Leonardo DiCaprio’s 7 Greatest Movies Ranked

He has made it a business to work with the most acclaimed filmmakers of the modern era, including Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Known for his role in the ABC sitcom Growing Pains, Leonardo DiCaprio over the course of his career has worked with Martin Scorsese no less than five times (with a sixth slated for release in 2022, “The Killers of the Flower Moon”), done double-duty with Quentin Tarantino (with “Django Unchained” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the latter of which garnered the star an Academy Award nomination). During his career, he has made blockbuster films with James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Steven Spielberg, as well as nominees Ridley Scott and Adam McKay for Best Director.

The task of selecting Leo’s seven best movies of all time was by no means an easy one, but I think we have managed to do so.

7. Inception (2010)

There’s no way you can imagine how low Inception ranks on this list. As a general rule, every movie that DiCaprio has been in is a DiCaprio film, with the exception of a few team-ups with directors who are themselves events in their own right, like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. However, while Leo’s performance as the haunted Dom Cobb adds to the spectacle of nolan’s dreamy Inception, the concept and execution of the film helped to make it an Oscar-nominated blockbuster. The one person who truly stands out here is Tom Hardy who, with his breakout performance, steals the show.

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6. Django Unchained (2012)

The dirty, demented heart of Quentin Tarantino’s controversial Western-exploitation revenge film is played by Leonardo DiCaprio as the sneering, charismatic slave-owner Calvin Candie. The most striking aspect of this performance is the strange affability the actor portrays in the character of this pathetic, delusional monster. In this case, we have a man who breeds and forces his slaves to fight each other. He also has a strange obsession with the French and he is, at the core, a murderous psychotic. As a result, he is also so charismatic that – spoiler alert – once he is dispatched from the narrative, the film loses its mojo. That’s a career highlight for him; he deserved an Oscar for this one, in my opinion.

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5. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

This Steven Spielberg classic stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, a real-life con-man who traveled around the country and lived the high life as he impersonated pilots, lawyers, and doctors in order to make money. Obviously, this was an inspired casting decision, because it captured the actor as he was transforming from a fresh-faced romantic into a brooding young man, but he still had the ability to play an innocent character. As his character watches his parents’ marriage break up through the film’s first half, his heartbreak is palpable as he watches his parents’ separation. He is transformed into a different person by the end of the film; the journey from a child to a slightly jaded adult can be traced on Di Caprio’s face.

4. The Revenant (2015)

The only thing DiCaprio had to do to finally win an Oscar was to get attacked by a bear, sleep in a horse carcass, and almost freeze to death during his stay. There are a few reasons why frontiersman Hugh Glass is arguably Leo’s most ambitious, determined, and grueling performance to date. While most actors do not end up winning for their best work, and that was certainly the case for Leonardo DiCaprio, this is certainly not a career achievement award.

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3. The Departed (2006)

Although he played the main role in the film that finally gave Martin Scorsese his first and only award for Best Director, DiCaprio somehow seems to be forgotten when it comes to The Departed. It is Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, the lone member of the cast to be nominated for an Academy Award, who get the showier roles, but Leo gives a more internal performance as Billy Costigan Jr., a rookie cop who was already broken long before he went undercover. This was the type of role that proved the teenager heartthrob had fully grown up into a movie star.

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2. Titanic (1997)

One of Hollywood’s greatest sliding doors is DiCaprio’s decision to turn down Boogie Nights for Titanic. In the movie “The King of the World,” Mark Wahlberg became a movie star, while Leo became “the king of the world.” As Jack Dawson, Leo exudes an innocent charm, whether he is sparring with the wealthy, or romancing Kate Winslet’s Rose. With James Cameron being nominated for Best Picture and Best Director along with Kate Winslet getting a Best Actress nomination, the least they could have done is make room for him on the large door (even Brad Pitt would have done it! ).

1. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Despite the fact that this is not Martin Scorsese’s finest work, it does contain some of Leonardo DiCaprio’s finest work to date, as the real-life penny-stock kingpin and financial huckster Jordan Belfort. It should be noted that in recent years, the director has alternated between epic fiction and major musical documentaries – and in some strange way, this film is a bizarre combination of both. It goes without saying that Belfort was known for his rousing, no-holds-barred, firebrand-like addresses to his employees, and a majority of this movie is Scorsese just turning his camera on him and watching him go – the Mick Jagger of Wall Street arguments.

Those are just a few of our favorites, and we would like to hear what you think about Leonardo DiCaprio’s work? We’ll be back with more  content right here on Let’s Talk Movies. Check out the below.

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