It’s a simple story, so additional subplots were spliced in throughout its production, most notably a relationship between JR and a nameless blonde played by Zina Bethune. The story follows JR (Harvey Keitel) and his friends running around, getting into mischief, and chasing girls in their Little Italy neighborhood. Shot on a shoestring budget and cobbled together after title changes and rewrites, Scorsese’s messy and meandering film announced “the arrival of an important new director,” according to Roger Ebert. Scorsese’s first feature, Who’s That Knocking At My Door, shows the young filmmaker’s rebellious energy and penchant for telling stories about Italian-American men. It can only be described as a cinematic prayer, a meditation on the nature of faith and a dying way of life. Roger Deakins’ painterly cinematography and Philip Glass’ evocative score help to create a sense of stepping into a cathedral to worship.

By 1959, he’s been driven out of Tibet by Chinese Communist forces who believed there was no place for religion in the modern world. When we first meet the 14th incarnation of the Buddah in 1937, he’s a young boy imparted with great responsibility. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to appreciate about the film. Yet while Last Temptation managed to examine Jesus as equal parts God and man, Kundun can only see the Dalai Lama as a figurehead, never quite grasping his inner life. This relationship with spirituality has led Scorsese to direct two films centered on the lives of religious figures: The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun. Scorsese contemplated becoming a priest before pursuing filmmaking, and his work is obviously influenced by the strict teachings of his pre-Vatican II Catholic upbringing. This ranking represents our collective opinions on Scorsese’s oeuvre, which, in a testament to the sheer quality of so many of his films, was all over the place.) – Zach Laws (Since trying to rank a filmography filled with as many treasures as Scorsese’s is a herculean task, I’ve enlisted my friends Sophia Ciminello and Ryan McQuade to lend a hand. Let’s celebrate by taking a look back at every Martin Scorsese movie, ranked worst to best. He’s back in theaters with Killers of the Flower Moon (Cannes review here, release review here), a sprawling, epic story of crime and bloodshed in 1920s Oklahoma. He’s even found time to direct several documentaries, including the seminal concert film The Last Waltz, the music doc No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, and the cinema history deep dive A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. He has also helped shepherd the careers of several up-and-coming filmmakers, producing for the likes of Spike Lee, Joanna Hogg, and the Safdie Brothers. Scorsese’s love of film has extended to his work as a preservationist, and he has worked tirelessly to restore thousands of films that would otherwise be lost to time through his formation of The Film Foundation and The World Cinema Project. Yet the Academy Awards are merely one barometer of quality, and Scorsese’s work has most certainly won the long game. Remarkably, only one of his films, The Departed, won him the Oscar for Best Director (he’s been nominated thirteen additional times across the directing, writing, and producing categories). His filmography reads like an honor roll of great titles: Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ, GoodFellas, The Age of Innocence, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, The Irishman. It can be said that Scorsese is incapable of making an impersonal film, even the ones he’s made for-hire, and his body of work is an embodiment of his deepest desires, fears, and yearnings, often played out in the plight of his morally conflicted protagonists.

His work is a hodgepodge of influences, from the Technicolor theatricality of Powell and Pressburger to the gritty street scenes of Italian neorealism. Sick with asthma, Scorsese kept indoors and learned about life through the movies. And at 80-years-old, he shows no signs of relinquishing that title anytime soon.īorn in 1942 in New York’s Little Italy neighborhood, Scorsese grew up surrounded by gangsters and priests, and his films often reflect a world of guilt and sin, punishment and salvation. In the five decades since, Scorsese has firmly cemented himself not just as a great director, but as perhaps THE greatest living director today. When Martin Scorsese’s debut film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, played at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1967, then-novice film critic Roger Ebert predicted it would herald the arrival of a major filmmaking talent.

Witness 1985 awards