has accomplished.

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Aronofsky’s films love to problem their target audience and produce about intense studies that you would not another way really feel with some other film, and feature characters which can be additionally memorable and well-written. Whilst he does not have as large a frame of labor as different filmmakers, listed here are all of his achievements to this point.
Whilst the next Darren Aronofsky movies are to be had to flow or acquire on VOD, he additionally directed 2023’s Postcard from Earth for The Las Vegas Sphere Enjoy, which counts extra like a reside venue live performance match, so we may not come with it right here.
8
Noah
Primary Solid |
Launched |
Rotten Tomatoes Rating |
IMDb Score |
The place To Movement |
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Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Logan Lerman, Douglas Sales space, Leo McHugh Carroll, Nick Nolte, Mark Margolis, Kevin Durand, Marton Csokas, Finn Wittrock, and Madison Davenport |
2014 |
75% |
5.8 |
VOD |
With a forged containing such large names and Aronofsky receiving an extraordinary massive blockbuster movie finances, the director’s retelling of the Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark fell in large part flat, nearly similar to the disastrous reception of Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, which mockingly got here out in the similar 12 months. Whilst it will have had its visuals going for it, the whole lot else used to be no longer as stellar.
Telling this actual Biblical tale via cinema simply did not paintings in how it used to be supposed, and it subsequently even landed Darren Aronofsky at the shortlist for Worst Director and Worst Screenplay on the 2014 Razzies. The performances of performing giants Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and Anthony Hopkins it will likely be your least favourite as nicely. His 2017 Biblical film, Mom!, proved a a lot better effort.
7
The Fountain
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Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Sean Patrick Thomas, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis, Ethan Suplee, Donna Murphy, Cliff Curtis, Stephen McHattie, and Fernando Hernandez |
2006 |
52% |
7.2 |
VOD |
The Fountain is a good bolder delusion, ancient, and sci-fi epic than Noah for Aronofsky. The idea feels means forward of its time and is relatively Black Reflect-esque, or one thing of a hybrid made through The Wachowskis.
You’ve gotten 3 parallel storylines tied to a tree that grants you everlasting lifestyles; one all through the Spanish Inquisition, some other within the gift day, and some other within the twenty sixth century that includes a personality touring via area.

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Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz famous person in habitual roles during the timelines and the theme of mortality is on the middle of all of it. Probably the most gripping is the present-day storyline, the place Hugh Jackman is a scientist in search of the Tree of Existence as a remedy for his spouse’s most cancers. All the movie performs out like a fever dream of a fairy story, that still delivers one of the maximum astounding visuals from the early 2000s.
6
Pi
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Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Pamela Hart, Stephen Pearlman, Samia Shoaib, Ajay Naidu, Lauren Fox, and Tom Tumminello |
1998 |
88% |
7.3 |
VOD |
Pi, exactly named after the mathematical consistent beginning with 3.14, used to be Aronofsky’s function movie debut. It is introduced in black-and-white and is set an obsessed mathematician who is making an attempt to look the arena via mathematical patterns and numbers, and has advanced a different pc he calls Euclid.
It additionally options actor Mark Margolis as his shut buddy and arithmetic mentor, Sol, the beginning of many collaborations between Margolis and Aronofsky.
The movie shows a mental Lynchian narrative a few paranoid mathematician’s obsession, with Hasidic Jews in search of his genius thoughts to free up numerical messages within the Torah and others to govern the inventory marketplace.
There also are some traumatic moments, together with one involving an influence drill, and it makes you replicate on what occurs when mathematical and theoretical geniuses, whether or not or not it’s Pi’s Maximillian Cohen or J. Robert Oppenheimer, lose their sanity.
5
Mom!
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Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian Gleeson, Kristen Wiig, Stephen McHattie, Jovan Adepo, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse, Emily Hampshire, and Patricia Summersett |
2017 |
68% |
6.6 |
VOD |
Mom! is a mental horror film in addition to a complaint of faith, particularly of God and the remedy of Mom Earth through humanity. It is informed within the distinctive Aronofsky means, with Javier Bardem’s Him performing because the author of Mom Earth, Jennifer Lawrence’s persona. All of the ethical corruption and loss of life people result in when left to their very own will is observed via her eyes, with tales from the Hebrew Bible additionally integrated.
When you’ve studied the Bible, you’ll be able to perceive what this movie is making an attempt to mention, however it is nonetheless no longer a story for everybody; there is a lot happening right here to unpack in only one viewing. On the other hand, the subjects are spot-on, the surroundings claustrophobic, and witnessing Mom’s point of view at the harrowing scenarios happening till that chaotic and unforgettable finishing is a feat of masterful writing, modifying, and directing.
4
The Whale
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Rotten Tomatoes Rating |
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Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, and Samantha Morton |
2022 |
64% |
7.6 |
Netflix, Paramount+ with Showtime |
The Whale is a function movie adaptation of the 2012 play of identical identify written through Samuel D. Hunter. It follows a morbidly overweight on-line finding out English instructor who hides his identification from scholars out of embarrassment and worry of harassment about his situation. He will get care from his nurse, Liz, and is visited through a missionary and his rebellious and critical teenage daughter, Ellie, who does not deal with him kindly.

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Brendan Fraser received the Oscar for his primary comeback as Charlie in The Whale, and the prosthetic go well with he wore for the position additionally received the movie Best possible Fulfillment in Make-up. That is an emotionally charged film stylistically filmed in a 1.33:1 side ratio, and to look the contrasting kindness of Charlie even in his worst hours, and what sort of he loves his daughter in spite of her no longer feeling the similar, is a formidable revel in.
3
Black Swan
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Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, Benjamin Millepied, Ksenia Solo, Kristina Anapau, Janet Bernard Law Montgomery, Sebastian Stan, and Mark Margolis |
2010 |
85% |
8 |
HBO Max |
Black Swan is a masterpiece of unsettling mental horror. There are moments that may go away you in authentic terror and surprise, and also you additionally get some eerie visuals of what it approach to suppose the titular position in a rendition of Swan Lake. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis of their quest as opponents for the position of the Black Swan additionally created each actresses’ very best performances, with Portman incomes her first Oscar.
Black Swan is an exam of 1’s aggressive psyche going into overdrive for a component you desperately need, informed from the perspective of a ballerina, and in addition explores subject matters of doppelgängers that Aronofsky were given impressed through from Dostoevsky’s The Double. It paints a thought-provoking symbol of psychological well being in efficiency artwork.
Black Swan used to be additionally nominated for the Best possible Image Oscar, and Darren Aronofsky used to be nominated for the Best possible Director Oscar.
2
The Wrestler
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Rotten Tomatoes Rating |
IMDb Score |
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Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Picket, Mark Margolis, Todd Barry, Wass Stevens, and Judah Friedlander |
2008 |
99% |
7.9 |
VOD |
Apart from ballet dancers, scientists, mathematicians, Biblical figures, and other folks suffering with weight problems, Darren Aronofsky additionally made a film a few wrestler, which may make you double take. The Wrestler stars Mickey Rourke as Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, an getting old wrestler who is compelled into retirement after surviving a middle assault, and it is turn into the director’s maximum severely acclaimed movie.

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The scenes within the wrestling enviornment are relatively brutal and well-shot. Being a former skilled boxer himself, Mickey Rourke each embodied and pummeled his position as The Ram, which in the end received him the Golden Globe and were given him an Oscar Nomination.
He is simply so herbal, unique, and highest as the nature, and the supporting forged of Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Picket are similarly incredible (with Tomei additionally being nominated for an Oscar).
1
Requiem For A Dream
Primary Solid |
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Rotten Tomatoes Rating |
IMDb Score |
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Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser, Keith David, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Mark Margolis, and Sean Gullette |
2000 |
78% |
8.3 |
Tubi, Plex, and Pluto TV |
Darren Aronofsky’s maximum profound and treasured reward to cinema, and a masterpiece effort on all fronts, is Requiem for a Dream. In a nutshell, this adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.’s 1978 novel may well be regarded as horror for other folks going via dependancy. Although the movie’s identify makes it appear surreal and Lynchian, Aronofsky makes use of the medium to discover the extraordinary lengths dependancy can move.
Following the case research of 4 central characters, one is an older girl with desires of being on TV however who briefly will get hooked on slimming capsules after being compelled to take them prior to her look. In the meantime, her son, Harry, his female friend, Marion, and their buddy, Tyrone, all fall into the risks of heroin dependancy.

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