Here’s Every Alejandro González Iñárritu Film, Ranked - MovieWeb

The incredibly gifted and innovative filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu is famous for his poignant psychological dramas that explore the human condition, and for his hypertextual approach which links members of an ensemble cast. The esteemed visionary has crafted and produced notable pictures over his pristine directing career, flawlessly telling emotionally driven stories that have resonated deeply with audiences. Since his feature film debut with 2000's Amores Perros, Iñárritu has garnered critical acclaim and countless accolades for his cinematic work. He has made history in the movie industry, becoming the first Mexican director to win the Best Director Award at Cannes as well as the first Mexican filmmaker to win the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Academy Award.

Alejandro González Iñárritu has teamed up with some of Hollywood’s finest talents, including Michael Keaton, Sean Penn, Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt, among a slew of other notable performers. Aside from full-length feature films, Iñárritu has directed several distinguished short films like 11'09"01 September 11 and Flesh and Sand. The dynamic director’s next project will be the upcoming Mexican comedy Bardo or (False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), which will explore the social and political modernity of Mexico and take the director back to his home country. Here’s every Alejandro González Iñárritu film, ranked.

6 Babel

The 2006 psychological drama Babel features an impressive ensemble cast including Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael García Bernal, and depicts interwoven stories taking place in Mexico, Japan, the United States and Morocco. When tragedy befalls a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, the accident inadvertently connects a diverse group of people across the world, demonstrating just how linked we all truly are. The multi-narrative drama is the bookend for Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga’s Death Trilogy, also consisting of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. The gifted director wanted to address the themes of both miscommunication and globalization, highlighting how the actions of one person or group can simultaneously affect the lives of others and how the world is intertwined. Babel premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, winning Iñárritu the Best Director Award and also the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama.

5 21 Grams

Once again, González Iñárritu demonstrates his impeccable gift of flawlessly weaving stories together in 2003’s crime thriller 21 Grams, centering on a tragic automobile accident that brings together a grief-stricken mother, a critically ill mathematician and a born-again ex-convict. Some of Hollywood’s finest appear in Iñárritu's first English language film and continuation of his hyperlink style, such as Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts and Melissa Leo, and like many of the director’s other films is told in a nonlinear manner. 21 Grams depicts the consequences of the freak accident that both ruins and resuscitates these lives, proving that they are forever linked in unpredictable ways. Iñárritu and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto wanted to achieve a spontaneous yet transparent camerawork “to create the feeling that the camera was present with the actors, moving, reacting and breathing with them.” The psychological drama garnered universal praise by critics, with the London Evening Standard proclaiming, “21 Grams soars into the chilly empyrean of first-class filmmaking by virtue of the most traditional of values: sympathetic characters and clever plotting.”

4 Biutiful

image-w1280-(8)-1 — United International Pictures

The gifted and dynamic Javier Bardem stars in the deeply moving romantic drama Biutiful, following a career criminal who is told that he's dying of cancer and has only months to live, so he sets off to leave the world on his own terms. Bardem delivers a heartbreaking and emotionally visceral performance that showcases his incredible range as an actor while also bringing Iñárritu’s exquisitely constructed story to life. Biutiful is the director’s first film in his native Spanish language since his 2000 debut feature Amores Perros; the picture premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival where Bardem won the award for Best Actor. The Hollywood Reporter called the drama “a gorgeous melancholy tone poem about love, fatherhood and guilt” and praised Bardem’s portrayal as “a knockout.” The star earned an unexpected Oscar nomination for his work in this gorgeously photographed film, becoming the first all Spanish-language Best Actor nominee ever.

3 Amores Perros

For his feature-film directorial debut, Alejandro González Iñárritu helmed the 2000 Mexican psychological thriller Amores Perros, which focuses on a teenager in the slums becoming involved in dogfights, a mysterious hitman, and a model who experiences a debilitating leg injury. Featuring the talent of Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal and Goya Toledo, the picture is his first to utilize the multi-narrative hyperlink style, linking its interconnected narratives about the gritty and harsh reality of Mexico City through the presence of dogs. During production, Iñárritu and some crew were actually robbed by street gangs due to filming in the poor parts of the city. Amores Perros became the first installment in the thematic Death Trilogy and proved to be a triumphant debut for Iñárritu; the picture was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

2 Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Birdman Wins Best Picture at 87th Academy Awards

Alejandro González Iñárritu partnered with comedic genius Michael Keaton for the 2014 dark comedy drama Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), with the star portraying Riggan Thomson, a faded Hollywood superhero actor who attempts to revive his fading career by penning and starring in a Broadway production. With an esteemed supporting cast including Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis and Edward Norton, the dramedy explores the ego of the washed-up performer and is filmed as if it is a single take; Iñárritu chose this style of storytelling because he could “submerge the protagonist in an “inescapable reality’ and take the audience with him.” The director also wanted to branch out in film genres, as his previous projects were all dramas and he did not want to depict another tragedy. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Iñárritu.

1 The Revenant

Revenant Preview Turns Leonardo DiCaprio Into a Savage

Based on the Michael Punke novel of the same name, the 2015 western survival drama The Revenant stars cinema chameleon Leonardo DiCaprio as frontiersman Hugh Glass who, on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s, is brutally mauled by a bear and left for dead by his hunting team. Glass must fight for his life in the rough and rugged wilderness, fueled by vengeance and his all-consuming desire for retribution. The Revenant took an astounding nine months to shoot, partly because the director only wanted to film using natural lighting. Production was grueling and caused some crew members to quit, for which Iñárritu explained that “as a director, if I identify a violin that is out of tune, I have to take that from the orchestra.” The visionary creator’s dedication and hard work paid off; The Revenant earned Iñárritu a second consecutive Oscar for Best Director, becoming only one of three directors to ever achieve that feat. Its great cinematographer, Iñárritu regular Emmanuel Lubezki, won his third consecutive Oscar for this film, becoming the first person to do so. Both audiences and critics alike praised the film, with the picture earning over $500 million at the box office.