Leo checks another off his list

Given that Leonardo DiCaprio has made six films with Martin Scorsese, and he doesn't exactly have the highest output among working actors, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who might be steadily working his way through the A list of directors not named Scorsese.

But One Battle After Another marks the latest in that somewhat stealthy quest to cheat on Marty.

Now that he's added Paul Thomas Anderson to his war chest, it's time to really consider that war chest. Here are the other top-flight directors he's worked with over the years:

Baz Luhrmann (twice)
Quentin Tarantino (twice)
Christopher Nolan
Steven Spielberg
Ridley Scott
Danny Boyle
Woody Allen
James Cameron
Sam Raimi
Sam Mendes
Clint Eastwood
Adam McKay
Alejandro G. Innaritu

Seriously, is this a track record that can be matched by anyone else? Either working or retired? Or dead?  

I know not everyone thinks DiCaprio is a good actor, even though he's won an Oscar. I count myself among those who found his performance excessively mannered in Killers of the Flower Moon, just as one example.

But don't tell that to the 15 directors mentioned above, who account for some of the most beloved and acclaimed movies of the nearly three decades that DiCaprio has been a movie star. (He's been an actor for at least a decade longer than that. In fact, he has a credit going all the way back to 1979.) 

Still, he doesn't have everybody in his war chest -- not yet anyway. Here are ten more big directors he hasn't gotten to yet, but I could see it happening.

Wes Anderson - We know Leo can play a Character with a capital C, whether or not he always pulls it off. That could make him a natural to wind up in one of Anderson's ensembles. Hey, you didn't necessarily think Tom Hanks would show up in an Anderson movie either, but now he's been in two of them. 

Joel & Ethan Coen - Sort of the same logic there. George Clooney and Brad Pitt have both played the sorts of roles for the Coens that DiCaprio could also play for them. Whether they will actually make any movies again together, after a total of three solo projects in the past couple years, is a separate question.

Darren Aronofsky - Considering that a friend of mine likened One Battle After Another to an Aronofsky movie, and Aronofsky came of age pretty much exactly alongside both Andersons and Nolan, with Tarantino only a couple years ahead of them, this seems like a logical fit at some point in the future.  

David Fincher - Another guy who has come along in parallel with the guys above, though I think of his most similar rival as Nolan. Couldn't you see Leo throwing himself into the type of role that Jake Gyllenhaal played in Zodiac? 

Sofia Coppola - Have to get a woman in here, right? Even though it does not appear Leo has actually ever been directed by a woman. Although DiCaprio's performance style seems anathema to the sort of films Coppola makes, they do have the Italian thing in common. I think of her father as the main rival, at least back in the day, for Leo's mentor Scorsese. 

Spike Lee - This one might be a stretch, but go with me. Like Scorsese, Lee is a director who shows loyalty to certain actors. Lee's Highest 2 Lowest is his fifth collaboration with Denzel Washington, for example. And though Scorsese has never worked with Washington -- nor DiCaprio with Washington, for that matter -- perhaps these two could work out a "muse trade" and make two really interesting films from it. 

Bong Joon-ho - Bong has now worked with both Gyllenhaal and Robert Pattinson, both of whom can be thought of as heartthrobs who worked to be taken seriously as actors. Nothing could more perfectly describe DiCaprio, whom Titanic made into an instant worldwide heartthrob, after which it took him 18 years to finally win his Oscar. Gyllenhaal and Pattinson are still looking for theirs. 

Richard Linklater - If DiCaprio could list a career he might secretly want to emulate, it might be that of Linklater collaborator Ethan Hawke. Now, I think DiCaprio likes the spotlight too much to take the sort of lower profile roles that Hawke takes. But I think DiCaprio thinks he wants a quirky independent career like that, and Linklater could be the type to usher him in. 

Roman Polanski - DiCaprio already made a movie in which he prevented Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, from being killed by the Manson family. Polanski is still making movies -- or at least he made one as recently as 2023. Why not? 

Kathryn Bigelow - We need another woman. DiCaprio gets in there through the Cameron connection. Those two are still friendly, right? And hey, just when you thought you hadn't heard from Kathryn Bigelow in a while, she's got a new movie coming out on Netflix later this month: A House of Dynamite. 

If you see DiCaprio doggedly run through this list in the next 10-15 years, you'll have me to thank. 

Before I leave you, I thought I should check IMDB to see Leo's films in pre-production, to see if any of these last ten directors are covered. They aren't, but did you know that there are no fewer than five future Scorsese projects with DiCaprio attached? That's cute that he thinks he can get to them all, but hey, don't die any time soon Marty. One of those is a biography of Teddy Roosevelt, and then he's also supposed to be playing Ulysses S. Grant in Spielberg's Grant biopic. 

DiCaprio does, however, have one more big director picked out to add to his war chest, one I didn't consider: Damien Chazelle. He's currently set to star in Chazelle's Evel Knievel biopic. So while his future commitments mean DiCaprio may not be going after, may not have the time to go after, most of the people I mentioned, his quest to collect all the A list directors does continue.