Teenage film-buff. Post-teenage music- and film-buff, in Montreal. Unstable adulthood, but still a film-buff.

He sets up the Nihilproduction company, shooting about fifteen short films. He has reviewed films for the radio, worked as head of the film desk on a cultural weekly in Montreal, and acted as vice-president of the Quebec Association of Film Critics (AQCC). His first full-length movie, Les états nordiques (The Scandinavian States, 2005) won the Golden Leopard for video at the International Film Festival in Locarno. Then, in 2007, there followed Nos vies privées (Our Private Lives), shot in Bulgarian, which also did the rounds of the international festivals. Elle veut le chaos (She Wants Chaos) was his third film and was awarded the Prize for best director at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2009, Carcasses was unveiled at Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. In May 2010, Denis Côté presented Les lignes ennemies (Enemy Lines) under the aegis of the Jeonju Digital Project (at the Jeonju International Film Festival/Korea).

His fifth feature, Curling, again won honors at Locarno, released in France on October 26, 2011 and being presented at more than 65 festivals. Globetrotter and compulsive festival-goer, in collaboration with the Fresnoy, Côté is to complete a full-length film essay entitled Bestiaire (Bestiary). The film will star the Little Horse, the Giraffe, the Lemur, the Camel, and the Rhino, and focus on animal and human energies, on the wind, on time, and on the value of contemplation.