From his early horror movies—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasites, and scientists turning into insects—to his latest, A Dangerous Method, a deceptively classical period film about Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and the birth of psychoanalysis, David Cronenberg has consistently dramatized the struggle between the aspirations of the mind and the messy realities of the flesh. “I think of human beings as a strange mixture of the physical and the non-physical, and both of these things have their say at every moment we’re alive,” says Cronenberg. “My films are some kind of strange metaphysical passion play.” Moving deftly between genre and arthouse filmmaking, between original screenplays and literary adaptations, Cronenberg’s work is thematically consistent and marked by a rigorous intelligence, a keen sense of humor, and a fearless engagement with the nature of human existence. He has been exploring the most primal themes since the beginning of his career, and continues to probe them with growing maturity and depth.