“Arrival,” the new aliens-have-landed film with Amy Adams (which opensFriday), is the first science-fiction picture directed by Denis Villeneuve, and, despite its ominous overtones and the heartbreak at its core, it also counts among Mr. Villeneuve’s lighter fare.

Mr. Villeneuve, who is French Canadian, is widely known for tense cinematic brooders like “Prisoners” and “Enemy,” which both starred Jake Gyllenhaal, and for being hired to direct the forthcoming, doubtlessly moody “Blade Runner” sequel, due next year and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. Set against Mr. Villeneuve’s body of work, though, these three films are anomalies, for the simple fact that their protagonists are men.

Mr. Villeneuve has built and grown his career making films that are about, and led by, women. “Arrival” is his sixth feature to focus on a female character.

Part of this is happenstance, part of it by design, and part of it is ingrained in Mr. Villeneuve’s DNA. Writing his first feature in the late ’90s, Mr. Villeneuve said, he consciously chose a female protagonist because he felt it would bring him “the necessary distance” from his subject. But then his second feature centered on a woman, and then his third, and his fourth, around which time Mr. Villeneuve realized a definite pattern was afoot.