Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest and most recognized faces in Hollywood. However, it wasn’t always this way. As a youth, he was born and raised in Los Angeles and became interested in pursuing a career in performing arts after his role in a local festival garnered a lot of applause from the audience. He finally chose to be an actor after his stepbrother made a lot of money appearing in a commercial. At first, he struggled with finding an agent and was almost convinced to change his name, as he was informed his name wouldn’t sound suitable to an American audience, but in the early 1990s, he finally made his break in television.

Despite being a talented youth actor, DiCaprio didn’t make immediate waves in the industry. He has since come a long way, dissociating himself with the heartthrob teen idol persona in Titanic to one of the most skilled actors of his generation. Since his early days as a youth man trying to make it in the industry, struggling to get a role, he has since become known for starring in period and biopic films, has even become an Internet meme for how often he got snubbed at the Oscars.

He finally earned his Oscar in 2016 for his role in The Revenant. His next film will be Don’t Look Up, which will be released on Netflix in December 2021. It features an ensemble cast with Jennifer Lawrence, Timothée Chalamet, Chris Evans, and Meryl Streep, among others, and adds to a growing number of DiCaprio films available to stream on Netflix. Here’s a ranking of all of his movies currently on the platform.

4 Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Shutter Island
Paramount Pictures

Released in 2010, Shutter Island, a neo-noir psychological thriller, stars DiCaprio as Deputy U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels. The film’s setting is in 1954 when Daniels is sent to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a patient. But this merely isn’t just an island: it’s home to a hospital for the criminally insane. Many of the patients are under high security and are heavily monitored. Ominous with a tense atmosphere, this haunting thriller crawls through the dark underbelly of this hospital as things start to go awry and secrets slither to the surface. Shutter Island was DiCaprio’s fourth film with Martin Scorsese; they had first worked together in The Gangs of New York in 2002. DiCaprio as Daniels gives a strong performance, switching between the darker and lighter sides of his character’s personality. The National Board Review would select Shutter Island as one of the best films of the decade, a testament to the film’s power.Related: Don’t Look Up Trailer #2 Drops a Planet-Killing Comet on a World Ready to Party

3 Django Unchained

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx Star in Tarantino's Django Unchained
Columbia Pictures

Django Unchained was director Quentin Tarantino’s answer to the modern American Western film. While Clint Eastwood isn’t there to give audiences a sense of nostalgia, fans can enjoy Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx instead. The story follows a freed slave, Django, who seeks to liberate his wife from the plantations. DiCaprio plays the main villain of this story; his character is the owner of a large plantation. Seemingly quite the charmer, he is quite brutal and forces his slaves to fight to the death. DiCaprio was so in tune with his character that in one scene, where his hand slams on a table, he breaks a glass. He cut his hand on the glass, and while the other actors watched, shocked, as DiCaprio began bleeding, he continued acting through the scene. Later on, in the same scene, he can be seen picking out the glass shards. Django Unchained is clearly a Tarantino film; stylistically bold, violent, and sparking debate on whether it’s a cinematic classic or horrendous.

2 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Matalon Teper Ohlsson

Before there was Romeo + Juliet and Titanic, DiCaprio was in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. He plays the younger brother of Johnny Depp, Arnold Grape, who is intellectually disabled and seemingly a thorn in his elder brother’s side. At first, they have a loving relationship, but as the film’s events wear Gilbert down, their relationship begins to sour. Gilbert Grape was one of his first major roles, but it demonstrates the immense talent he had for acting at a young age. He brings Arnold’s tics alive in a complex manner, if not unsettling at times, to watch. The film would be a box office bomb, as it only managed to make $2.1 million on opening weekend, but many noted DiCaprio held the standout performance in the film. He did a lot of preparation for getting into this role; he stayed at a home for disabled children to understand the nuances involved with the mannerisms. At nineteen, DiCaprio would be nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as Arnold.

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1 Titanic

Young Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic
Paramount Pictures

When most think of young Leonardo DiCaprio, the image that conjures in their mind is him starring in Titanic alongside Kate Winslet. In this doomed romance, DiCaprio plays Jack Dawson, who, by luck, manages to win third-class tickets for the Titanic through gambling. He is the epitome of youth and boyhood in this film. His character seems almost carefree with his demeanor; he is simply an artist and drawing Rose, despite belonging to a lower class. This is the perfect foil for Rose, who is unhappy with her life. It’s riveting and completely captivating to watch these two on the big screen. Titanic was one of the most expensive films ever made at that time due to its production costs and the technology needed to recreate the sinking of the ship. However, it also made history—it was nominated for fourteen Academy Awards and, with reissues, earned $2.195 billion in the global box office. The studio had predicted that Titanic would not bring in any profit initially, but, as it turned out, it would be a smash hit, launching DiCaprio’s career on the global stage.