Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve OC CQ RCA
Villeneuve at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	(1967-10-03) October 3, 1967 (age 56) Gentilly, Quebec, Canada
Alma mater	Université du Québec à Montréal
Occupations	Film director film producer screenwriter
Years active	1990–present
Spouse	Tanya Lapointe
Children	3, including Salomé
Relatives	Martin Villeneuve (brother)
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Denis Villeneuve OC CQ RCA (French: [dəni vilnœv]; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian filmmaker. He has received seven Canadian Screen Awards as well as nominations for three 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 his home country, 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 a nomination for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He then shifted his focus to English-language thrillers; these included Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Sicario (2015). Like Incendies, they were all critically acclaimed.

Since Sicario, Villeneuve has gained widespread recognition as a specialist in science fiction films. He began with 2016's Arrival, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. This was followed by Blade Runner 2049 (2017), a sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), which was a box-office bomb despite being critically lauded. Villenueve's next projects were Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), constituting a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel of the same name. Both films were critically and commercially successful, with the former earning him Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.