This Month

2 Movies | Thursday, February 24, beginning 8 p.m.

After an early career turning out acclaimed indie films in his native Canada, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has emerged as one of the boldest visionaries of the 21st century studio system with such popular and critically praised work as Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). His sci-fi epic Dune (2021) cemented his place among the top contemporary directors, so it’s logical that fans would be curious about his own favorites. As a TCM guest programmer this month, Villeneuve will introduce two blockbusters that have made an impact on him over the years.

In the run-up to the highly anticipated release of Dune, several media outlets and websites published a list of the director’s favorite films; given his reputation for creating some of the best recent science fiction, it’s no surprise to see 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on that list. In fact, Villeneuve has called Stanley Kubrick’s classic his favorite of all time, noting how he “was struck by the sense of vertigo that [Kubrick] managed to create.” In the same interview while serving on the Cannes Film Festival jury in 2018, Villeneuve said he is drawn to science fiction “because it allows you to tackle different subjects such as religion, or other aspects of society that are off-limits, with a great deal of freedom and distance.”

Weaving an enigmatic tale from the dawn of time to a calamitous future voyage to Jupiter, Kubrick’s visually and narratively innovative film is certainly all that, having inspired endless discussion and speculation about its philosophical aspects as well as its technical achievements.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was not included in Villeneuve’s list of favorites, which tends to focus on more recent, primarily 21st century work, but it’s not hard to see why he has chosen it for his guest programming. There are plot, theme and character connections between Dune, a futuristic story of power struggles and treachery on a desert planet, and David Lean’s semi-fictional historical epic about the English officer who joins forces with Arab tribes fighting the Turks in Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Villeneuve and director of photography Greig Fraser filmed the vast desert scenes in Wadi Rum, aka Valley of the Moon, where Lean and cinematographer Freddie Young shot major portions of their movie. There’s no denying the visual impact of the desert vistas and their influence on Villeneuve’s film.