Here are Cinephile Corner’s picks for the 12 best David Cronenberg movies, ranked:
12. Crimes of the Future (2022)
11. Cosmopolis (2012)
10. Scanners (1981)
Scanners is far from Cronenberg’s best, but it’s still an essential artifact for fans of his work—especially for those interested in tracing how his style evolved from straight horror (Rabid, The Brood) into more philosophical and speculative realms. It’s an influential film, no doubt. Just not the one you’ll revisit the most.
9. The Shrouds (2025)
David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds isn’t a genre masterpiece like The Fly or Dead Ringers, and it’s less refined than Eastern Promises. But it’s haunting in a different way. It’s the kind of film you think about more after it ends. And that might be the point. It’s a slow-burning elegy from a filmmaker who’s spent decades exploring transformation, now confronting the one transformation that awaits us all.
8. Naked Lunch (1991)
7. Eastern Promises (2007)
6. The Fly (1986)
5. Crash (1996)
4. Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome is a bold, grotesque, and startlingly prescient film, and while it may not be Cronenberg’s most accessible work, it’s certainly one of his most important. A high-concept fever dream of sex, violence, and screen-induced madness, it’s no wonder this is one of the director’s most widely discussed and celebrated films.
3. The Brood (1979)
2. Dead Ringers (1988)
1. A History of Violence (2005)
Leave it to David Cronenberg to deconstruct the mythical American hero with odd wit and clinical detail. A History of Violence looks like a small-town melodrama on the surface, then peels back skin to expose identity, impulse, and the stories we tell to survive. Viggo Mortensen gives one of his sharpest performances as Tom Stall, a soft-spoken diner owner whose quick, efficient dispatching of two spree killers turns him into a local legend and blows up the quiet life he has built with Edie, played with fierce tenderness by Maria Bello.