Few American directors have the accolades and name value as Martin Scorsese. With twenty-five feature films under his belt, he’s been among the most prominent filmmakers Hollywood has had to offer since he kicked his career into gear. His directorial debut materialized in 1967, and he has a film releasing later this year. In other words: he’s been releasing movies in Hollywood for seven consecutive decades.
Some directors from New Hollywood like Brian De Palma have been making movies for just as long as Scorsese, while others like Roman Polanski and Francis Ford Coppola have been around the Hollywood block even longer. However, none of those directors can say that they’ve released a classic film in each respective decade they’ve been in the industry.
Martin Scorsese’s Classics
Off the bat, it’s worth noting that he only made one film in the 1960s: his directorial debut, Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967). It was by no means a massive hit, and it’s really the only exception to the assertion that in every decade Martin Scorsese has released a classic of modern cinema. In the following decade, see, almost exactly ten years later, he directed Taxi Driver (1976).
Starring Robert De Niro in his breakthrough role, this film is commonly considered among the best to ever be released. It features the classic line, “You talkin’ to me?” from De Niro’s character, the infamous Travis Bickle. And without that character, the cinematic landscape audiences are used to today could very well have shifted entirely.
Just a few years later at the turn of the decade, Scorsese teamed up with De Niro for a fourth collaboration — this time, with a boxing drama called Raging Bull (1980). Arguably the most acclaimed boxing movie ever made, it’s undoubtedly considered a classic. Not only was it nominated for eight Academy Awards, one of which included a Best Actor win for De Niro, but it has also been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
And speaking of the NFR, it’s worth noting that the aforementioned Taxi Driver was also selected for preservation, along with the next film of note: Goodfellas (1990). It was endlessly praised by critics upon release, and now, any given fan of cinema could cite this as their most preferred project ever produced. He released a couple other well-received films throughout this decade like Cape Fear (1991) and Casino (1995), but there’s no doubt about it — Goodfellas was the seminal film thereof.
With regard to the first decade of the twenty-first century, though, there’s a slight argument that Gangs of New York (2002) could rival the reception and overall quality of the next film at hand, The Departed (2006). It is worth noting off the bat, though, that The Departed — starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg — earned Martin Scorsese two milestones in his career: an Academy Award for Best Director, and the first Best Picture honor for one of his projects.
However, Gangs of New York has garnered substantial subsequent praise from audiences despite receiving modest scores from critics upon release. Daniel Day-Lewis provided the twenty-first century with one of its premiere performances as William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting. And while that will go down as one of the finer efforts from a Scorsese film, it wasn’t quite enough to hold a candle to The Departed.
Oh, and none of that should indicate negative feelings toward Scorsese’s other movie from the 2000s, The Aviator (2004). Several fans will likely consider that the best of the aught trio. But again: The Departed undoubtedly comes out on top due to its thrilling plot alone. And in the 2010s, things were once again less clear than in the decades of the twentieth century.
Both Shutter Island (2010) and The Irishman (2019) could be considered the classic Scorsese creation of this most recent ten-year time span. Hugo (2011) and Silence (2016) are essentially out of the running due to their lack of name value alone, but in the end, there’s only one movie truly worth writing home about herein: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Replete with well-crafted scenes and memorable lines of fast-paced dialogue, Leonardo DiCaprio leads The Wolf of Wall Street in what was his and Scorsese’s fifth and most recent collaboration. And with the director’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), he won’t just be teaming up once again with DiCaprio, but also Robert De Niro.
Killers of the Flower Moon Sees Scorsese Team Up With Leonardo DiCaprio Once Again
Considering this project was actually at one point slated to come out in 2022, odds are great that it will finally release this year. However, despite its post-production status, it doesn’t yet have a release date. It’s based off a book of the same name — which is subtitled The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI — written by David Grann.
There are two reasons this could wind up being another Scorsese classic, the first being that it will feature the director’s two most famous collaborators: Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. It will be the former’s tenth collaboration with the director, the latter’s seventh, and the trio’s first time all working together.
Another thing going for Killers of the Flower Moon is that its screenplay was adapted by Eric Roth. For those unfamiliar with his work, Roth has the second-most nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay in Academy Award history with six. If he receives a nomination for this, he’ll be in even more rarified air — tied with Billy Wilder for first place.
But Roth is worth noting because, obviously, whenever he writes a screenplay based on material from another medium, the result is a critical and commercial hit. And considering the fact that Scorsese releases at least one massive movie in every decade, he could be gracing the 2020s with one right off the bat. Again, there isn’t an official release date as yet, but stay tuned for information on that later in the year. There’s a chance this one is another Scorsese classic.