Since the late 1960s, Martin Scorsese has been an iconic American filmmaker, directing everything from crime thrillers to gangster epics, biopics, religious films,and even a Timothée Chalamet Chanel commercial. He’s a master of cinema and a national treasure with a famous viral meme to prove it and is also well-known for his frequent collaborations with actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
His films indeed often turn into a competition between the better De Niro and DiCaprio performances, with 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon also featuring both actors together for the first time in the same Scorsese movie. And while we all awaitDwayne Johnson’s debut in his new Hawaiian mob pic, here are all the best Scorsese films we’d hail as absolute cinema.
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Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt, Cliff Curtis, Nestor Serrano, Aida Turturro, Afemo Omilami, and Martin Scorsese
1999
74%
6.9
VOD
Probably one of Martin Scorsese’s most underrated films, Bringing Out the Dead is the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader. The film recruits the talents of Nicolas Cage as a paramedic slowly beginning to lose his sanity and can be described as Taxi Driver meets Fight Clubwith a medical field premise. It’s also adapted from the novel by Joe Connelly.
Bringing Out the Dead is a psychological thriller and case study of paramedics' long grueling shifts, sleepless nights, and guilty thoughts over not being able to save their patients, leading to insomnia and other mental health problems. Nicolas Cage as EMT Frank Pierce, haunted by hallucinations of an OD victim he couldn’t save, is the perfect casting, given his talent for playing unhinged, overacted characters.
Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Robert Mitchum, Joe Don Baker, Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, Illeana Douglas, and Fred Thompson
1991
75%
7.3
Cape Fear is Martin Scorsese’s remake of the original 1962 thriller based on John D. MacDonald’s novel The Executioners, with longtime friend and collaborator Robert De Niro playing the role of psychopath antagonist Max Cady. While the role of Travis Bickle saw De Niro as a man with a twisted sense of vigilantism, here he becomes a scary serial rapist and murderer who Bickle would target.
The story portrays every attorney’s worst nightmare. After being released from prison after serving 14 years, De Niro’s Cady starts stalking the family of his public defender, Sam Bowden, as revenge for not getting him off his rape conviction due to concealing a report that could’ve changed the outcome of the trial. As Cady’s acts of terror on the family escalate, it’ll all lead to a suspenseful and harrowing confrontation on the waters of Cape Fear River.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Adam Scott, Ian Holm, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Danny Huston, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, Matt Ross, Kelli Garner, Frances Conroy, Willem Dafoe, and Stanley DeSantis
2004
86%
7.5
Paramount+, MGM+
The Aviator is an enjoyable near-three-hour-long biopic depicting the life of aviation titan and film director and producer Howard Hughes. It’s truly amazing to see what the richest man in the 1930s and 1940s could do with a passion for film and airplanes and with unlimited resources to spend, the chaotic production of his 1930 film, Hell’s Angels, being a fascinating and entertaining look into that.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Howard Hughes with his distinct accent, terrible OCD, and eccentric vision is the highlight of the film, but the overall cast is incredible here and includes lots of big names and surprise appearances.If you’re interested in planes, the aviation industry,and a glimpse into the days of Old Hollywood, The Aviator is a superb film to watch.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, and Elias Koteas
2010
69%
8.2
Martin Scorsese decided to bring author Dennis Lehane’s psychological investigative thriller Shutter Island to the big screen, and the film’s major twistremains one of the most memorable and devastating in cinema history. Set in the 1950s on the eerie and atmospheric location of Shutter Island, home to the Ashecliffe psychiatric hospital, the story centers around the disappearance of a female patient sent there for the murder of her three children.
In the lead role is Leonardo DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who’s joined by his partner, Chuck Aule, played by Mark Ruffalo, to lead the investigation. The story takes some very shocking turns that increase the stakes and paranoia of the situation, and not all is as it seems at Ashecliffe.Teddy also growingly becomes an unreliable narrator, his whole reality and the facts about the case getting warped.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, Janae Collins, Jillian Dion, William Belleau, Scott Shepherd, Pete Yorn, Louis Cancelmi, Jason Isbell, Tally Redcorn, Jesse Plemons, Tatanka Means, John Lithgow, Ty Mitchell, Larry Sellers, Tommy Schultz, Brendan Fraser, and Martin Scorsese
2023
93%
7.6
Apple TV+
Killers of the Flower Moon is one of the most historically significant movies in all of Scorsese’s filmography for capturing the gut-wrenching and unbelievable brutality, pure evil, and corruption of the Osage murders, as documented by author David Grann in his 2017 book. It depicts the dark period of the mass murder of Osage Native Americans for their oil rights, which ultimately led to the creation of the FBI to put a stop to it all.
The depravity of the murders and how sinisterly they’re carried out left and right while the indigenous population still believes their leader, William King Hale, is a benevolent figure is horrifying and disturbing to watch. It’s a long and detailed movie that should make you very upset as to the baffling scale of the tragedy, marked by the heartbreaking performance of Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart and the cruelest, most vile roles yet for De Niro and DiCaprio.
Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, James Woods, Don Rickles, Alan King, Kevin Pollack, L.Q. Jones, Frank Vincent, Dick Smothers, and John Bloom
1995
79%
AMC+, Philo
Casino is an adaptation of the 1995 true-crime novel by Nicholas Pileggi, the same author whose other non-fiction story served as the inspiration for Goodfellas. This one stars Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci as well, this time as two mob buddies involved inmanaging a Las Vegas casinofor their organization, sharing the screen with Sharon Stone. All the performances are rich and the atmosphere of ’70s-’80s Las Vegas hits the jackpot.
The story is about real-life figures Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Anthony Spilotro of the Chicago Outfit, who here are fictionalized as Sam “Ace” Rothstein and Nicky Santoro. It’s a very intricate look into the culture of casinos in the era of a mob-controlled Las Vegas, with an opening scene that reveals the fate of De Niro’s Rothstein and then works its way backward to everything that led up to that explosive event.
Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott, Sandra Bernhard, Shelley Hack, Ed Herlihy, Tony Randall, and Lou Brown
1982
89%
7.8
Hulu, Disney+, Plex
De Niro’s performance as Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy fully grabs your attention from the very opening scene. He’s incessant, demanding, a tad unhinged, adds a tinge of nervousness to his voice, and yet is still incredibly persuasive as he tries to convince his favorite comedic talk show host of why he’s got what it takes to appear on his show.
Pupkin is one of De Niro’s characters that Todd Phillips used as the inspiration for Arthur Fleck in 2019’s Joker, and the story is quite similar, minus the whole finale with revolution and blood-filled chaos in the streets. Pupkin is obsessed with host Jerry Langford and hatches a plot to kidnap him and take over his late-night show, desiring to play out his long-awaited dream of becoming the new king of comedy.
Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent, Theresa Saldana, Nicholas Colasanto, Mario Gallo, Frank Adonis, Frank Topham, Lori Anne Flax, and Joseph Bono
1980
92%
8.1
MGM+, Cinemax, Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel,
Before DiCaprio starred as Howard Hughes in his own Scorsese biopic, there was De Niro in Raging Bull, one of the best and most unrecognizable performances of De Niro’s career. It’s a biopic focusing on the life ofItalian-American boxer Jake LaMotta, based on his 1970 autobiography, who gets the titular nickname for his unruly behavior, temperament, and constant enraged, jealous, and angry personality.
The role of Jake LaMotta deservedly won De Niro his second Oscar after The Godfather Part 2, as his performance is unmatched and also rightfully upsetting to watch, given that LaMotta is violent and abusive off the ring and just a very complex character to portray. Joe Pesci also shares the screen with De Niro again as LaMotta’s younger brother and manager,and it ranks fourth on the AFI’s Top 100 Greatest American Films Of All Time.
Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan, Anthony Anderson, James Badge Dale, Kristen Dalton, David O’Hara, Mark Rolston, and Robert Wahlberg
2006
91%
8.5
The Departed is a crime thriller unlike any other, delivering so many unpredictable twists and turns and unexpected betrayals that’ll leave you guessing right until the final seconds before the credits roll. As the title suggests, many of the main characters will depart, but out of all the famous names, the best performance is undoubtedly Jack Nicholson as fictional Boston mob boss Frank Costello, who was based on Whitey Bulger.
Across his numerous film roles, from Jack Torrance in The Shining to P.I. Jake Gittes in Chinatown, Nicholson’s Costello is another iconic and masterful performance on his resume. The Departed tackles police corruption and organized crime, centering on one mole inside the police department and another who’s an undercover cop within Costello’s organization, who they’re trying to root out; thus, a tangled web of deceit is spun through the narrative.
The Departed ended up winning four Oscars,including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Cristin Milioti, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, Jon Favreau, Shea Whigham, Christine Ebersole, and Ethan Suplee
2013
Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+
The Wolf of Wall Street is a perfect movie in every way. Perfect choice of soundtrack, perfect casting, perfect story pacing, perfect direction by Scorsese, and a perfect performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. From the “I’m not f*cking leaving” speech to the drug-fueled Lamborghini scene and all the profanity-laced moments in between, DiCaprio playing Jordan Belfort, a real-life figure convicted of fraud for his egregious scams on Wall Street, is a rush in itself.
The film is packed with moments that are so wild, hilarious, outrageous, and all the other synonyms you may think of that have to be seen to be believed, and it’s all taken from Belfort’s memoir. And besides DiCaprio, you have his wife Naomi, played by Margot Robbie in her career breakthrough role, and Matthew McConaughey and Jonah Hill in two of their most memorable performances. Have we sold you this movie yet?
