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What is your favorite film from director Darren Aronofsky?

What is your fave?

  • Pi

    Votes: 39 6.5%

  • Requiem for a Dream

    Votes: 116 19.4%

  • The Fountain

    Votes: 139 23.3%

  • The Wrestler

    Votes: 140 23.5%

  • Black Swan

    Votes: 108 18.1%

  • Noah

    Votes: 10 1.7%

  • mother!

    Votes: 45 7.5%
  • Total voters
    597
jack_package_200

jack_package_200

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,537
zfybygr.png


Oh hey, a director with a filmography small enough to fit in ERA's poll

For me, Black Swan is perfect. Its masterfully directed. The performances are incredible. Natalie Portman earned that Academy Award. The movie drips with dread and succeeds beautifully at making the viewer anxious and uncomfortable. Aronofsky does a great job of maintaining tension.

Noah slaps. I won't hear a word against it. The retelling of the book of Genesis is incredible.

Pi and The Wrestler are good. The Fountain is a hot mess of ideas that don't quite meld together but I kinda like it.

I outright loath Requiem for a Dream and mother! They both are very aggressive and heavy handed with their messaging that it feels like sermonizing. Requiem in particular feels like an NC 17 anti drug PSA. There isn't much more to it honestly than "Drugs are bad. mmkay"
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
I've only seen mother! (I know I need to watch them all) but I really loved it despite the kinda clumsy script

It was such a clusterfuck and morbidly enjoyable, especially the last 45 minutes
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

Member
May 24, 2019
22,291
I like all of them, but I thiiiink this is my order.

The Wrestler
Pi
Mother!
Black Swan
Noah
Requiem
Fountain

Some definitely need a rewatch.
 
Lulu

Lulu

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,885
The Wrestler

have you seem perfect blue op?
 
Landawng

Landawng

The Fallen
Nov 9, 2017
3,270
Denver/Aurora, CO
Love a lot of his movies, but I think overall mother is my favorite. My least favorite is The Fountain, even tho I still like some of the ideas behind that one
 
Latvian Hitman

Latvian Hitman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,752
Norman, OK
The Fountain is my favorite of his, and one of my favorite films ever.

Pi/Requiem/Fountain/Wrestler/Black Swan is a hell of a run, both for quality and diversity. None of those films have much in common.
 
EatChildren

EatChildren

Wonder from Down Under
Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,047
The Fountain is life affirming, and one of my favourite films of all time. It's a beautiful meditation on mortality and the all encompassing human experience within it.

I loved it so much I went out and bought the graphic novel based on the original screenplay, where all the frames are composed of pencil line work and paint.

The-Fountain-int.jpg


I really like his output in general though. I saw Pi when I was 18 and still adore its grimy, high tension, high anxiety horror tone. Requiem is the most well rounded masterpiece. Black Swan is a bit on the nose but its executed very well. The Wrestler is legitimately fantastic and I always felt not near enough well revered (or recognised, maybe) as it deserved, as it's cripplingly raw, intimate, and human. Noah I haven't actually seen, I should get around to that, and I've only seen half of mother! I tried watching it when I was delirious with the flu and I just couldn't focus.

Aronofsky's biggest failing is his often clumsy scripts. He needs another pair of eyes with the right attunement to his vision to comb over and tighten them up.

EDIT: I'm absolutely baffled The Fountain is leading the poll. Nearly everyone I know fucking hated it. Black Swan and, especially, Requiem for a Dream are widely regarded as his best, most approachable, and widely digestible work.
 
Last edited:
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,150
I still need to see The Wrestler, but I've loved everything else. I'd have to put The Fountain on top because I'm a sci-fi nerd at heart. I do so love how absurdly off the rails mother! gets though...
 
Ubik

Ubik

Member
Nov 13, 2018
2,518
Canada
I love The Fountain and need to do another rewatch soon. Incredible visuals and score, with Jackman and Weisz bringing their A game.
 
Trigonometrize

Trigonometrize

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,143
mother! would've been a lot better if it was more pointless. The religious allusions and commentary on the stuff it was alluding to was all dumb and brought down an otherwise entertaining and immersive movie
 
Illuvatar

Illuvatar

Member
Jan 22, 2019
341
jack_package_200 said:
I would love to hear from those who voted The Fountain, would love to hear your thoughts
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The Fountain is just such a unique blend of masterful cinematography, story-telling, music and philosophy, but at its core, there is a very simple story about mourning and not being able to let go of somebody, that is so universal that it just gets to me. It feels weirdly strange, how real the emotions in this movie feel, in comparison to everything else that feels almost ethereal.
 
djplaeskool

djplaeskool

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,825
The Fountain is still my favorite movie of all time.
Everything about that film, from the visuals, to the score, to the performances, just fit together so perfectly.
Personally, it's an absolute triumph. It seriously changed that way I thought about life and death.
I seriously poured my soul into something like a 5 page LiveJournal entry after seeing it in an admittedly empty theater.

I'm pretty much a homer for Aronofsky's work, so everything else goes in the tier just below.
Honorable mentions go out to Pi, a film that gnawed at my brain my senior year in high school, and mother!, an audacious, batshit insane roller coaster I couldn't stop thinking about for literal weeks after watching.
 
bluexy

bluexy

Comics Enabler & Freelance Games Journalist
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
14,534
Pi will always have a special place in my heart, because I'd use to watch it with friends in high school on the weekends all the time. But since then The Wrestler has easily taken its place as my overall favorite film by Aronofsky. Just an incredibly beautiful, heartfelt, realistically cynical, sad movie. It's not as overindulgent as his other films, and I think that makes it perfect. I still love the others, too, of course.
 
latex

latex

Member
Jul 5, 2018
1,414
Black Swan is my favorite but I'd say The Wrestler is probably his best and that was a rare form of Aronofsky I'd love to see again.
 
Poppy

Poppy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,288
richmond, va
i wasn't aware that the fountain was so utterly polarizing

if i'm being honest i didn't love black swan, i thought it was just good, and i don't remember the wrestler very much

requiem for a dream i dont think i would ever put on top of a list of things i like, that feels wrong
 
wholahay

wholahay

Member
Dec 18, 2017
709
Black Swan is my favorite movie of all time probably.

I think about the fact that Aronofsky was supposed to adapt Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam for HBO and it fell through and get depressed. Literally would have been perfect.
 
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