diff --git a/crates/polars-parquet/src/arrow/read/deserialize/null.rs b/crates/polars-parquet/src/arrow/read/deserialize/null.rs
index 74defc1d3b74..8c28a7fc66bb 100644
--- a/crates/polars-parquet/src/arrow/read/deserialize/null.rs
+++ b/crates/polars-parquet/src/arrow/read/deserialize/null.rs
@@ -124,6 +124,8 @@ pub fn iter_to_arrays(
     data_type: ArrowDataType,
     mut filter: Option<Filter>,
 ) -> ParquetResult<Box<dyn Array>> {
+    _ = iter.read_dict_page()?;
+
     let num_rows = Filter::opt_num_rows(&filter, iter.total_num_values());
 
     let mut len = 0usize;
diff --git a/crates/polars-parquet/src/parquet/read/compression.rs b/crates/polars-parquet/src/parquet/read/compression.rs
index 91ff7a519c61..0996093b31f0 100644
--- a/crates/polars-parquet/src/parquet/read/compression.rs
+++ b/crates/polars-parquet/src/parquet/read/compression.rs
@@ -215,12 +215,14 @@ impl Iterator for BasicDecompressor {
             Some(Ok(p)) => p,
         };
 
-        Some(decompress(page, &mut self.buffer).map(|p| {
-            if let Page::Data(p) = p {
-                p
-            } else {
-                panic!("Found compressed page in the middle of the pages")
-            }
+        Some(decompress(page, &mut self.buffer).and_then(|p| {
+            let Page::Data(p) = p else {
+                return Err(ParquetError::oos(
+                    "Found dictionary page beyond the first page of a column chunk",
+                ));
+            };
+
+            Ok(p)
         }))
     }
 
diff --git a/py-polars/tests/unit/io/test_parquet.py b/py-polars/tests/unit/io/test_parquet.py
index 18f15bfd40c0..69a2d1aa230d 100644
--- a/py-polars/tests/unit/io/test_parquet.py
+++ b/py-polars/tests/unit/io/test_parquet.py
@@ -1400,3 +1400,17 @@ def test_write_sliced_lists_18069() -> None:
     after = pl.read_parquet(f)
 
     assert_frame_equal(before, after)
+
+
+def test_null_array_dict_pages_18085() -> None:
+    test = pd.DataFrame(
+        [
+            {"A": float("NaN"), "B": 3, "C": None},
+            {"A": float("NaN"), "B": None, "C": None},
+        ]
+    )
+
+    f = io.BytesIO()
+    test.to_parquet(f)
+    f.seek(0)
+    pl.read_parquet(f)