Across two decades, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have made six feature films together, joining forces for the storm-tossed streets of Gangs of New York (2002), the vertiginous heights of The Aviator (2004), the moral maelstrom of The Departed (2006), the fever dream of Shutter Island (2010), the manic opulence of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and the elegiac sweep of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

Together, they have conjured worlds both grand and intimate, as their canvas stretches across historical epics, biopics, crime sagas, thrillers, comedies, and westerns, each crowned by critical acclaim. Their partnership has not only courted awards, garnering 31 Oscar nominations and nine wins, but has captivated audiences to the tune of $1.3 billion at the box office. However, there is one Martin Scorsese movie that DiCaprio watches the most from his career.

The Aviator Is The One Movie That Leonardo DiCaprio Watches The Most From His Career

The Aviator is the one movie that Leonardo DiCaprio watches the most from his career. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the 2004 biopic stars DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, chronicling the life of the aviation pioneer and the director of Hell’s Angels from 1927 to 1947, a period when he rose to prominence as a film producer and aviation tycoon, while also struggling with increasingly severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Its star-studded cast also includes two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Ian Holm, Danny Huston, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, Adam Scott, Frances Conroy, Edward Herrmann, Willem Dafoe, and many more.

During a recent interview with Esquire, Leonardo DiCaprio revealed that The Aviator is the one movie that he watches the most from his career. The movie marked his first true collaboration beyond acting, fulfilling a decade-long pᴀssion project about Howard Hughes with Scorsese, making him feel deeply responsible, proud, and personally connected to the film’s creation. Read his full comments below:

I rarely watch any of my films, but if I’m being honest, there’s one that I have watched more than others. It’s The Aviator. That’s simply because it was such a special moment to me. I had worked with Marty [Scorsese] on Gangs of New York, and I’d been toting around a book on Howard Hughes for ten years. I almost did it with Michael Mann, but there was a conflict and I ended up bringing it to Marty. I was thirty. It was the first time as an actor I got to feel implicitly part of the production, rather than just an actor hired to play a role. I felt responsible in a whole new way. I’ve always felt proud and connected to that film as such a key part of my growing up in this industry and taking on a role of a real collaborator for the first time.

Our Take On Leonardo DiCaprio Watching The Aviator More Than Any Of His Other Movies

Perhaps Leonardo DiCaprio’s repeated return to The Aviator is less about nostalgia and more about the rare alchemy of artistic fulfillment. For an actor who avoids watching his own work, the movie represents a watershed moment when performance, personal investment, and creative agency converged.

There’s also the matter of the role itself, Howard Hughes, a figure of genius and compulsion, whose contradictions offered DiCaprio one of the most layered performances of his career. In The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio sees the moment he became more than just a leading man, and something even greater – Martin Scorsese‘s true collaborator.