Best Darron Aronofsky Movies, Ranked

Darron Aronofsky’s films are very distinctive and you do not simply watch them. You feel his movies. He has worked on many genres over the years and we have put together a list of the best Darron Aronofsky movies.

From genres like epic and sci-fi to drama, thriller and horror, Darron Aronofsky has worked on all. All the movies outside his debut have bothered viewers to different degrees. However, he continues to be one of the greatest film makers of all time. One of the reasons might be that he goes far past shock value with his films. He graduated from Harvard in film and anthropology. Despite his movies being intense, there is always on underlying theme in his works: a quest to look for a reason for one’s existence. It appears like he has pushed himself to find that while studying the lives of other people as people have various personal quests and ambitions. For those looking for the best Darron Aronofsky movies ever, you have come to the right place.

We ranked his movies based on their ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Best Darron Aronofsky Movies of All Time

This distinctive filmmaker of the 21st century has made movies that evoked polarizing reviews from the viewers. At the same time, he is a master in visualizing psychological realism. Here are the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all time.

8. Noah 2014

Source: IMDb.com
  • Genre: Adventure/Drama
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Russell Crowe, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 75%, IMDb 5.8

When adapting this story of Noah from the Bible, Darron Aronofsky had to show a great deal of creative liberty. The Bible story has four chapters, with his wife not having a name. For this reason, the movie appears to be at war with itself. It tries to be a personal family drama while also having the aspiration of a biblical epic. The film mixes the elements of realism and symbolism. It appeared like Aronofsky would skip this film. However, he turned this highly familiar story to be interesting, especially when it focuses on how demanding Noah’s quest is. Noah appears as mentally unstable and the quest seems to be a delusion. The story is reimagined, and a contemporary spin was given to this version of the story.

Noah, played by Russell Crowe, is accompanied by the remainder of the fallen angels and tries to build the boat to save earth’s animals. Tubal-cain is played by Ray Winstone who is a descendant of Cain. In other words, he is the bad guy, who is trying to take over the control of the ark, which is the only way to be saved from the flood. It is clear why some did not appreciate it, but some find it quite fascinating. Although it is not Aronofsky’s best work, it is not its weakest. We are still going to include it in the list of the best Darron Aronofsky movies ever.

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8. The Fountain 2006

  • Genre: Romance/Drama
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Cliff Curtis, Fernando Hernandez
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 52%, IMDb 7.2

The movie The Fountain is about three times, past, present and future. It revolves around the story of love, life, and death that are interrelated. The film will definitely wrap the understanding of reality with the director using powerful and resonant imagery to make a romance spectacle that is not imprisoned by the time and space. Moreover, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz’s performances were great and they matched with the period and the roles they played. In addition to all that, the style of the storytelling is also a great aspect of the movie. The relationship between the two characters and the entities of life and death was so meaningful and deep. We highly recommend this as one of the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all time.

Read more: Best Anthony Hopkins Movies of All Time

7. The Whale 2022

  • Genre: Drama/Psychological drama
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau,
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 66%, IMDb 8

In the movie The Whale, Darron Aronofsky oversteps his boundaries when it comes to pushing buttons due to the fact that the movie gets quite cynical to a point that he shames the characters. Nevertheless, it is a quite emotional effort. The movie was shot during the pandemic and it places us claustrophobically in the leading character’s house for movie of the its duration. All of the characters in the film experience self-loathing, particularly Brendan Fraser’s character Charlie. It is his extraordinary turn that make the film a great and fully realized fable by Aronofsky. Moreover, The Whale seems to be the director’s most heavy-handed effort that gets in its own was sometimes. However, it is still powerful and visceral.

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6. Mother 2017

Source: IMDb.com
  • Genre: Horror/Thriller
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris, Domhnall Gleeson, Kristen Wiig, Emily Hampshire
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 68%, IMDb 6.6

Another one of the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all time is Mother. Although the audience might have given the movie a negative response, the critics had a fairly strong response. The movie tells the story of a bizarre and nerve-shredding psychological thriller that depicts the dysfunctional life of a married couple. Jennifer Lawrence walks around in a big farmhouse in Darren Aronofsky’s movie, which is a metaphor for Mother Earth and the Book of Genesis. The movie has killed it at the box office, becoming the most divisive movie of the year. The movie Mother was called a masterpiece by some critics while others had a different opinion.

Aside from it being incredibly fascinating with the metaphors and how Javier Bardem is metaphorically the God, many believed it was disturbing to watch. It is a reckoning of layered religious allegories put into this horror and abstract film. Lawrence’s name is not mentioned in the movie, and she is referred to as ‘mother’. In the movie, she is renovating the farmhouse with her husband. Then, an unknown couple comes to their house, giving a sense of dark energies entering the house.

Aronofsky is indeed capable of escalating set-pieces better than anyone else in the industry. Moreover, the stagey, ostensibly one-take, POV-style choice draws the audience attention.

Read more: Best Jennifer Lawrence Movies of All Time

4. Requiem for a Dream 2000

  • Genre: Drama/Psychological thriller
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Marlon Wayans, Hubert Selby Jr.
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 78%, IMDb 8.3

Another one of the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all is Requiem for a Dream, which revolves around Sara Goldfarb, played by Ellen Burstyn, who is a retired widow. She lives in an apartment and watches tv all the time, most particularly a self-help show. She keeps thinking that her dull existence can change by her being on that show as a guest. Harry is her son and he is a junkie, but he is eager to change his life and make it big by becoming a drug dealer. His girlfriend can become a fashion designer or an artist but is stuck in his drug-centric life. Sara, on the other hand, has an addiction of her own as she is keen on losing weight and goes on a course that has her pop pills.

Those pills are apparently addictive and are harming her mental state. This is indeed one of the best movies directed by Darron Aronofsky.

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3. Black Swan 2010

Source: IMDb.com
  • Genre: Drama/Thriller
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, Sebastian Stan
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 85%, IMDb 8

Black Swan is one of the best Darron Aronofsky movie of all time, where Natalie Portman plays the role of a committed dancer. She is struggling with her sanity after she gets the leading role of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” for the New York City Ballet company. This Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller, Portman won an Oscar. Portman plays the role of Nina, who is brilliant. Although in the #MeToo era the controlling figure using sexual assault as a directing technique is not so complacent, the movie makes the damage a central plank of the character’s breakdown.

Read more: Best Natalie Portman Movies of All Time

2. Pi 1998

  • Genre: Drama/Thriller
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Clint Mansell, Pamela Hart
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 88%, IMDb 7.3

Pi was the first movie Darron Aronofsky directed back in 1998, which is a noteworthy film, showing the talents of the director he would turn out to be. The movie works on the themes about religion, which we later see in his filmography. Moreover, there is a suggestion that the protagonist of the film is a paranoid schizophrenic. This movie is great for aspiring filmmakers to watch. It expresses how one can be true to oneself and make his film career based on the terms one wants. Pi is about a genius mathematician who has made a supercomputer at home that shows something that can be used as a mean to find out all existence. We highly recommend this as one of the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all time.

Read more: Best Drama Movies of All Time

1. The Wrestler 2008

Source: IMDb.com
  • Genre: Drama
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
  • Stars: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Andrea Langi
  • Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 98%, IMDb 7.9

The top one on the list of the best Darron Aronofsky movies of all time is The Wrestler, which revolves around an aging professional wrestler, many years after his prime. He now can barely work on wrestling shows in VFW halls and works at a grocery store. When he struggles with health issues that might put his wrestling career to an end for good, he has to make terms with the life outside the ring. In other words, he has to be a full-time employee at the grocery store, fixing his relationship with the daughter he left in childhood and also forming a bond with a stripper who he is interested in. it is hard for him to deal with his new life, but he receives an offer to have a rematch with an arch-nemesis, The Ayatollah. It might be his way back to stardom.

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