Photo: Universal Pictures (Getty).
Martin Scorsese, at age 73, is still a young man. He’s probably got five more Oscar nominated films to go. It would be a shame to look back on his life’s work so far as if it’ll be all that he’s ever done, so please excuse the headline. Let’s just say, so far, here is a ranking of Scorsese’s top 10 best films to date and leave it at that.
The Top 10 Martin Scorsese Movies:
Just in case you are looking for a bit more movie violence in your life: The 20 Most Underrated Horror Villains Of All Time
The Top 10 Martin Scorsese Movies
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10. Shutter Island (2010)
The closest thing to a Scorsese horror, Shutter Island was released in 2010 and broke personal box office records for the accomplished director. It wasn't until The Wolf of Wall Street came along that Scorsese hit more than $294 million worldwide. This film noir period piece an utter mind-screw that takes you through the chilly depths of Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane. Just watching it makes you feel like, at any moment, you could get shanked by some stitched-up nutter with a rusty scalpel.
Trippy, complex, and disturbing on many levels, the fourth DiCaprio-Scorsese collaboration features five Oscar nominees and two Oscar winners -- Ben Kingsley and DiCaprio himself. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a mere 68 percent, but you have to wonder if that's just because standards for Scorsese were so high after The Departed.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
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9. Gangs of New York (2002)
During the filming of Gangs of New York, Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally broke Daniel Day Lewis' nose, which should give you an impression of the gritty realism of the film. Lewis stars as Bill the Butcher, a chronically greasy and hopelessly anti-Irish 19th century thug who strikes fear into the hearts of locals by killing, killing, and killing some more. "I don't give a twopenny fuck about your moral conundrum you meat-headed shit sack," says the character at one point, just a taste in a long lineup of hilariously crude one-liners.
Set in 1952, it's an epic drama that takes place in the claustrophobic and violent Five Points district in Old New York City. Scorsese painted such a colorful picture with Gangs that you could almost taste the chaos, disease, and tribalism that plagued the Big Apple at that point in time. It was the first DiCaprio-Scorsese meeting of the minds, with many more to come.
Photo credit: Miramax Films
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8. The King of Comedy (1982)
What makes The King of Comedy one of Scorsese's best is its uniqueness among Scorsese films. He even said later that he "probably should not have made the film." That's likely because it flopped at the box office. Audiences also thought it was weird. But that was exactly the point -- it was cringe before cringe was cool. It was ahead of its time, hitting on the theme of celebrity worship which would only become more prevalent in our fame-obsessed culture.
It's about an aspiring comedian named Rupert Pupkin who is edging on psychopathy. Robert DeNiro's character eventually kidnaps Jerry Langford, the famous talk show host, and finally catches his big break, achieving his dream of doing standup on live TV while Langford is tied up backstage. He ends the act by saying, "Tomorrow you'll know I wasn't kidding and you'll all think I'm crazy. But I figure it this way: better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime." It's largely bizarre, and that's precisely the reason it stands out.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
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7. Casino (1995)
In Casino, the word "fuck" is said 435 times, or 2.4 times per minute. This was a record until Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" blew it out of the water with 506. The eighth and final Scorsese-DeNiro collaboration, Casino was based on the life of Vegas casino executive and mafia associate Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who, with his muscle Tony Spilotro, ruled over Sin City in the '70s and '80s. DeNiro and Joe Pesci play these roles respectively, bringing every bit of chemistry they had in Goodfellas and Raging Bull to a different setting and story. The film is a classic three-hour Scorsese immersion into the underworld of Las Vegas crime, corruption, and greed.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures (Getty)
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6. The Aviator (2004)
There were eight other previous attempts to create a biopic about the legendary genius of Howard Hughes, but they all failed. It took screenwriter John Logan 15 drafts over five years to create a script that worked. It chronicles Hughes' rise as a successful Hollywood film producer and aviation magnate, and his subsequent fall into aggressive OCD and into the realm of clinically insane. At one point in the film, Leonardo DiCaprio is in a dark room with bottles of piss surrounding him. Yes, it goes there.
The Aviator garnered 11 Academy Award nominations. It is a full and honest portrayal of the life of Hughes, one of history's most brilliant minds and innovative figures.
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Miramax Films
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5. Raging Bull (1980)
Raging Bull was originally released to mixed reviews due to its graphic content. Only later would it be celebrated as one of the greatest films ever made. Shot in black and white, it tells the story of Jake LaMotta, an Italian American middleweight boxer who can't seem to show the same talent with his personal life as he can inside the ring.
Struggling with violent bouts of rage, LaMotta depends on his brother Joey -- played by Joe Pesci -- to balance and channel his passions in the right directions. However, the same thing that makes LaMotta a success as a boxer is what that destroys his life as a person.
Photo credit: United Artists (Getty)
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4. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street can be summed up with four words: cocaine, quaaludes, boobs, and money. It's a film about the real life of Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who rose too fast for his own good. Leonardo DiCaprio was paid a quarter of the film's budget, a cool $25 million. But he deserves it. The movie is banned in five countries for its sexual content, so if you haven't seen it, we highly recommend it. It's so choice.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
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3. Taxi Driver (1976)
"All the animals come out at night." Travis Bickle speaks these words to a saxophone score as he drives through the decadent New York City streets in the mid-1970s. A Vietnam vet and mentally unstable, he dives deeper into isolation as his insomnia, loneliness, and general misanthropy ramp up. He has strong opinions on morality, thinking it's OK to take Cybill Shepard out on a date to a porno but not OK for a prostitute to walk the night. In the end, Bickle saves a 12-year-old escort named Iris and he's a hero. That basically sums it up. The American Film Institute ranked it as the 52nd greatest film of all time, but we think it deserves to be up a few more notches.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures/Fotos International (Getty)
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2. The Departed (2006)
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me." And with that, Jack Nicholson's character Frank Costello is the embodiment of evil. A charming evil. Loosely based on Whitey Bulger's life as a South Boston crime boss, The Departed tells the story of an undercover cop, a mole, and the struggle of both the Boston PD and Irish Mafia to figure out who's who. It won four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture.
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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1. Goodfellas (1990)
Full disclosure, and I'm sure I'm not the only one: Whenever Goodfellas comes on TV, I always watch it. To this day, I've probably seen in 100 times. It's simply perfect. It's Scorsese's magnum opus -- a beautiful mishmash of all things Sicilian and gangster. Like most of his films, it doesn't have a plot. It's as if he instinctively knew how to throw things together to make the perfect film. And he succeeded.
James Conway (DeNiro), Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), and Tommy DeVito (Pesci) are a motley crew within a motley crew of Sicilian gangsters living life in the fast lane, enjoying all the perks and pitfalls that come, trying to make it up the hierarchy of the mob. It's heists, hits, and a whole shitload of Italian cooking. What's not to love?
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
