The films of Mar­tin Scors­ese – ranked

Mar­tin Scors­ese is a film­mak­er who requires no intro­duc­tion, his stag­ger­ing con­tri­bu­tion to Amer­i­can cin­e­ma hav­ing been the sub­ject of count­less stud­ies and ret­ro­spec­tives over the years. He is, to put it in plain Eng­lish, one of the all-time greats. To cel­e­brate the extra­or­di­nary career of this mas­ter direc­tor, we’ve under­tak­en the mam­moth task of revis­it­ing and rank­ing his entire fil­mog­ra­phy, from the ear­ly, less­er-seen works right through to his most revered cin­e­mat­ic mile­stones and every­thing in between. Check out the full list below, then share your per­son­al Scors­ese Top 10 with us @LWLies.

Scors­ese teams up with Robert De Niro, Leonar­do DiCaprio and Brad Pitt for an extend­ed com­mer­cial for a Macau casi­no. The flim­sy plot cen­tres on Bob­by and Leo’s com­pe­ti­tion for the lead in Marty’s next pic­ture; the actors play­ing vain, bick­er­ing ver­sions of them­selves. With Ter­ence Winter’s script made up entire­ly of ter­mi­nal­ly unfun­ny ban­ter, only Scors­ese walks away with his dig­ni­ty intact – in front of the cam­era, that is (the direc­tion amounts to a pile-up of CG-aug­ment­ed cliché). The price of said dig­ni­ty? $13m apiece for a week’s work. Fair enough. Matt Thrift

This 20-minute puff piece on fash­ion design­er Gior­gio Armani is notable for mark­ing the first col­lab­o­ra­tion between Scors­ese and Jay Cocks, who would go on to write the screen­plays for The Age of Inno­cence, Gangs of New York and Silence. Avail­able on a com­pendi­um DVD com­pris­ing Scorsese’s short films, it’s worth seek­ing out, but only if you have a pen­chant for uncharis­mat­ic, immac­u­late­ly-tai­lored Milanese elites. Adam Wood­ward

A 24-minute episode made for Steven Spielberg’s huge­ly hyped series, Amaz­ing Sto­ries: Mir­ror, Mir­ror all but col­laps­es under the weight of its com­pet­ing impuls­es. Work­ing from a cute con­cept by Spiel­berg, After Hours scribe Joseph Min­ion brings lit­tle to the table in psy­cho­log­i­cal terms (the brevi­ty of the for­mat an appar­ent mill­stone), while a bland Sam Water­ston – as the writer haunt­ed by a loom­ing killer every time he looks in the mir­ror – offers few clues as to the point of a bite­size moral­i­ty play in the Tales From the Crypt mode. MT

Scors­ese returned to the mean streets of New York for the pilot of Vinyl, a ​’70s-set HBO series cen­tred on music mogul Richie Fines­tra (Bob­by Can­navale). Sad­ly, the script’s lack of direc­tion means not even the impec­ca­ble sound­track or trade­mark bursts of extreme vio­lence man­age to make the fea­ture-length episode more than mild­ly enter­tain­ing – large­ly due to the sense that Robert De Niro and Har­vey Keitel’s Mean Streets char­ac­ters could well be up to no good just off cam­era. The show was recent­ly can­celled after just one sea­son. Jacob Stol­wor­thy

Though bare­ly dis­trib­uted, Scorsese’s urgent, sear­ing debut fea­ture Who’s That Knock­ing at My Door did won­ders for the rep­u­ta­tion of its then 25-year-old direc­tor – not to men­tion its break­out star, Har­vey Kei­t­el. By con­trast his fol­low-up, Box­car Bertha, arriv­ing five years lat­er, did lit­tle to sug­gest that Scors­ese was the real deal. A rough-hewn Bon­nie and Clyde knock off, the scuzzy fin­ger­prints of pop pro­duc­er extra­or­di­naire Roger Cor­man are all over this down and dirty pic­ture. Less so Scorsese’s, who was very much a gun-for-hire here. One for Mar­ty com­pletists only. AW

With Michael Jackson’s schnoz mak­ing glob­al head­lines in the mid-’80s, it’s fit­ting that the title video from the superstar’s 1987 album would prove to be so on-the-nose. Writ­ten by Richard ​“Clock­ers” Price, the full 18-minute cut of Scorsese’s film may be the singer’s most forth­right attempt at con­fronting ques­tions of racial iden­ti­ty before he took a sledge­ham­mer to sub­tle­ty in the ear­ly ​’90s with ​‘Black or White’, but there’s lit­tle escap­ing the camp cre­den­tials of a leather-clad riff on West Side Sto­ry. The biggest pop cul­ture icon on the plan­et gets out-charisma’d by an unknown Wes­ley Snipes in a role that was orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed for Prince, whose com­ments on the mat­ter sum things up rather nice­ly. MT

It speaks vol­umes that Scorsese’s first ever for­ay into film­mak­ing focused on per­haps his most inno­cent pro­tag­o­nist. This nine-minute com­e­dy short was made while Scors­ese stud­ied at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts in 1963 and fol­lows a writer who grows obsessed with a pic­ture on his wall. Fran­tic from the get go, the film is an unashamed merg­ing of Buñuel and Bergman while the mind-bend­ing cli­max intrigu­ing­ly sug­gests Scorsese’s career path almost veered in a total­ly dif­fer­ent direc­tion. Still, the film’s over­ar­ch­ing mantra – ​“Life is fraught with per­il” – could apply to near­ly all of the director’s films to have fol­lowed. JS

While it cer­tain­ly has more going for it than Scorsese’s more recent stab at TV pilot­ing, the debut episode of Board­walk Empire is beset by the same prob­lems – name­ly, the need to get enough plates in the air so they can keep spin­ning for a fur­ther 50-odd episodes. Watch­ing it, you get the sense that Scors­ese is lend­ing lit­tle more than the most super­fi­cial aspects of his brand to pro­ceed­ings. Despite cost­ing a report­ed $18m, the lev­el of his­tor­i­cal accu­ra­cy is below that of the director’s supe­ri­or peri­od pieces. Still, a lead role for Steve Busce­mi can nev­er be an entire­ly bad thing. MT

A six-minute short pro­duced for the ⁹⁄₁₁ fundrais­er, A Con­cert for New York City, the film sees Scors­ese take to the streets of Lit­tle Italy for a whistlestop tour of the area in which he grew up. The film serves as a brief cel­e­bra­tion of the area’s shift­ing eth­nic demo­graph­ics over the years, as Scors­ese offers both fond rem­i­nis­cence and con­tem­po­rary por­trait of a neigh­bour­hood in which a large Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty coex­ists with the rem­nants of its Ital­ian pre­de­ces­sors. A tri­fle, per­haps, but an affec­tion­ate, micro­cos­mic glimpse nonethe­less of a social land­scape forged by its immi­grant pop­u­la­tion. MT

While show­cas­ing many seeds Scors­ese would go onto plant in his own films – there’s musi­cal num­bers (New York, New York), gang­sters (Good­fel­las) and loqua­cious nar­ra­tion (here’s look­ing at you, Jor­dan Belfort), this sec­ond short of Marty’s impor­tant­ly high­lights what so influ­enced the man to pick up a cam­era in the first place (this short’s end­ing in par­tic­u­lar direct­ly riffs off Fellini’s 8 ½). For that rea­son alone, it’s an essen­tial work. JS

Shut­ter Island is all about trick­ery. An adap­ta­tion of Den­nis Lehane’s nov­el, it tracks US Mar­shal Ted­dy Daniels (Leonar­do DiCaprio) as he inves­ti­gates the dis­ap­pear­ance of a patient from a hos­pi­tal for the crim­i­nal­ly insane. Through evoca­tive imagery and bla­tant homage (Shock Cor­ri­dor is clear­ly his sub­ject), Scors­ese lay­ers this mind-bend­ing thriller with inten­tion­al­ly ambigu­ous over­tones so as to throw us off the scent. But is Shut­ter Island an under­rat­ed entry into the director’s canon or is it emblem­at­ic of Scors­ese rest­ing on his lau­rels? Whichev­er way you lean, one thing that can be said is that no two views are the same. JS

Tight and imper­son­al, Andrew Lau’s Infer­nal Affairs got its busi­ness done in 100-min­utes. For his remake, Scors­ese adds the best part of an hour, large­ly fail­ing to cohe­sive­ly fuse nar­ra­tive con­cerns with the Oedi­pal­ly-rid­den weight of his lofti­er the­mat­ic ideals. Mark Wahlberg took the lion’s share of plau­dits – and an Oscar nom­i­na­tion – but the best per­for­mance here belongs to Matt Damon in the film’s least showy part; wit­ness the caught-red-hand­ed scene with Vera Farmi­ga (sad­dled with a thank­less role). Sad­ly it seems that even Scors­ese couldn’t tame Jack Nichol­son, who – even when he’s not wav­ing a dil­do around – read­i­ly serves up slice after slice of grade‑A ham. MT

Hav­ing placed the spot­light on Bob Dylan for doc­u­men­tary No Direc­tion Home six years pre­vi­ous, Scors­ese turned his sights to The Bea­t­les – more specif­i­cal­ly George Har­ri­son – with this unpar­al­leled glimpse into the life of who was often the unsung genius in the cor­ner. Devel­oped along­side Harrison’s wid­ow Olivia, the ten­der con­tri­bu­tions – rang­ing from sur­viv­ing Bea­t­les Paul McCart­ney and Ringo Starr to fel­low musi­cians Eric Clap­ton, Jeff Lynne and Tom Pet­ty – make this an essen­tial, if a lit­tle lan­guorous, delve into the life of arguably the great­est Bea­t­le. JS

A man shaves in the bath­room mir­ror. Once fin­ished, he lath­ers up and shaves again. Blood pours from his face. He slits his throat to the strains of a caden­za – ​‘I Can’t Get Start­ed’ – impo­tence and masochism. Unnec­es­sary action result­ing in unnec­es­sary blood­shed, tak­en to self-fla­gel­lat­ing extrem­i­ty. 1968: brute force and blunt alle­go­ry. A cred­it reads, ​‘White­ness by Her­man Melville’ – Viet­nam anoth­er elu­sive white whale; a direct, final title card dri­ving the point home. Or all just films school lols symp­to­matic of an overindul­gent art­house diet? MT

Whether or not you enjoy Pub­lic Speak­ing will like­ly depend on your capac­i­ty to with­stand the rat-a-tat com­ic pat­ter of Fran Lebowitz, the feisty sub­ject of Scorsese’s 2010 docu-pro­file. The sar­don­ic New York­er is cer­tain­ly on uncom­pro­mis­ing form here, yet the film’s casu­al tone at least eas­es us into the con­ver­sa­tion. As Lebowitz sets the world to rights, you can’t help but think of anoth­er strong-willed, anti-estab­lish­ment Scors­ese pro­tag­o­nist. Inci­den­tal­ly, she also hap­pens to dri­ve a che­quered cab. AW

Or: Mar­tin Scorsese’s A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events. After Para­mount can­celled The Last Temp­ta­tion of Christ in 1983, the direc­tor realigned his atten­tions back to inde­pen­dent film­mak­ing for After Hours, a screw­ball tale fol­low­ing a night in the life of Grif­fin Dunne’s word pro­cess­ing pro­tag­o­nist. As he mean­ders inno­cent­ly from one bizarre encounter to anoth­er, it becomes tough not to hand this vibrant Scors­ese out­ing acknowl­edge­ment for the cre­ation of most future Coen Broth­ers films; it’s hard to imag­ine the Dude abid­ing with­out it. JS

It may be his most straight­for­ward star vehi­cle (New­man, not Cruise), but Scorsese’s sequel to 1961’s The Hus­tler remains as sol­id a stu­dio throw­back as any deliv­ered by a tread­ing-water auteur. Attempts to per­son­alise the mate­r­i­al begin with an open­ing voiceover from Scors­ese, the film nev­er bet­ter than in its ear­ly stages. If the recog­nis­ably ener­gised style rarely tran­scends the dec­o­ra­tive (that open­ing aside), there’s an enjoy­ably pre­dictable – and pre­dictably enjoy­able – momen­tum to the age-old nar­ra­tive and char­ac­ter dynam­ics. While the method stu­dents that pop­u­late so much of his work tend to walk away with the lion’s share of cred­it, one need only look at the per­for­mance Scors­ese gets from Tom Cruise for evi­dence of one of the pre­mier actor’s direc­tors in the busi­ness at work. MT

Only Scors­ese could make an adver­tise­ment for Cata­lan wine mak­er Freix­enet into a beguil­ing love let­ter to the mas­ter of sus­pense. This faux doc­u­men­tary short sug­gests the direc­tor has dis­cov­ered three and a half pages of a ​‘lost’ Alfred Hitch­cock film and is mak­ing it into a film. Cue Bernard Hermann’s fran­tic North by North­west score play­ing out as lead actors (resem­bling Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint) reen­act a suit­ably Hitch­cock­ian – and whol­ly fab­ri­cat­ed – plot. A ref­er­ence-ladled love let­ter from one cineaste to anoth­er. JS

Those in thrall to Shine a Light would be well-served by plung­ing into this sev­en-part doc­u­men­tary series. The open­er was helmed by Scors­ese him­self, with lat­er episodes direct­ed by the likes of Charles Bur­nett, Wim Wen­ders and Clint East­wood. A rough-and-ready intro­duc­tion to the sounds of the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta, Scors­ese shoots on low-grade DV, allow­ing gui­tarist Corey Har­ris to take the lead in inter­view­ing side­men to the greats and unsung heroes in their own right. Less refined than his archive or con­cert docs but no less essen­tial for those with even the vaguest inter­est in the evo­lu­tion of a sound. MT

No Direc­tion isn’t a biog­ra­phy of Bob Dylan. Well, it is that, but it’s also a film about Amer­i­ca, telling as it does the sto­ry of the times via the prodi­gious folk prince’s dis­tinct brand of musi­cal poet­ry. Cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly, No Direc­tion Home – which takes its name from a lyric in Dylan’s 1965 song ​‘Like a Rolling Stone’ – is indebt­ed to a film wide­ly regard­ed as the first ever rock­u­men­tary, DA Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back from 1967; some of Pennebaker’s orig­i­nal colour stock footage of Dylan on tour even made it into the final cut, culled from hours of unseen tape donat­ed by long­time Dylan asso­ciate Jeff Rosen. If you ever want to show some­one what it meant to be Amer­i­can dur­ing the ear­ly to mid-’60s, show them this. AW

Chart­ing 50 years of The New York Review of Books, Scorsese’s most recent doc­u­men­tary is pro­pelled by the rhythm of lan­guage and­kun­du ideas. As a chrono­log­i­cal­ly hop-scotch­ing jour­ney through the paper’s his­to­ry, Scors­ese (and co-direc­tor David Tedeschi) wise­ly allow its con­trib­u­tors’ words speak for them­selves, eschew­ing sound­bites for a rich lay­er­ing of theme through mon­tage. One sus­pects it’s an edi­to­r­i­al job of which its cen­tral sub­ject, the NYRB’s estimable edi­tor Robert Sil­vers would be proud. ​“The ideas were sen­su­ous,” says Colm Toib­in of the paper’s attrac­tion, a notion not lost in the film­mak­ers’ account of a 50-year cru­sade to engen­der dia­logue on the path to change. MT

More than mere warm-up for Mean Streets, Scorsese’s debut fea­ture tran­scends the patch­work aes­thet­ic qual­i­ties borne out of a pro­tract­ed pro­duc­tion. Ground zero for auteurist read­ings of the the filmmaker’s work, the film wears its cinephile heart on its sleeve, charm­ing­ly fore­ground­ing its debts to Felli­ni, Cas­savetes, Truf­faut, Godard and – most lit­er­al­ly – Ford and Hawks. Mas­ter­ing the swift­ly trade­marked, con­tra­pun­tal use of pop music from the get-go, Who’s That Knock­ing at My Door maps the fault lines between sex and reli­gion that Scors­ese has exam­ined through­out his career. The Girl (Zina Bethune) may not be afford­ed a name, but this remains as forth­right a cri­tique of mas­culin­i­ty and ego as any of the director’s films to come. MT

Pre­ced­ing Silence in Scorsese’s unof­fi­cial ​‘Faith’ tril­o­gy is Kun­dun, his auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of the 14^th Dalai Lama’s exile from Tibet (The Last Temp­ta­tion of Christ came first). A beguil­ing depar­ture for the direc­tor, Kun­dun – writ­ten by the late Melis­sa Math­i­son – is not with­out its pit­falls and con­tro­ver­sies (the film’s depic­tion of Chi­na almost derailed Disney’s rela­tion­ship with the coun­try). Yet there remains plen­ty to admire, not least the mar­riage of Scors­ese, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Roger Deakins and com­pos­er Philip Glass, whose exper­tise kicks into gear for a mem­o­rable final act that quick­ens the pulse thank­ful­ly war­rant­i­ng the often tedious med­i­ta­tive jour­ney. JS

Around the time of The Aviator’s release, Scors­ese stat­ed that he had no desire to con­tin­ue mak­ing big $100m movies. Which in hind­sight seems a lit­tle disin­gen­u­ous giv­en that the five fea­tures he’s direct­ed since 2004 were all made on rough­ly the same bud­get. The point here is that Scors­ese has always been artis­ti­cal­ly-dri­ven and self-aware enough not to let him­self be sucked too far into the Hol­ly­wood machine. With very few excep­tions, he’s always prized small­er, more per­son­al projects over high-pres­sure stu­dio fare; his bold­ness and will­ing­ness to take risks not unlike Leonar­do DiCaprio’s epony­mous pro­tag­o­nist, Howard Hugh­es. The Avi­a­tor isn’t Scorsese’s best film by any stretch, but watch­ing it you get a clear sense of these two great Amer­i­can vision­ar­ies, both equal­ly bold and unground­ed in their respec­tive ambi­tions. AW

Sand­wiched between Mean Streets and Taxi Dri­ver, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any­more was Scorsese’s first Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion. It is, how­ev­er, almost defi­ant­ly inde­pen­dent in spir­it and style – both in its imme­di­ate telling of a young woman’s search for iden­ti­ty and lib­er­a­tion, and through the director’s acknowl­edge­ment of the expec­ta­tions and lim­i­ta­tions placed on him by the stu­dio. Ellen Burstyn is ter­rif­ic as the title char­ac­ter, an aspir­ing singer whose unwill­ing­ness to bend to society’s wills sees her strug­gle to find her place in the world. Often read as a straight­for­ward tale of fem­i­nist angst, Alice is actu­al­ly com­plete­ly unteth­ered from ide­o­log­i­cal stric­tures. Sim­ply put, it’s a film about going your own way. AW

Scors­ese swapped the swing of New York, New York for San Fran­cis­co rock­a­bil­ly with The Last Waltz, a con­cert film show­cas­ing The Band’s 1976 farewell show in the venue they first per­formed at 16 years pre­vi­ous. Split between leg-slap­ping ren­di­tions of renowned tracks and inter­views with the charm­ing­ly poised band mem­bers, Scors­ese bears the good judge­ment to recline and let the musi­cians do the talk­ing. The Last Waltz hits all the right notes, her­ald­ed by Scorsese’s open­ing instruc­tion: ​‘This film should be played loud!’ and backed up by the inclu­sion of pio­neers Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Mud­dy Waters. A neces­si­ty for any­one who’s ever heard a bar of music. JS

Scorsese’s open­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the port­man­teau film, New York Sto­ries ranks as one of his finest achieve­ments, a styl­is­ti­cal­ly aggres­sive and exper­i­men­tal work inspired by Dostoyevsky’s ​‘The Gam­bler’ that comes in under 50 min­utes. Where the dec­o­ra­tive nature of his direc­tion in the likes of After Hours and The Col­or of Mon­ey comes off as super­fi­cial, here he offers a styl­is­tic tour de force whol­ly sim­pati­co with the brutish­ly ner­vous, vio­lent ener­gies of his pro­tag­o­nist. Open­ing on abstract­ed details to the strains of Pro­col Harem – a recur­ring sound­track motif – Scors­ese exam­ines the ten­sions between love, life and art from the sub­jec­tive per­spec­tive of Nick Nolte’s ego­cen­tric painter; as quin­tes­sen­tial a Scors­ese pro­tag­o­nist as they come. MT

“My films would be unthink­able, real­ly, with­out them.” That’s how Mar­tin Scors­ese once described the influ­ence of the Rolling Stones on his work. Filmed at New York’s Bea­con The­atre dur­ing the band’s 2006 ​‘A Big­ger Bang Tour’, Shine a Light is a con­cert film that achieves the rare feat of cap­tur­ing the spe­cial, inex­press­ible con­nec­tion the sur­viv­ing band mem­bers have not just with their ador­ing fans, but with each oth­er. Mick Jag­ger, Kei­th Richards, Ron­nie Wood and Char­lie Watts are hard­ly in their prime here, but Scors­ese mas­ter­ful­ly reveals how the Stones’ endur­ing rock ​‘n’ roll spir­it has kept them in such good shape. Musi­cal­ly speak­ing, any­way. AW

“These days it seems like Amer­i­can cin­e­ma is all there is,” says Scors­ese in the open­ing moments of his sec­ond, vast doc­u­men­tary on the movies. ​“All the oth­er cin­e­mas are sec­ondary, includ­ing Ital­ian cin­e­ma, and that real­ly wor­ries me. In fact, it’s the rea­son I’m mak­ing this doc­u­men­tary.” Much like his pre­vi­ous film on Amer­i­can movies, Scors­ese begins on an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal note, the sense of nos­tal­gic rem­i­nis­cence fore­ground­ed with mem­o­ries of fam­i­ly view­ings of Rober­to Rossellini’s Paisan, before afford­ing the movies in ques­tion a greater depth of analy­sis, of per­son­al res­o­nance. While we nat­u­ral­ly cher­ish every nar­ra­tive fea­ture Scors­ese turns his hand to, there’d be no com­plaints here if the rest of his post-Silence career were spent pro­duc­ing such per­son­al epics of cin­e­mat­ic acad­e­mia. MT

If noth­ing else, Scorsese’s most recent doc makes a fierce argu­ment for his fic­tion and non-fic­tion work to be con­sid­ered insep­a­ra­bly. He’d already tack­led the career of Bob Dylan in his wide-rang­ing 2005 film No Direc­tion Home, but for this return to the elu­sive musician’s discog­ra­phy, the focus is on a spe­cif­ic peri­od in the icon’s life on the road. Chart­ing Dylan’s Rolling Thun­der Revue, a series of low-key gigs in small venues that Dylan shut­tled between across 1975 – 76, the film soars in its stage per­for­mances, large­ly tak­en from the singer’s self-direct­ed Renal­do and Clara. On the sur­face, Rolling Thun­der Revue appears to be a straight­for­ward mix of con­cert footage, back­stage shenani­gans and talk­ing heads inter­view, but Dylan proves a slip­pery cus­to­di­an of his own his­to­ry, mythol­o­gy and essen­tial unknowa­bil­i­ty – which Scors­ese, like any good dis­ci­ple, appears more than hap­py to indulge. MT

From the first shot, in which the film­mak­er shares a bath with his sub­ject – larg­er-than-life Taxi Dri­ver gun-sales­man, Steven Prince – Scors­ese makes no bones about the direct­ed nature of his doc­u­men­tary por­trait. As Prince tells his tall tales, rang­ing from hilar­i­ous to hor­rif­ic, Scors­ese keeps up a dia­logue with both sub­ject and crew. From asides to an unseen edi­tor and DoP Michael Chap­man, to the refer­ral to pre-pro­duc­tion notes on anec­dotes he wants to cap­ture on film, said decon­struc­tion reach­es its peak as Scors­ese reveals as much about the rehearsed nature of sto­ry­telling as he does his mag­net­ic racon­teur, and by exten­sion the very notion of doc­u­men­tary truth. MT

A pulpy remake that’s bet­ter than the orig­i­nal, Cape Fear was the biggest com­mer­cial hit of Scorsese’s career until The Avi­a­tor blew it out of the water a lit­tle over a decade lat­er. Much of the film’s suc­cess lies in De Niro’s all-con­sum­ing cen­tral turn as Bible-lov­ing, cig­ar-chew­ing rapist Max Cady, whose lurid tat­toos, Hawai­ian shirts and lispy south­ern lilt instant­ly set him apart as the most car­toon­ish vil­lain of De Niro’s career. The stormy finale aboard a hijacked river­boat was at the time the most ambi­tious action sequence Scors­ese had ever attempt­ed. It’s cer­tain­ly apt that Cady/​De Niro appears to be chan­nelling the shark in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws: he’s cold-blood­ed and unre­lent­ing to the last. AW

Ear­ly in the film, Scors­ese talks about repeat­ed­ly bor­row­ing a pic­to­r­i­al guide to cin­e­ma from the New York Pub­lic Library as a child. For him, many of the films exist­ed only on the pages of said book. This won­der­ful doc­u­men­tary served a sim­i­lar pur­pose for cinephiles of a cer­tain age, many a list com­piled off the back of the filmmaker’s affec­tion­ate rec­ol­lec­tions and judi­cious­ly illus­trat­ed analy­ses. Track­ing down a copy of Delmer Dav­es’ The Red House, say, was nigh-on impos­si­ble back in 1995; it seemed to exist only in the tan­ta­lis­ing glimpses found on a worn-out VHS of this, Scorsese’s per­son­al canon. An intox­i­cat­ing trea­sure map of the Amer­i­can cin­e­ma from one of its lead­ing cham­pi­ons. MT

Few film­mak­ers pos­sess the clout – or the incli­na­tion – to mount such a per­son­al project on so grand a scale. A fam­i­ly movie as hymn to film preser­va­tion and an aching tale of loss both per­son­al and cul­tur­al, Hugo sees Scors­ese adopt the lat­est film­mak­ing tools to pay homage to the ear­li­est. Fit­ting­ly this trib­ute to that pio­neer­ing cin­e­mat­ic magi­cian, Georges Méliès, result­ed in the most effec­tive use of 3D post-Avatar; not least evi­denced in a stun­ning update of the Lumiere broth­ers’ The Arrival of a Train, here seen career­ing across a dream-stage of CG-aug­ment­ed cin­e­mat­ic arti­fice. The filmmaker’s man­i­festo – beyond illu­mi­nat­ing the need to safe­guard a medium’s her­itage – is that of his pro­tag­o­nists; to con­jure the impos­si­ble, Scors­ese forg­ing an up-to-the-minute dig­i­tal realm as a means to bring the dreams shared with Méliès to life. MT

As Las Vegas fix­er Sam ​“Ace” Roth­stein, Robert De Niro is cool­ness per­son­i­fied, keep­ing things togeth­er even as his world crum­bles around him to prove once and for all that liv­ing in a mobster’s par­adise is no pic­nic. Yet it’s a career-best Sharon Stone who steals the show as Ace’s pill-pop­ping, treach­er­ous wife, Gin­ger – show­ing that Scors­ese is just as adept at elic­it­ing strong per­for­mances from women as he is men. Her sud­den death, teed up by De Niro’s snap­py, snarling nar­ra­tion, is one of the most con­sum­mate­ly staged scenes in the director’s entire fil­mog­ra­phy. AW

While Who’s That Knock­ing at My Door made lit­er­al its quo­ta­tion of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bra­vo through a series of mag­a­zine-sourced stills, Mean Streets fus­es its hang­ing-out-with-the-guys vibe to Vitel­loni-ban­ter, riff­ing more exten­sive­ly on the ear­li­er film’s superla­tive par­ty scene. If its pre­sen­ta­tion of the city harks back to the unvar­nished imme­di­a­cy of Shad­ows or Lit­tle Fugi­tive – and for­ward to the noc­tur­nal, claret-hued hellscape of Taxi Dri­ver – the masochis­tic psy­cho­log­i­cal and inter­per­son­al con­flicts en route to a Brook­lyn Bridge Gol­go­tha see the vio­lence of cul­tur­al and reli­gious imper­a­tives cast in oper­at­ic terms. MT

There’s a scene late in The Wolf of Wall Street where stock­broking scamp Jor­dan Belfort (Leonar­do DiCaprio) devolves into an anti-hero in front of our eyes: after being asked for a divorce, he smacks his wife Nao­mi (Mar­got Rob­bie) around the face. It’s a shock­ing, stray act of vio­lence in a film large­ly devoid of them and ham­mers home the fact that, until that point, you’ve been watch­ing an irrev­er­ent, dynam­ic old-fash­ioned fea­ture up there with his most enjoy­able. Only Scors­ese could have adept­ly weaved this sprawl­ing film and its mad­cap char­ac­ters into a coher­ent whole that improves on each view. And not just for beer-guz­zling uni stu­dents. JS

One of the chief plea­sures in revis­it­ing a filmmaker’s entire back cat­a­logue lies in the hope of a film’s ascen­dan­cy when viewed with fresh eyes. Gangs of New York is a prime exam­ple of this, not least giv­en the coin­ci­dence of its cur­rent polit­i­cal poten­cy. As one of the last great stu­dio back­lot pro­duc­tions, it’s a film whose tac­til­i­ty is fore­ground­ed to the point of arti­fi­cial­i­ty. Scors­ese has nev­er made a west­ern, but that genre’s self-defin­ing approach to his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism and myth mak­ing finds an urban equiv­a­len­cy on the bat­tle­ground of Gangs’ Five Points. Over-stuffed with detail it may be – the result of a trou­bled pro­duc­tion – but this is a work whose for­mal attrib­ut­es chaot­i­cal­ly coa­lesce after-the-fact in much the same man­ner as the era on which it casts its eye. MT

A 49-minute oral his­to­ry, not just of the Scors­ese clan, but of the immi­grant expe­ri­ence. Famil­iar faces from their cameo appear­ances in a num­ber of his films, Cather­ine and Charles Scors­ese take cen­tre stage in their son’s affec­tion­ate por­trait of a 40-year mar­riage. Shot in the couple’s apart­ment, the film’s charm lies in its casu­al lack of refine­ment; the gen­tle rib­bing and bick­er­ing between the pair as unvar­nished as Scorsese’s coax­ing of per­son­al and cul­tur­al his­to­ries. As Scors­ese directs his moth­er in the open­ing scene – and she directs him back – this most per­son­al of films lays bare the need to pre­serve such sto­ry­telling tra­di­tions, as well as the mechan­ics by which to do so. MT

It’s per­haps sur­pris­ing that for the most mov­ing and auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal­ly prob­ing of his doc­u­men­taries, Scors­ese shares a cred­it as writer and direc­tor (with film crit­ic, Kent Jones). An hour-long trib­ute to one of his cin­e­mat­ic heroes, A Let­ter to Elia is no hagio­graph­i­cal love-in. Part con­fes­sion­al, part the­mat­ic analy­sis, part psy­cho­log­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion – into both Kazan and Scors­ese – the film isn’t shy of con­fronting the late filmmaker’s per­son­al and polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sies. End­ing ten­ta­tive­ly with a trib­ute to a late friend­ship, the film final­ly proves itself less a love-let­ter than a touch­ing­ly sin­cere note of thanks, from one film­mak­er to the trans­for­ma­tive, soul-pierc­ing work of anoth­er. MT

Scorsese’s high soci­ety peri­od romance is rarely men­tioned in the same breath as his oth­er New York films. Yet in Daniel Day-Lewis’ lusty wannabe aris­to­crat, New­land Archer, it boasts a sym­pa­thet­ic hero who is in his own fop­pish way an essen­tial guide to the city of the director’s birth. Jay Cocks intro­duced Scors­ese to Edith Wharton’s source nov­el in the late ​’80s and his old friend was instant­ly smit­ten. The result­ing script is as faith­ful as they come; an immac­u­late lit­er­ary adap­ta­tion that would sure­ly rank high­er were it not for the sim­ple fact that Scors­ese has so many mas­ter­pieces under his belt. AW

Although Silence has been described as the third part of Scorsese’s ​‘Faith’ tril­o­gy, the film it feels most akin to is his neglect­ed gem from 1999, Bring­ing Out the Dead. An Orphean odyssey tee­ter­ing on the edge of a noc­tur­nal abyss between life and death, night and dawn, the film was the director’s last col­lab­o­ra­tion with Paul Schrad­er. You might think a reli­gious­ly-sym­bol­ic, last-ditch grasp towards grace would prove a solemn affair, but this is one of Scorsese’s most black­ly com­ic works, thanks in no small part to Nico­las Cage deliv­er­ing one of his best per­for­mances as God’s Exhaust­ed Man. Direct­ed with hyper-caf­feinat­ed, bravu­ra flour­ish­es, the man­ic ener­gy is tem­pered by the sense of a wak­ing-dream; that sal­va­tion could be on hand, ​“If I could just close my eyes…” MT

Frank Sinatra’s cov­er ver­sion of the theme song from Scorsese’s 1977 jazz musi­cal – writ­ten by John Kan­der and Fred Ebb and per­formed by Liza Min­nel­li – may be more famous than the film itself, but then this is per­haps the most under­rat­ed of all the director’s nar­ra­tive fea­tures. An ambi­tious, over-bud­get love let­ter to both the Big Apple and the clas­sic Hol­ly­wood cin­e­ma of Scorsese’s child­hood (its lav­ish sets were built on the old MGM sound­stages), New York, New York is a heady trib­ute to the out­mod­ed school of film­mak­ing that gave way to the New Hol­ly­wood class who came to dom­i­nate Amer­i­can cin­e­ma between the late ​’60s and ear­ly ​’80s. Behind the scenes, Scors­ese was enter­ing a peri­od of great per­son­al tur­moil – brought on by his exces­sive cocaine use and extra­mar­i­tal affair with his lead­ing lady – that even­tu­al­ly land­ed him in hos­pi­tal. An ugly foot­note to a roman­tic, melan­choly mas­ter­work that has aged bet­ter than many of the Gold­en Age musi­cals it riffs on. AW

“Moral­ly offen­sive” and ​“the­o­log­i­cal­ly unsound” is how the crit­ics (read: Catholic Church) first react­ed to Scorsese’s con­tro­ver­sial bib­li­cal epic. It cer­tain­ly doesn’t shy away from the seri­ous and – yes – blas­phe­mous nature of Nikos Kazantza­kis’ source nov­el. Shot on a pal­try $7m bud­get for Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios after the project was dropped by Para­mount, the film inad­ver­tent­ly marked a water­shed moment in America’s cul­ture wars, draw­ing a line in the sand between the country’s tra­di­tion­al­ist val­ues and its increas­ing­ly sec­u­lar enter­tain­ment indus­try. Described in a pre-open­ing cred­its dis­claimer as a ​“fic­tion­al explo­ration of the eter­nal spir­i­tu­al con­flict”, it is first and fore­most an alle­go­ry of the director’s own crises of faith, most intense­ly man­i­fest­ed in lat­er scenes where Willem Dafoe’s deeply con­flict­ed, imper­fect­ly human Son of God expe­ri­ences vivid hal­lu­ci­na­tions while suf­fer­ing on the cross. A stir­ring com­pan­ion piece to Scorsese’s most recent reli­gious dra­ma, Silence. AW

In reck­on­ing with the pro­found sin of Amer­i­can geno­cide – one large­ly scrubbed from the cul­tur­al con­scious­ness – Scors­ese shrewd­ly switch­es the per­spec­tive of David Grann’s source nov­el to give the Osage Nation a more promi­nent voice in their own trag­ic sto­ry. Scors­ese stal­warts DiCaprio and De Niro are on top form, but it’s Lily Glad­stone who deliv­ers the stand­out per­for­mance; a bea­con of qui­et dig­ni­ty and hope in the face of per­sis­tent colo­nial tyran­ny. The film’s dis­arm­ing­ly play­ful end­ing, where the direc­tor pulls back from the nov­el­is­tic scope of the cen­tral nar­ra­tive to ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions both of him­self and the audi­ence – point­ed­ly draw­ing atten­tion to the hypocrisy and com­plic­i­ty that stems from turn­ing such sub­ject mat­ter into pop­u­lar enter­tain­ment – con­sti­tutes arguably the great­est mas­ter­stroke of his long and sto­ried career. AW

One might argue that it’s a lit­tle soon to stake a claim for Silence in the upper ech­e­lons of the Scors­ese canon. At the very least it is a film that demands repeat view­ings. Its long-ges­ta­tion has been well-doc­u­ment­ed, and the sub­ject mat­ter should come as lit­tle sur­prise to any­one with even the vaguest knowl­edge the director’s work; the fig­ures that pop­u­late his films live accord­ing to a code, and Silence serves as a sus­tained test of such, a spir­i­tu­al and intel­lec­tu­al bat­tle­ground vio­lent­ly phys­i­calised. Whether on the streets of Lit­tle Italy, the moun­tains of Tibet or in late-19^th cen­tu­ry draw­ing rooms, Scors­ese has proved him­self a sen­si­tive and detail-ori­ent­ed cul­tur­al ethno­g­ra­ph­er. Silence is root­ed in such con­cerns, even as its test of faith tran­scends ques­tions of reli­gious doc­trine to stand for any core, imper­illed belief sys­tem. MT

Sam Roth­stein takes off his over-sized shades, folds his hands beneath his chin and con­tem­plates hav­ing arrived right back where he start­ed. Fade to black. Roll cred­its. Despite being laud­ed by audi­ences and crit­ics alike, 1995’s Casi­no marked the start of an unof­fi­cial 14-year hia­tus for one of Hollywood’s great­est ever actor-direc­tor pair­ings. It was De Niro who first pitched the idea that would even­tu­al­ly become The Irish­man to Scors­ese back in 2004, straight after read­ing ​‘I Heard You Paint Hous­es’, Charles Brandt’s chron­i­cle of the life and (alleged) crimes of Frank Sheer­an. The project stalled and the pair went their sep­a­rate ways before Steven Zail­lian was brought in to thrash out a script in 2009. Sev­er­al more years passed. Paci­no joined the cast. Then Pesci. Then Net­flix pushed a blank cheque under Scorsese’s nose. Final­ly, in 2019, with antic­i­pa­tion at fever pitch after more than a decade of spec­u­la­tion and false starts, the direc­tor unveiled his suit­ably epic mob ele­gy. Boy was it worth the wait. AW

And now, ladies and gen­tle­men, the man we’ve all been wait­ing for… Rupert Pup­kin is a far cry from the gristly macho arche­types that had by the ear­ly 1980s become syn­ony­mous with the Scors­ese-De Niro dou­ble act, but the char­ac­ter is no less com­pelling – or dan­ger­ous – than Travis Bick­le and Jake La Mot­ta before him. By turns a(nother) stark exam­i­na­tion of mas­culin­i­ty and a scathing celebri­ty satire, The King of Com­e­dy feels eeri­ly pre­scient in the way it antic­i­pates of our media obsessed cul­ture – today’s TV land­scape is filled with pre­cise­ly the sort of tal­ent­less fame seek­ers that Jer­ry Lewis’ vet­er­an talk-show host, Jer­ry Lang­ford, rails against. Despite being made at the peak of the Scorsese’s pow­ers, the film was a huge com­mer­cial flop upon its ini­tial release and the expe­ri­ence took its toll on both its direc­tor and star; the pair part­ed ways only to reunite sev­en years lat­er for Good­fel­las. AW

While Scors­ese was laid up fol­low­ing a bout of depres­sion that came to a head dur­ing the mak­ing of New York, New York, he was vis­it­ed by Robert De Niro, who brought with him a propo­si­tion in the form a script about the life of a for­mer mid­dleweight box­ing champ. The actor had been obsessed with the (cau­tion­ary) tale of Jake La Mot­ta for a num­ber of years, and in his long­time friend and col­lab­o­ra­tor he saw the only per­son capa­ble of bring­ing it to life on the big screen.

It’s fit­ting that a film detail­ing the pro­fes­sion­al highs and per­son­al lows of a bril­liant but self-destruc­tive star should put Scors­ese – still bruis­ing from the crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial fail­ure of New York, New York – back in the lime­light. At the time the direc­tor believed that Rag­ing Bull would be his last film, and con­se­quent­ly he put his full cre­ative weight behind the project. It real­ly shows. This is a stag­ger­ing, vir­tu­oso work whose redemp­tive qual­i­ties can­not be over­stat­ed. MT

For a filmmaker’s great­est work – or sec­ond great­est, see­ing as we’ve set our­selves the impos­si­ble task of rank­ing these films – it might be expect­ed that said film stand as a com­plete auteurist state­ment, one unde­ni­ably marked with the stamp of its author. That Taxi Dri­ver is a quin­tes­sen­tial Scors­ese work isn’t in ques­tion, but it is a film – per­haps more than any of his oth­ers – that couldn’t exist with­out its col­lab­o­ra­tors. Not least Paul Schrad­er, whose par­tic­u­lar brand of nihilism deserves equal cred­it to his direc­tor – whether you read John Ford’s The Searchers or Robert Bresson’s Pick­pock­et as the film’s fore­most influ­ence depends on which auteurist lens you favour.

Then, of course, there’s Michael Chapman’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy, run­ning an intox­i­cat­ing gamut from neon smear to sick­ly pal­lor; and Bernard Herrmann’s mag­nif­i­cent (and last) score, which alter­nate­ly lends melan­choly roman­ti­cism and an impend­ing sense of dread. Taxi Dri­ver is ulti­mate­ly a film entire­ly of its moment, a prod­uct of a spe­cif­ic time and place, cast and crew. It may be Scorsese’s mas­ter­piece, but he couldn’t have made it alone. MT

There’s a moment rough­ly mid­way through Good­fel­las where Hen­ry (Ray Liot­ta), Jim­my (Robert De Niro) and Tom­my (Joe Pesci) stop by the latter’s mother’s house en route to dis­pos­ing of loud mouth Bil­ly Batts (Frank Vin­cent). She hasn’t seen the boys in a while and con­vinces them to stay for a spot of late-night sup­per. Dur­ing the meal, Jim­my picks up a bot­tle of Heinz Toma­to Ketchup and rolls it smooth­ly between his palms in one quick motion, even­ly releas­ing the tangy condi­ment onto his plate of pas­ta (as the only non Ital­ian-Amer­i­can at the table, it’s telling that he alone opts to embell­ish mama’s home­made marinara).

Although this scene was most­ly impro­vised by the cast (pre­sum­ably to accom­mo­date Scorsese’s elder­ly moth­er, Cather­ine, appear­ing in a brief but mem­o­rable cameo), it nonethe­less begs the ques­tion: was this spe­cif­ic action described in the script, a sub­tle yet cru­cial behav­iour­al trait intend­ed to reveal some­thing about the character’s method­i­cal and clin­i­cal nature? Or is it sim­ply how Bob­by shakes his sauce? A doc­u­men­tary about the mak­ing of the film reveals that it was, in fact, inspired by Jim­my Conway’s real-life coun­ter­part. Still, for all the rea­sons to love and admire Good­fel­las – and there are far too many to list here – it’s small, seem­ing­ly arbi­trary details like this that make it Scorsese’s most reward­ing and rewatch­able film. AW

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