Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve share a place as two of the most acclaimed 21st Century film directors, and each has earned their piece of the crown partly through their achievements in the science fiction genre.
Nolan has shown a facility for grounded, realistic, and intellectually ambitious sci-fi employing non-linear narratives. Villeneuve’s science fiction forays aim to be more transportive, through visually stunning world-building, with an emphasis on character and accessible themes.
But which of these two directors has more fully mastered the sci-fi genre? Is it Nolan with his puzzle movies Inception, Interstellar and Tenet? Or is it Villeneuve, with his alien visitation movie Arrival, his Blade Runner resurrection, and his improbable Dune adaptation?
One director specializes in making the wondrous feel mundane, while the other transports audiences to otherworldly places, setting recognizably human stories within worlds that feel thoroughly alien.
The case is indeed strong that the director of Dune beats the director of Interstellar when it comes to the most unearthly of genres, thanks to his command of narrative, his brilliance at world-building, and his thematic comprehensibility.
Villeneuve’s Arrival Is The Best Use Of Time-Bending Narrative
The director of Tenet never met a non-linear narrative he didn’t like, making time-bending part of his brand. Depending on how much one enjoys such temporal acrobatics, Nolan is either a great narrative innovator or a guy who stumbled on a fantastic trick for making his movies seem more substantive than they really are.
In contrast to Nolan, Villeneuve is by-and-large a straightforward storyteller, the exception being Arrival, which sees Amy Adams’ character experiencing time in a non-linear fashion after learning an alien language and having her brain mysteriously re-wired, requiring Villeneuve to embark on an exercise in Nolan-esque temporal manipulation.
Maybe it’s as much about the editing and acting as Villeneuve’s direction, but Arrival frankly puts Nolan’s time-bending to shame. Tenet feels like a confused mess by comparison, and even the relatively effective Inception and Interstellar don’t land the plane, emotionally or thematically, as smoothly as Arrival does.
Nolan often seems to impose his time-bending tricks onto narratives that would work just fine as more linear stories, and that’s why his movies can feel gimmicky. Arrival not only feels much more organic in its use of time-bending than any of Nolan’s sci-fi films, but it’s frankly impossible to imagine a better way of telling the story.
Villeneuve’s Sci-Fi Movies Beat Nolan’s For Strong Characterization
Nolan is not especially renowned for creating memorable characters, it’s safe to say. Robert Oppenheimer is the most fully-realized human he’s ever created, and that’s because the whole movie is about him, and Nolan had a book full of biographical information to draw upon. Next to Oppy, Nolan’s best character is probably still the Joker, and that’s mostly Heath Ledger.
When it comes to sci-fi movies, the most memorable Nolan character is TARS, the weird cube-shaped robot in Interstellar. That non-human, indeed, is possibly the most successful, interesting sci-fi element in all of Nolan’s films.
Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 series is in post-production, with a premiere date yet to be announced.
Villeneuve may not have a great reputation when it comes to probing the human condition either, but he may be underrated in this area, as his early, character-driven films indicate. His sci-fi movies are positively overflowing with strong characterization, compared to Nolan’s.
Amy Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks, Ryan Gosling’s Officer K and Zendaya’s Chani are all compelling Villeneuve protagonists, and he’s also brought forth some terrific supporting characters, from Blade Runner 2049’s Luv, Joi, and Mariette, to Dune’s Stilgar, Lady Jessica, and Feyd-Rautha. Arrival’s alien visitors could also count, for being incredibly convincing as extra-terrestrial beings, if nothing else.
The caveat to all this is that Nolan is more responsible for the writing of his films than Villeneuve is for his, making the comparison somewhat uneven. The takeaway, perhaps, is that Nolan should hand off writing duties more than he does, and concentrate on directing.
Villeneuve’s Superior Sci-Fi World-Building
World-building may be the single most important element of good science fiction, and Villeneuve soundly beats Nolan in this area. Interstellar may be effective as an ultra-realistic depiction of space travel, but that is precisely the problem: Nolan wants the film to feel grounded in reality, and succeeds at the expense of anything that could be called otherworldly.
Science fiction at its best is transportive. Inception and Interstellar may have interesting sci-fi ideas, and work well enough as narratives, but do either of them really transport the viewer to a world that seems genuinely strange and alien?
Villeneuve’s Dune movies give one the real sense of experiencing an alien world, yet it remains grounded and relatable. This is a truly incredible sci-fi feat, one that requires a masterly directorial hand, bringing together the work of all those talented people designing sets, costumes, visual effects, etc.
Blade Runner 2049 is no less convincing as a rendering of a dystopian near-future Earth, and Arrival, though not engaged in world-building on the same level, does succeed at feeling strange and alien when required. Nolan’s films, on the other hand, make the alien feel mundane, which seems like missing the point.
Villeneuve Pulled Off The Impossible – Twice
Blade Runner seemed like it would forever remain a neglected IP, until Villeneuve turned the lights back on for Blade Runner 2049. Through impressive world-building, strong casting and stunning visual sense, he resurrected Ridley Scott’s dormant franchise, creating an experience nearly as awe-inspiring as the original film, but with more emotional resonance.
Villeneuve’s sci-fi acumen was little in doubt after his Blade Runner sequel, but if anyone still had reservations, he made them go away when he pulled off something even more difficult: making a good movie out of Dune.
Dune 3 is currently in production, with a release date of December 18, 2026.
Alejandro Jodorowsky had wanted to, and got lost on the way. David Lynch had halfway pulled it off, in spite of Dino De Laurentiis. Villeneuve, given the significant benefit of two movies’ worth of running time, not only made a very good Dune, he made a very successful Dune, and even gets to make Dune 3.
Did Nolan take note of Villeneuve’s Dune achievement and decide it was his turn to make the unmakeable? The Odyssey may not be science fiction by present standards, but it is basically the ancient world’s science fiction, and if anything, it’s an even harder adaptation job than Dune. Nolan may have seen Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy bet, and raised him.
When The Odyssey releases, we may have a better idea of what a Nolan version of Dune would’ve been like, but until then, Villeneuve stands alone as a director of high-degree-of-difficulty science fiction/classical work that might as well be science fiction.
Villeneuve Is Better At Presenting Lofty Ideas In An Accessible Way
Nolan seemingly endeavors to make big intellectual statements with his sci-fi movies, but one would be hard-pressed to say what exactly those statements boil down to. His sci-fi could charitably be called abstruse, but could also be characterized as mere cinematic hot air.
Villeneuve does not come across as a filmmaker with the same big ambitions as Nolan, but maybe it’s just that he’s better at relating complex ideas in an accessible, non-confusing way, and therefore doesn’t seem as “intellectual.”
Arrival says a lot about humanity’s relationship to language and time through speculation about the workings of alien minds. Blade Runner 2049 inquires into the very nature of being human. Dune may look like a mere sci-fi spectacle, but it has a lot to say about the dangers of messianic belief.