Leonardo DiCaprio Keeps Rewatching This Movie With An 86% Score On Rotten Tomatoes

Plenty of big-name actors don't watch their own movies, which is probably for the best; after all, it would feel pretty self-conceited to hang out in your living room all day watching yourself. It sounds like Leonardo DiCaprio, who's been in some stellar films that are definitely worth rewatching, largely falls into that camp _ but he does have one film he returns to pretty often.

Apparently, the actor watches "The Aviator" more than any other of his films. The biopic, which follows the life of Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) as he becomes a successful plane engineer and movie producer while struggling with increasingly severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, holds a special place in DiCaprio's heart. "It was such a special moment to me," he recalled in an interview with Esquire. "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."

DiCaprio wasn't just a hired gun for "The Aviator" — he actually worked to make the film a reality after riding high on the success of "Romeo + Juliet" and "Titanic." "I felt responsible in a whole new way," the actor said of the project. "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." As such, rewatching "The Aviator" isn't just a case of DiCaprio admiring his performance so much as him recalling how far he's come in an industry that isn't always easy to navigate.

It's safe to say Leonardo DiCaprio's dedication to getting "The Aviator" made was a resounding success. The film earned 11 Academy Award nominations, winning five of them. DiCaprio himself was nominated for best actor, though he had to wait another decade before taking home a trophy for "The Revenant." However, his co-star, Cate Blanchett, won an Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for playing Katherine Hepburn.

Critics raved about "The Aviator" upon its premiere, and over two decades after its release, it stands at an impressive 86% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Much of the praise is for Martin Scorsese's direction and the costume design, which filled the period piece with life, but many were taken with DiCaprio's performance as well. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post wrote, "In Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorsese has found a perfect vessel to express Hughes's abundant contradictions. His hair slicked back, sporting one of those '40s-style flyboy mustaches, DiCaprio looks enough like Hughes to pass the inevitable memory checks ... DiCaprio fills him with life." We wonder if Hunter knew that Scorsese didn't find DiCaprio; DiCaprio brought the script to him.

But perhaps the best thing "The Aviator" did was continue the persistent collaboration between DiCaprio and Scorsese. After "Aviator," the two went on to collaborate on "The Departed," "The Wolf of Wall Street," and "Killers of the Flower Moon." And the duo isn't done yet, as reports suggest they're ramping up to team up yet again, this time for "The Devil in the White City," which follows the true story of a serial killer at the 1893 World's Fair.