Leonardo DiCaprio movies ranked: His 10 greatest films

There's no question that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest movie stars in the world – or that he boasts one of the most impressive filmographies of any currently active actor.

Since first breaking out as a heartthrob in the '90s, he's gone on to work with many of the finest directors in the world – from James Cameron and Steven Spielberg to Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and, most recently, Paul Thomas Anderson.

And while he's been a little less prolific in recent years – starring in only four films since he finally won his Oscar for The Revenant back in 2015 – his presence in a new film is still usually a mark of quality.

This year, One Battle After Another became the third of his films to win the Academy Award for best picture, while he's currently filming his seventh collaboration with Scorsese – a gothic horror titled What Happens At Night that looks all but certain to be another treat.

With that in mind, we thought it was the perfect time to refresh our rankings of the greatest entries in his filmography – read below for Radio Times's top 10 Leonardo DiCaprio films.

10. Romeo + Juliet (1996)

A still baby-faced DiCaprio proved he could master Shakespearian dialogue in Baz Luhrmann's extravagant adaptation of the iconic romantic tragedy which saw him star opposite Claire Danes.

The story needs no introduction, of course, but Luhrmann transposed the action to contemporary USA and swapped swords for guns, while otherwise keeping Shakespeare's words intact.

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Baz Luhrmann's flamboyantly hip, achingly modern and unashamedly teen-targeted update of Shakespeare's enduring romantic tragedy casts Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the star-crossed title roles. The lovers are transplanted from 15th-century Italy to MTV-era "Verona Beach" - a place of gang warfare, raves, motorbikes and party drugs.

The dialogue is true to the text, but delivered as if it were modern parlance, while the soundtrack (a mix of alt-rock, dance and orchestral) keeps the narrative pumping along. A closer cousin to West Side Story than Franco Zeffirelli's lush 1968 classic, it couldn't be more palatable to younger audiences, while Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Sorvino and Miriam Margoyles add adult thespian gravitas.

A bold, infectious and courageous entry to the canon of Shakespeare adaptations - abridged and tweaked, inevitably - it made DiCaprio a teen pin-up and minted Luhrmann as one of modern cinema's master showmen. – Andrew Collins

9. The Departed (2006)

The first of three Martin Scorsese films on the list, best picture-winner The Departed starred DiCaprio as an undercover officer in a Boston criminal gang who goes up against Matt Damon's spy – with both men desperately trying to keep their true identities secret.

The film is a remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs from four years prior, and also boasts the likes of Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone and Alec Baldwin in its starry cast.

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After a run of solid, adventurous but ultimately underwhelming efforts (Gangs of New York, The Aviator), director Martin Scorsese returned to more familiar form with a superior, Boston-set cops-and-gangsters story based on the Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs, and won the long-awaited best director Oscar for his trouble.

Rookie cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to go deep undercover to help catch local Mafia godfather Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Costello has groomed Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) since puberty to be his spy on the force.

The complex script (fluently adapted by William Monahan) rotates around these two moles, who orbit each other like twin suns for most of the movie, but only meet in the third act. It all makes for extremely watchable entertainment. The leads are luminous (especially Nicholson, doing his best work in years here), but supporting players Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Ray Winstone all steal scenes with glee. – Leslie Felperin

8. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

DiCaprio stars as a legendary conman on the run from Tom Hanks's FBI agent in Steven Spielberg's hugely entertaining thriller – which is based on the true(ish) story of admittedly unreliable source Frank Abagnale Jr.

Frank becomes involved in a number of elaborate schemes over the course of many years, but agent Carl Hanratty is never too far behind him, even if he struggles to properly pin him down.

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After the futuristic drama of AI: Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, director Steven Spielberg backtracks to the 1960s for this stylish slice of effortless entertainment. Leonardo DiCaprio exudes movie-star charisma as Frank Abagnale Jr who, while still a teenager, charmed and cheated his way across America, posing as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer in order to cash forged cheques.

Tom Hanks turns in a generous, unshowy supporting performance as Carl Hanratty, the dogged FBI agent who obsessively pursued the larcenous young man. Sentimentality is allowed to intrude with the depiction of Abagnale's family life, but not into Christopher Walken's superb turn as the conman's father.

Despite these momentary dips in the bright and breezy feel of the piece, the deft blend of comedy and suspense, great period detail and sheer directorial class ensure that this is one of Spielberg's most purely enjoyable movies. – Ian Freer

7. Django Unchained (2012)

The first of two collaborations between DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino saw him cast in an overtly villainous role – starring as the viciously cruel slave owner Calvin Candie, from whom the titular Django (Jamie Foxx) is desperate to free his wife.

One scene in particular that sticks in the memory sees Calvin strike a table and smash a small glass, which caused DiCaprio to injure himself - only for him to continue in character anyway.

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Director Quentin Tarantino follows up his Oscar-winning war homage Inglourious Basterds with this playfully audacious mix of spaghetti western lore, Teutonic legend, blaxploitation stylings and revisionist American history. It’s a wildly thrilling swagger through the good, bad and ugly sides of slavery, with Jamie Foxx as the slave-turned-bounty hunter who’s on a mission to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner (played by Leonardo DiCaprio on top villainous form).

Ferociously overindulgent in that trademark Tarantino way, but acceptably so because he knows which genre movies to lovingly recycle (Blazing Saddles and Mandingo to name but two), the film is blessed with often enthralling dialogue, surreal plot twists, a film buff’s dream of a supporting cast and a soundtrack that acts as another melodious Morricone tribute.

Christoph Waltz (who deservedly won an Academy Award) gives a brilliant performance of ruthless charm personified as Django’s German mentor, but the real surprise here is Samuel L Jackson’s skin-crawling portrayal of DiCaprio’s manipulative head servant. – Alan Jones

6. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Another Scorsese epic, The Wolf of Wall Street sees DiCaprio star as stockbroker Jordan Belfort – portraying his rise and fall in electrifyingly excessive fashion.

Although it's been misinterpreted in some quarters as being approving of Belfot's hedonistic lifestyle, it's a clear cautionary tale that presents the character as a nasty piece of work who deserved his comeuppance.

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Martin Scorsese's fifth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio was at that point the closest the director had come to duplicating the career-defining highs of the eight films he made with his former favourite collaborator, Robert De Niro.

Charting the rise and fall of high-flying New York finance executive Jordan Belfort, who became a multimillionaire in the 1990s through fraudulent share trading and stock-price manipulation, this is an exhilarating story of decadence and debauchery, made all the more thrilling by DiCaprio's charismatic and physical lead performance.

Around him, Scorsese has assembled a sterling cast that keeps the demented momentum hurtling forwards, notably Jonah Hill as Belfort's larger-than-life sidekick Donnie. Together, DiCaprio and Hill create a whirlwind of havoc that recalls the hectic, cocaine-fuelled energy of GoodFellas but without the brooding, omnipresent threat of violence.

Instead – unusually for a Scorsese movie – the tone is flat-out black comedy, with farcical X-rated laughs, most of them coming from Belfort's various sex and substance addictions, which perfectly offset the savagely funny, Sopranos-style dialogue. – Damon Wise

5. Titanic (1997)

The film that truly made Leo a global sensation is still one of his best roles – especially due to the memorable chemistry he shared with Kate Winslet as tragic couple Jack and Rose in James Cameron's epic.

The story hardly needs recapping: after winning a ticket to board the doomed ship's maiden voyage while gambling, poor artist Jack meets and immediately falls in love with the aristocratic Rose, only for their fleeting romance to be cut short in the most tragic fashion.

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There are two love stories here: one is between James Cameron and a ship; the other is between society girl Kate Winslet and third-class passenger Leonardo DiCaprio. Cameron's script wouldn't have sustained Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh for 80 minutes, but, somehow, he and his magical cast revive that old-style studio gloss for three riveting hours.

Titanic is a sumptuous assault on the emotions, with a final hour that fully captures the horror and the freezing, paralysing fear of the moment. And there are single shots, such as an awesome albatross-like swoop past the steaming ship, when you sense Cameron hugging himself with the fun of it all.

At a cost of over $200 million, it's one of the most expensive movies ever made; it grossed nearly two billion dollars at the box office – a record. Winning 11 Oscars, it also shares – with Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – the record haul of Academy Awards. – Adrian Turner

4. Inception (2010)

DiCaprio teamed with Christopher Nolan for this famously mind-bending thriller, which still comfortably stands as one of the finest blockbusters of the 21st century – and, for that matter, arguably as the greatest film in Nolan's brilliant filmography.

He stars as Dom Cobb, a professional thief who specialises in infiltrating dreams and is tasked with a nearly impossible mission: implanting a thought in the subconscious of a man who stands to inherit a major energy company.

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The subconscious mind becomes a deadly maze for Leonardo DiCaprio in this wildly inventive psychological thriller from Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk). DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a corporate spy who steals secrets from other people's dreams, but begins to lose his grip when tasked by a business mogul (Ken Watanabe) with implanting a destructive idea in the mind of the heir to an energy empire (Cillian Murphy).

Their thoughts are in conflict, producing incredible, ethereal action scenes akin to The Matrix. Cobb is aided by a team of specialists, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy. However, he is also fighting himself and projections of his wife (Marion Cotillard) that threaten to plunge him into oblivion, and these scenes give the film a true sense of urgency.

Emotional intimacy is lacking, with some characters functioning merely as devices to explain an increasingly complicated scenario, but there's no doubt that Nolan (who also directed the equally elliptical Memento) knows how to craft an enthralling brainteaser. – Stella Papamichael

3. One Battle After Another (2025)

DiCaprio collaborated with master writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson for the first time in this exceptional comedy thriller – loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland – which went on to win several Oscars including best picture (the third DiCaprio film to achieve that accolade).

He plays Bob Ferguson, a layabout former revolutionary who is forced to readapt to his old way of life when his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) is captured by an old adversary (an Oscar-winning Sean Penn, in terrifying form).

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This terrific film from Paul Thomas Anderson is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland. Rather than a straight adaptation, the auteur expertly borrows elements and crafts them into something his own, keeping the book's rebellious spirit, absurdist comic tone and thematic weight intact.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Bob Ferguson, a former member of resistance group the French 75, now completely sapped of his revolutionary spirit. But when his old nemesis (Sean Penn in sensationally odious form) re-emerges, Bob must rediscover his fight so he can protect his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti, a revelation). The resulting chase is thrilling, uproarious and perfectly paced, with DiCaprio excelling as a frustrated layabout thrust back into the fold.

Anderson stages the film's set pieces – including a mesmerising car chase – in unpredictable, inventive ways, with Jonny Greenwood's frantic, piano-led score the perfect complement. The film feels urgent and timely, tapping into contemporary themes from the USA's barbaric treatment of immigrants to the growing prevalence of extremist ideologies among people with influence, but there's also a dash of hope and poignancy.

Meanwhile, Anderson's choice to put a touching father/daughter relationship front and centre amid the thrills gives his masterful film undeniable emotional heft. – Patrick Cremona

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

DiCaprio shines as over-the-hill Western actor Rick Dalton in Tarantino's freewheeling 1969-set period piece, which mostly unfolds over the course of a single day before moving forward a few months for its explosive finale.

DiCaprio and Brad Pitt – who plays Rick's long-term stunt double and best friend Cliff Booth – share terrific chemistry as they each try to find their place in a changing Hollywood, in arguably the strongest movies of Tarantino's career.

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Quentin Tarantino returns to the Los Angeles of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction for a thrill-packed and witty love letter to a showbiz world undergoing seismic change.

Over three days in 1969 (a weekend in February, and one portentous night in August), fading TV western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) struggles with the reduced circumstances caused by his dwindling fame, a decline in fortunes that also affects his stunt double and now gofer Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), while Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), an actress on the verge of the A-list, looks forward to brighter times in both her career and marriage to lauded director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha).

Mention of those names might suggest a drama centred on the Manson family, but while Charlie and his terrifying acolytes play their part, they’re only one component of an audacious, surprising and mind-bending narrative that sees Tarantino firing on all cylinders. All three leads are on scintillating form, and there are memorable cameos from Al Pacino and Bruce Dern. – Terry Staunton

1. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Maybe it's recency bias talking, but DiCaprio's latest collaboration with Scorsese is arguably his finest film – a chilling epic told with patience and precision across three-and-a-half-hours.

DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, who is married to an Osage woman while he is enlisted by his rancher uncle to commit all kinds of unspeakable acts, during what became known among the Osage as the "Reign of Terror".

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Adapted from David Grann’s non-fiction bestseller of the same name, Martin Scorsese’s late-career opus tells of a chilling chapter in American history. It follows events as scores of Osage Native Americans are systematically murdered in 1920s Oklahoma, shortly after the discovery of oil on their tribal lands had made them extremely wealthy.

Dealing primarily with the experiences of First World War veteran Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), his rancher uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) and his Osage wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone), the film is unsparing in its depiction of the cold-blooded evil with which the conspiracy’s orchestrators operated.

At three-and-a-half hours, it’s a true epic – a richly detailed film that tells its story with patience and precision, slowly unfolding until it reaches a crescendo that is more powerful for the sustained build-up. Gladstone is impeccable, while the pounding beat of Robbie Robertson’s score lends the film a great urgency.

Meanwhile, Scorsese’s unorthodox choice of ending is a move of genius, giving the film an even greater power. – Patrick Cremona

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