Although his movies are most closely associated with two themes – the culture of New York and the trappings of organized crime – Martin Scorsese’s career as a director now spans half a century and over 40 films of all types. Anyone wondering where to start with his voluminous filmography will therefore be spoiled for choice! Here are 10 of his very best.
10. The Departed
The film for which Scorsese finally received an Academy Award for Best Director pitted Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon against one another as police informant and inside man in a Boston organized crime gang. Although it has been criticized for its occasionally on-the-nose direction – some critics scoffed at the final shot, which showed an actual rat traversing a window ledge in a not-so-subtle nod to DiCaprio’s character’s role – The Departed is solid Scorsese fare, with good turns from Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, and Alec Baldwin, and Jack Nicholson’s Whitey Bulger-esque character proving as unpleasant (and violent) as any Mafia main man in Goodfellas.
9. After Hours
New York yuppiedom proved fertile ground for comedy in the 1980s, with the Crocodile Dundee franchise, Big, and others poking fun at the self-obsession and inflated sense of importance that went with the territory. Scorsese duly got in a few blows of his own with this tightly plotted 1985 farce, in which An American Werewolf in London star Griffin Dune’s beta male, Paul, has the worst of nights in New York, involving lost money, the death of an acquaintance, and being chased by punks. Scorsese did better work in the comedy genre, not least 1983’s The King of Comedy, but the laughs stand up today, and Rosanna Arquette is delightful as Paul’s would-be hookup.
8. The Wolf of Wall Street
This 2013 adaptation of New York stockbroker-turned-fraudster Jordan Belfort did huge box office, raking in a cool $400 million across all markets, making it by far Scorsese’s most successful movie at the time. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Belfort, but Matthew McConaughey packs just as heavy a punch as his mentor, a broker whose up-and-at-’em approach gives Belfort inspiration, and Jonah Hill makes hay as the originator of a “dump and dump” racket. The general debauchery of the lifestyle described in the memoir is at times painful to watch – it’s not so much the excesses, but the height from which Belfort has to fall that generate the unpleasantness – but discovering precisely how he fell from grace is worth the price of admission, and Margot Robbie is unmissable in her breakout role as his wife.
7. No Direction Home
He may have returned to the subject of Bob Dylan’s career in 2019’s Rolling Thunder Review, but Scorsese’s original 2005 documentary about Dylan’s early years as a 1960s Greenwich Village folk singer is the pick of the two, and arguably his finest documentary feature to date. Over three hours in length, Scorsese approaches his subject matter at a leisurely pace, and gathers a remarkable collection of interviewees: Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Allen Ginsburg all contributed with memories of Dylan from his emergence in 1961 to his much-criticized adoption of electric instruments in 1966. A must-see for fans of 60s music.
6. Raging Bull
Robert De Niro won his second Academy Award for his depiction of boxer Jake LaMotta in this 1980 classic. It is, perhaps, just as well that Scorsese opted to shoot in black and white; some of the fight scenes are nothing short of eviscerating, as a washed-up LaMotta absorbs punch after punch on the ropes, all the while protesting his ability to take punishment from his opponent, Sugar Ray Robinson. But Raging Bull’s more compelling drama can be found out of the ring, as LaMotta’s jealousy sees him accuse his wife Vickie (played here by Cathy Moriarty in an Academy Award-nominated performance) of infidelity. The film also saw De Niro’s first work onscreen with Joe Pesci, who plays LaMotta’s brother and manager Joey in only his second film appearance.
5. The King of Comedy
This 1983 film was one of Scorsese’s rare box office bombs, but amply repays a rewatch. Robert De Niro shows his range as a borderline delusional would-be comedian, Rupert Pupkin, who bumps into an actual famous comedian (Jerry Lewis) and becomes obsessed with him. De Niro has a ball as Pupkin, with his cheap suit and shiny shoes, hatches a preposterous plan to kidnap his quarry and achieve the only sort of fame it seems he is capable of – notoriety. As a critique of the American obsession with celebrity, The King of Comedy can hardly be bettered; in a curious inversion of roles, De Niro would go on to channel Lewis’ character opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s Pupkin-esque Arthur Fleck in 2019’s Joker.
4. Taxi Driver
The movie that brought Scorsese to the attention of the wider public is disturbing and compelling in equal measure, and earned its stars – Robert De Niro and a 14-year-old Jodie Foster – Academy Award nominations. The story traces the life of Travis Bickle (De Niro), a depressed loner who drives a taxi around the streets of New York at night, and predicts, as the famous line has it, that “someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets”. Weaving together a story including a slick political candidate, Foster’s child prostitute character Iris, and her pimp (played by a grimly manipulative Harvey Keitel), it also marks one of the first collaborations between Scorsese and Hollywood’s greatest composers. For Taxi Driver, Scorsese secured the services of Academy Award winner Bernard Herrmann, whose experimental jazz score perfectly complements Travis’s deteriorating mood as the film progresses. Herrmann never lived to see the finished product, or to receive the BAFTA he was awarded for his score, dying of a heart attack the day after the score was recorded.
3. Gangs of New York
There is more than a touch of artifice about this 2002 historical epic, but what it lacks in verisimilitude is more than made up for in stylishness. Scorsese tapped Leonardo DiCaprio for the pair’s first collaboration to play the part of Amsterdam, a young man living in 1850s New York whose father (Liam Neeson) was killed in a brutal gang riot by Bill “The Butcher” (Daniel Day Lewis) years previously. Unaware of Amsterdam’s true identity, Bill allows the young man to join his organization, leaving the viewer to wonder: will Amsterdam get revenge? Supported by a fabulous cast including Cameron Diaz as the pickpocket Jenny, Jim Broadbent as a corrupt Tammany Hall politician, and Brendan Gleeson as a would-be challenger to Bill’s position, Gangs of New York was lent additional poignancy by the lingering final shot of the World Trade Center over the modern-day New York skyline: a commentary on the nature of violence in the Big Apple that landed differently in a post-9/11 world.
2. The Aviator
This 2004 biopic is a lavish evocation of America between the wars, and fully deserved the five Academy Awards it received. Leonardo DiCaprio is effortless as the legendary filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, whose obsession with getting his war epic Hell’s Angels into cinemas results in massive budget overruns, a lot of ruffled feathers in Hollywood – and a massive box office hit. Before long, Hughes has drawn the attention of Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett); but the compulsions for which he became infamous were by then already beginning to take their toll, and much of the second half is devoted to an exploration of his declining mental health, all set against the backdrop of his quest to build the world’s biggest plane, the Spruce Goose, and prove its flying capabilities. Look out for pitch-perfect supporting turns from Ian Holm, Alan Alda, and Brent Spiner.
1. Goodfellas
Scorsese was overlooked for the Academy Award for Best Director for his impeccable 1990 gangster epic, which relates the rise and fall of Henry Hill and the Mafia mob to which he attaches himself in 1950s New York. Covering a span of 25 years, Goodfellas depicts in lurid fashion both the glamor and grunginess of gangster life, and benefits from career-defining performances from Ray Liotta as Hill, Robert De Niro as Jimmy the Gent, Joe Pesci as Tommy, and Paul Sorvino as Paulie, the Mafia high-up they work for. From Henry’s rapid rise through the ranks to his romancing of his soon-to-be-complicit wife Karen (played first with giddiness and then with bitterness by Lorraine Bracco), Goodfellas shows Scorsese in the form of his life. Shots that might come across as tricksy in the hands of lesser directors, such as the glacially slow dolly zoom in the diner during the final act, or the famous single-camera scene in which Hill leads Karen into a nightclub through the kitchen, are pulled off with adroitness. It’s no wonder that, a third of century after its release, Goodfellas continues to top critics’ list as one of the greatest movies of all-time, and spawned countless imitators.
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