Leigh Whannell achieved a memorable breakout with the low-budget horror movie Saw, which he co-wrote and starred in (as Adam) alongside Cary Elwes. Both Whannell and director James Wan subsequently shot to the big time overnight, and the film's success spawned the long-running Saw franchise, even after both men left. Whannell and Wan subsequently collaborated on movies such as Death Sentence, Insidious, and The Conjuring, with ongoing horror franchises being born from the latter two.

Whannell made his directorial debut in the Insidious series with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) before continuing his career as a director with Upgrade (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020). In 2025, he directed another horror movie with Wolf Man. Across his relatively fledgling career as a director, Leigh Whannell has continued to scare audiences while venturing outside franchise's viscera, interlocking his horror stories with new elements and themes that have made his directorial work doubly impactful.

4 Wolf Man (2025)

Leigh Whannell Revives The Werewolf Legend

After hitting it big with his Universal Horror revival of The Invisible Man in 2020, Leigh Whannell set his sights on another classic monster from the catalog. However, he chose not to link the two films and instead made Wolf Man a standalone horror movie. In Wolf Man, Christopher Abbott plays Blake Lovell, a man who decides to vacation at his childhood home with his wife Charlotte and daughter Ginger. His father has died, and he wants to use this trip to try to mend his struggling marriage.

However, that all goes out the window when a werewolf bites him, and Blake starts to turn into a Wolf Man, putting his wife and daughter in danger. The film received mixed to negative reviews, with a 49% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics and a 56% from the audience score. Whannell tried to use the transformation as an allegory of a man with uncontrollable anger who wants to protect his family so much that he soon becomes the monster that threatens them himself. It didn't work as well as Whannell's other films, though.

3 Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

The Third Chapter In The Terrifying Supernatural Saga

A prequel to the first two Insidious movies, Insidious: Chapter 3 focuses on the series' mainstay demon expert, Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye), as she helps in the case of a young woman named Quinn (Stefanie Scott). With Quinn finding herself haunted by an ethereal presence known as "The Man Who Can't Breathe" (Michael Reid MacKay), Elise wrestles with confidence in her ability to exorcise the malevolent entity, a shift from her expertise in the supernatural first established in Insidious that elevates the scares of Insidious: Chapter 3.

Whannell and Angus Tucker also return as Specs and Tucker, adding the dash of light-heartedness they've long given the Insidious franchise. Their story is flipped into con artist demon hunters who unexpectedly become the genuine article. Insidious: Chapter 3 is awash in the haunted house atmosphere that made its predecessors connect with audiences. If it is slightly less potent than the first two Insidious movies, that is primarily a byproduct of audiences being relatively familiar with the Insidious franchise's world by that point.

Whannell keeps the suspense high and the scares strategically well-timed. At the same time, Shaye's more unsure performance as Elise shows a new side to the franchise's heroine, keeping the tension appropriately tight throughout the prequel. In building the Insidious franchise, James Wan and Leigh Whannell showed their mastery of horror was one that did not mandate the R-rated carnage of the Saw movies to be effective, with Whannell applying those tools to the story of Insidious Chapter 3 to get off to a solid start in his directorial debut.

2 The Invisible Man (2020)

The Best Movie In The Canceled Dark Universe Franchise

Rising from the ashes of Universal's discarded Dark Universe plans, The Invisible Man modernized the classic horror tale while scoring one of the last big pre-pandemic box office hauls. When Cecilia Kass (Elizabeth Moss) thinks she's escaped her abusive boyfriend, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), she comes to question her safety and even her own sanity when Adrian still seems to be pursuing her after his death.

Absent from the gore of Saw and the supernatural elements of Insidious, The Invisible Man plays on a different kind of horror, using Adrian's high-tech invisibility suit as a vehicle for a chilling tale of domestic abuse and gaslighting. With each shoulder brush, veiled whisper, or outright physical fight with an unseen figure, Cecilia finds herself pushed closer and closer to a nervous breakdown, her constant terror ever visible on her perspiring, sleep-deprived face.

nvisible Man rivals and sometimes even sures the effects work on Hollow Man.

In a movie with the title of The Invisible Man, the visual effects can only be top-notch, and Whannell's film delivers spectacularly with a mere $7 million budget. The Invisible Man rivals and sometimes even sures the effects work on Hollow Man (2000) in rendering partial visibility to the invisibility suit-clad Adrian. More than anything,

The Invisible Man's constant tension on whether Adrian looms unseen is palpably masterful, with a monster of a jump scare using a suddenly hovering kitchen knife one of Whannell's many hits of unexpected terror in the film. The Invisible Man is an outstanding reboot and, on its own , a terrifying horror movie experience perfect to frighten viewers to their core, with its sci-fi MacGuffin making its horror all the more real amid a tale of a physically and psychologically abusive relationship.

1 Upgrade (2018)

A Man Receives A Technical Upgrade That Takes Over

Leigh Whannell jumped into the sci-fi-horror combo with Upgrade, with a revenge tale that only grows creepier the closer the vendetta comes to being achieved. After his wife is murdered in a gang attack that also leaves him paralyzed, auto-mechanic Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is outfitted with an experimental A.I. dubbed "STEM" (with Simon Maiden providing the voice). With full control over his body restored Grey sets about to avenge his wife, which sees him turned into a flesh-and-blood weapon with the assistance of STEM.

Upgrade is an '80s-flavored sci-fi thriller brought to life in the 21st century, with STEM's Hal-9000-like voice reassuring human and unsettlingly technological. While Whannell might be venturing into somewhat newer waters with the body horror elements of Upgrade, he adapts to the transition easily, lulling the audience and Grey himself into a false sense of security with the fun Grey has in his newfound physical abilities. Upgrade is also Whannell's first real foray as a director into action.

Many likened Upgrade to Venom with a technological spin.

The film puts a unique twist on Grey's hard-hitting fight scenes, with STEM fully assuming control and eliminating Grey's opponents with frighteningly precise robotic movements. The story's dark tone is also far more than the window dressing it appears to be. Many likened Upgrade to Venom with a technological spin.

However, Grey and STEM's banter is far less comedic, and it all comes crashing down with Upgrade's shocking twist ending, which has a computer program's emotionless efficiency. Upgrade throws action, sci-fi, and horror into a blend of a proudly '80s-influenced techno-thriller, and, with a TV series continuation also in the works, Upgrade gets the crown of Leigh Whannell's best directorial effort to date.