A few weeks ago, on Just FYI Pod, Amy Welborn and I discussed Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). It is a movie that has received near universal acclaim from critics, though Amy and I did not think it ranks among Scorsese’s best works. This is by no means a denigration of Killers of the Flower Moon. Scorsese released his first feature-length narrative film in 1967 — the indie drama Who’s That Knocking at My Door, starring Harvey Keitel — and his career has been defined by several movies that have been numbered among the greatest in cinematic history. A good, if not excellent, Scorsese film is still a “must-see” event, and Killers of the Flower Moon deserves a wide audience, whatever its shortcomings (running time, protagonist, etc.).
In any case, a few days after our episode on Killers of the Flower Moon dropped, a friend of mine asked me: “So, what are your favorite Scorsese movies?” Yikes. Good question. Scorsese has directed 27 feature-length narrative pictures, not to mention dozens of short films, documentaries, music videos, and even commercials. Indeed, one of Scorsese’s most acclaimed works is The Last Waltz (1978)—a documentary film that chronicles the so-called “farewell concert” of Canadian-American rock group The Band. But this is not merely a good concert film; it has come to set the standard by which such films are judged:
It is difficult, then, to formulate a list of “favorite” Scorsese films. I love The Last Waltz, for example, but I’m more likely to listen to it than to watch it. I have similar feelings about Scorsese’s 2005 documentary film No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. These are first-rate documentaries, but I don’t think I would call them my “favorite” Scorsese films.
A related problem crops up with Scorsese features that, while perfectly good in their own right, tend to play more as genre pieces. A movie like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) is hard to evaluate: yes, it was nominated for three Oscars, ultimately netting a Best Actress award for Ellen Burstyn, but the director’s influence is ultimately subsumed by rom-com conventionality. It is telling, after all, that Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is perhaps best known for inspiring the popular TV sitcom Alice (1976-85). I feel similarly about Shutter Island (2010)—a really good noir thriller that, in the end, seems like it could’ve been directed by M. Night Shyamalan or Jordan Peele. Scorsese has done his fair share of genre films, but the very best ones retain his authorial signature throughout.
A final difficulty involves Scorsese projects that, while distinctive and provocative, somehow miss the mark. The King of Comedy (1982) is thematically rich and brilliantly acted, famously serving as inspiration for the 2019 blockbuster movie Joker. Yet, The King of Comedy’s sendup of celebrity worship and the American media is more prescient than funny. Meanwhile, The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) is one of the most ambitious and controversial efforts in the history of cinema, but over thirty years later Scorsese’s exploration of Christ’s “humanity” seems far more anodyne—a harbinger not of spiritual-cum-Christological reflection but of popular schlock such as Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code franchise. Indeed, it seems fair to say that Scorsese’s reach occasionally exceeds his grasp. A movie like Gangs of New York (2002), considered subpar by many critics, does not so much fall short as runneth over. Still, it’s this very élan that makes Scorsese classics like Goodfellas so unforgettable. Can you really criticize Shaq for dunking too hard?
So, with all this in mind, it’s time for my list of Scorsese’s ten best movies. Certain films have already been eliminated, though many more remain on the table. I’ve decided to follow a simple criterion: what are the Scorsese films that I come back to again and again—the ones that I ponder or quote the most often, the ones that feature indelible “needle drops,” the ones that contain set pieces worthy of repeated viewing? Admittedly, this is not a scientific methodology, but that doesn’t mean it’s unreliable. After all, our regular habits and practices are disclosive of what we really know and care about, and they can even be more truthful than putatively objective judgments and criteria. For example: if I’m trying to get to the interstate from my house, the GPS routes me around the local high school. What the GPS doesn’t “know” is that you can access the interstate by cutting through the parking lot of said high school, saving five minutes in the process. Point being: oftentimes the best directions come from human intuition and understanding, not from a systematic method.
In any case, on to the list…
10. The Color of Money (1986)
Released in October 1986, The Color of Money was thought to be a misstep by Scorsese. The great film critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013), who had long considered Scorsese America’s most important filmmaker, called The Color of Money a “deliberately mainstream work, a conventional film with big names and a popular subject matter.” It was a poor vehicle, then, for the auteur’s singular creative vision.
A number of Ebert’s categories here are debatable—no doubt even more so today, when the cinematic “mainstream” has come to be identified with corporatized media franchises, not intimate dramas—but he’s not totally wrong either. The Color of Money stars two of Hollywood’s most bankable actors, Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, and it serves as a long-awaited sequel to The Hustler (1961), which had helped propel Newman to superstardom decades before. In the wake of demanding films such as Raging Bull (1980) and After Hours (1985), The Color of Money was definitely safer fare.
But that, in my opinion, is what makes it so great. Scorsese takes a beloved yet bromidic sports movie theme—that of the aging legend who is trying to get back in the game—and injects it with a little complexity and a lot of flair. Indeed, capturing the geometric intricacy of billiards from every conceivable angle, Scorsese turns Rust Belt pool halls into sites of existential drama, where wins and losses are decided by a degree here and an inch there. The performances are excellent too. Tom Cruise’s youthful bravado is perfectly counterpoised by Newman’s world-weary detachment (as in the scene below). So, when Newman’s “Fast Eddie” Felson proclaims “I’m back!” at film’s end, it’s more than a shot in the arm. It’s a resurrection.
9. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
I recently did a podcast episode on Bringing Out the Dead—listing it among the most “spiritually significant” films of all time—so I won’t reiterate my entire analysis here. A few points, however, are worth highlighting. First, Bringing Out the Dead is Scorsese’s fourth and final collaboration with screenwriter Paul Schrader, two of which have been hailed as masterpieces: Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). In a sense, these joint efforts constitute an oeuvre within an oeuvre—a distinct body of work that exhibits both Scorsese’s graphic, visceral filmmaking and Schrader’s contemplative, theological storytelling. Bringing Out the Dead may not be the most famous or even the best of their collaborations, but it is the most poignant. The movie centers on a paramedic named Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), who has not saved a patient for some time. As a result, Frank has grown sleepless, despondent. For Frank, paramedical work is not a job; it is a divine mission, and he is failing at it. As the plot unfolds, Frank’s suffering becomes a veritable “dark night of the soul,” whereby he journeys into an even deeper religious mystery—the acceptance of one’s own humanity and the need to find God in weakness, rather than in strength.
8. After Hours (1985)
In After Hours, Scorsese shows that he was doing the Coen Brothers before the Coen Brothers. Yes, I realize that the Coen Brothers debuted with Blood Simple in October 1984, roughly a year prior to the release of After Hours. But Blood Simple was a low-budget, pulpy noir thriller, which showcased only a little of the mordant humor that would come characterize the Coens’ filmography. After Hours, meanwhile, is a dark comedy all the way down. It takes an already established Scorsese theme—that of the “lonely man” loose on the streets of Manhattan—and turns it inside-out. After Hours begins in an office building on Madison Avenue. Paul Hackett (a pitch-perfect Griffin Dunne) is wrapping up another long day of work. Bored and uninspired, Paul winds up in a diner later that night, where he meets Marcy (Rosanna Arquette). The two seem to make a connection, and she leaves him her phone number. As midnight approaches, Paul calls Marcy, and she invites him to her apartment in lower Manhattan. He takes a cab downtown, and chaos slowly but surely unfolds. The rest of After Hours chronicles Paul’s desperate and increasingly absurd attempts to get back uptown. But this movie is not about the destination so much as the journey. What does it all mean? Is Paul trapped in some kind of “yuppie hell,” an affluent professional otherwise cut off from life’s primordial pleasures? Do Paul’s misadventures illustrate the Sartrean maxim, “L'enfer, c'est les autres”? Is the movie a commentary on the degradation of modern urbanity? Whatever the case, After Hours is a morbidly hilarious ride.
7. Life Lessons (1989)
In March 1989, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese released an anthology film called New York Stories. Each auteur was responsible for a particular “segment” of the movie, linked primarily by the common setting of New York City. It’s an interesting idea—tailor-made for today’s culture of online streaming—though critics were divided over the end result. Still, the general consensus was that Scorsese’s contribution Life Lessons was a success. I think this is an understatement. In less than 40 minutes, Scorsese makes an indelible impression, capturing the restlessness of the creative process with characteristic style and energy. Nick Nolte plays Lionel Dobie—an abstract expressionist artist (think Jackson Pollock, but with Nolte’s gravelly machismo) whose artistry is fueled by his tortured romance with an aspiring painter named Paulette (Rosanna Arquette). As I wrote in my chapter “Dostoevskian Elements in Scorsese’s Cinema,” Life Lessons is loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’ s 1866 novella The Gambler (Игрокъ). It is to Scorsese’s credit that, almost impossibly, he improves upon the source material.
6. The Departed (2006)
In spite (or perhaps because) of his sterling reputation, Scorsese has won only one Academy Award for “Best Director.” It was for The Departed. Doubtless this curiosity says more about the politics of choosing Oscar winners than about Scorsese’s filmography. Still, that The Departed netted Scorsese an Oscar when bona fide classics such as Taxi Driver (1976) and Goodfellas (1990) did not speaks to the film’s excellence as well as to its limitations. I’ll start with the latter. Based on the 2002 Hong Kong film Internal Affairs (無間道), The Departed is in many ways a standard crime thriller, a genre film. The Boston backdrop is new for Scorsese and makes for some good laughs—Mark Wahlberg’s Sergeant Dignam steals the show with his Southie accent and acerbic one-liners (“I’m the guy who does his ‘jawb’; you must be the other guy”)—but the setting only adds to the movie’s “true crime” sensibilities. After all, The Departed is also inspired by Boston’s Winter Hill Gang and the notorious mobster Whitey Bulger (1929-2018). One can easily imagine the Academy reasoning like this: “Is The Departed based on an acclaimed foreign film? Check. Does it draw on important historical figures? Check. Does it feature several Hollywood A-listers? Check!” As for The Departed’s excellence: this is an exciting, well-written, well-acted, endlessly quotable film. The Departed may not be an auteurist masterpiece, but it does not aspire to be one either. Therein lies its own form of greatness. In the scene below, undercover “cawp” Billy Costigan Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) is questioned by Bulger-esque kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, in what has proven to be one of his last roles). Frank wants to see if Billy is a “rat,” and, right on cue, Scorsese drops the Rolling Stones. A classic scene.
5. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Caveat emptor: this movie is a handful. Clocking in at an even 180 minutes, and dropping 569 f-bombs in the process (third most in cinematic history, in case you’re wondering), The Wolf of Wall Street is not for the faint of heart. Indeed, it is fair to wonder if it should be watched at all. But I think it should—and for two reasons. First, from a cinematic perspective, The Wolf of Wall Street is ambitious, fearless, and dynamic. Scorsese utilizes a dizzying array of POV shots, aggressive blocking techniques, surprising narration (periodically “breaking the fourth wall”), long Steadicam tracking shots, and countless “needle drops,” including the repeated use of a woozy, reverb-heavy version of Howlin’ Wolf’s 1956 single “Smoke Stack Lightning.” It is an immersive experience, which, no doubt, is why some have accused of the film of glorifying criminality and immorality. Certainly Scorsese invites the viewer to almost participate in the devious schemes and unhinged lifestyle of American stockbroker and securities conman Jordan Belfort. But herein lies the second reason to watch The Wolf of Wall Street: this actually happened. Indeed, the movie is based off of Belfort’s own memoir. So the question Scorsese is faced with is this: how did Belfort get so many people to follow him? Working from a relentlessly hilarious and frequently offensive script by Terrence Winter, Scorsese answers: people followed Belfort because the fun was plenty and the consequences few. The Wolf of Wall Street says more about human nature, and the West’s decaying institutional life, than we care to admit in polite company.
4. Silence (2016)
That Scorsese followed The Wolf of Wall Street with Silence is fascinating and perhaps also telling. More than one commentator has suggested that Silence may even be a penitential offering on Scorsese’s part—a religious film in the wake of a sinful one. I doubt that this is the case. After all, Scorsese is on record as saying that he had wanted to make Silence since the late 1980s, when he read the novel on which it is based. Besides, for those who know Scorsese’s background and oeuvre, it is not hard to connect Silence to his Catholic upbringing and longtime interest in questions about temptation, guilt, and the possibility of redemption. Moreover, as in Scorsese’s (far inferior) 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, Silence wrestles with questions about holiness. What does it mean to truly love God? Does it consist of an austere, self-abnegating commitment to Scripture and to church doctrine? Or is it more about willing the good of the neighbor, even if such goodwill comes at the expense of one’s personal devotion? We see manifold possibilities in Silence, none of which are easy or definitive. For some, the movie’s ambiguity is feeble and, quite possibly, heretical. This argument is not exactly far-fetched, given Scorsese’s dalliances with blasphemy in The Last Temptation of Christ. And yet, Silence is a far more complicated picture than The Last Temptation of Christ, and, as in the scene below, Scorsese shows as much admiration for Christian martyrs as he does pity for apostates. In the end, Silence examines the New Testament’s most scandalous and, indeed, most unspeakable idea—that God loves everyone, whether saints or sinners, and desires “all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
3. The Irishman (2019)
A few years ago, I published a review essay on The Irishman in the journal American Catholic Studies. My basic contention was that The Irishman effectively “completes” Scorsese’s cycle of movies about the Mafia. In that respect, The Irishman is another example of Scorsese’s “palimpsestuous” filmmaking, whereby he takes an earlier work and, as it were, crosses out and writes over the previous material. Collectively, then, Scorsese’s gangster films represent decades of ongoing reflection on violent crime—on its origins (Mean Streets), on its seductiveness (Goodfellas), and on its destiny (Casino). The Irishman features all of these themes but then tackles an additional question: is it possible for a criminal to repent and to find forgiveness? The movie’s titular character is Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a real-life member of the Bufalino crime family, who found himself caught up in the mob’s postwar takeover of labor unions. Late in his life, while dying of cancer in a nursing home outside of Philadelphia, Sheeran confessed to the notorious murder of his friend, the union leader Jimmy Hoffa (played brilliantly by Al Pacino in The Irishman). Whether or not Sheeran actually killed Hoffa remains an open question, but Scorsese’s film does not hang on this detail. At bottom, The Irishman highlights mistakes that all human beings have made—conforming to peer pressure, prioritizing work over family, deceiving a friend, and so on. Sheeran deludes himself into ignoring these and other sins until his final illness hits, at which he point is forced to confront life’s ultimate questions. Here is how I put it in my article for American Catholic Studies:
Frank descends into a slow but certain confrontation with the quattuor novissima—the “four last things” of Christian eschatology. First is death: many of Frank’s comrades are either murdered or get sick and die. A number of these deaths are appalling, but even those that seem to carry a whiff of dignity—for example, the steely resolution of crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), who, now barely able to eat a piece of bread, looks back on Hoffa’s murder and simply concludes “Fuck ‘em”—lead to the same grim ending. Scorsese has noted that his utilization of “In the Still of the Nite” was intended to set this tone from the outset: “[It goes back to] the Catholic preaching I used to hear back in 1950, 1951: ‘Like a thief in the night, Death will come’—and ‘the still of the night’ is when it happens. So this is always something in my head. Now we’re there—at a certain age. The still of the night: it’s clandestine, it’s love, danger, everything.” Next is judgment: as Frank’s daughters mature, they become painfully aware of his involvement in the criminal underworld. The film pays particular attention to Peggy (Anna Paquin), who refuses to speak to her father in the wake of Hoffa’s murder. As the years pass, and as Frank’s physical condition worsens, he reaches out to Peggy in the hope of a final reconciliation. But she does not relent, and Frank is left to make burial arrangements by himself. Judgment has been rendered on his crimes in the form of exile and loneliness. Thus Scorsese brings us to Frank’s ultimate confrontation—the one between heaven or hell. Here The Irishman comes full circle, as we realize that Frank has been confiding in a priest (Jonathan Morris) at his nursing home. They have begun to pray together, and the priest encourages Frank to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Frank is reluctant but at last accedes to the priest’s logic—that contrition is as much an act of will as a feeling. Hence, in the film’s penultimate scene, we see the priest absolving Frank of his sins, even as the penitent stumbles over the proclamation of praise: “His…his mercy…endures forever.”
Ever the realist, Scorsese does not provide a definitive answer as to whether or not Sheeran finds true peace. The best he can do—and perhaps the best anyone can do—is conclude that the proverbial door remains open.
2. Taxi Driver (1976)
The easy reason to rank Taxi Driver so highly is that it was Scorsese’s breakthrough. Yes, Mean Streets (1973) and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) were good and noteworthy movies, but Taxi Driver was Scorsese’s first bona fide classic. In 2022, the British Film Institute polled nearly 500 film directors worldwide and asked them to vote on the greatest films of all time. Taxi Driver came in 12th place. As the BFI write-up summarizes:
Screenwriter Paul Schrader drew on the mythology of 1940s film noir thrillers for this story of Vietnam vet Travis Bickle’s increasingly psychotic disgust at the nocturnal New York street life he observes from his taxi. Brought to vivid life by director Martin Scorsese – then one of Hollywood’s hot-property new filmmakers – the film is one of the 1970s’ most strikingly original works. Although the film is evocatively rooted in contemporary New York, Scorsese’s camera dwells on strange expressionistic details – such as the sulphurous, steaming sidewalk and abstract neon signs – that contribute to the film’s hallucinatory, nightmarish quality. Centred around a brilliant performance by Robert De Niro, the grim intensity of Bickle’s avenging mania is framed by Bernard Herrmann’s forceful and occasionally nostalgic score.
And yet, for me, this outline doesn’t quite capture Taxi Driver’s import. As noted above, the movie’s screenwriter Paul Schrader had already announced his interest in cinema’s capacity to elicit religious meaning. In many respects, Taxi Driver reflects Schrader’s “transcendental style,” albeit with a twist: it does not evoke the human capacity for “union” or “harmony” with the divine but, rather, the opposite (if no less profound) experience of spiritual alienation and distress. Travis Bickle is “God’s lonely man,” patronized by politicians and rejected by the bourgeoisie. Like Dostoevsky’s “Underground Man,” who was the inspiration behind Taxi Driver’s antihero, Bickle is a byproduct of an urbanized culture centered on prestige and productivity. Taxi Driver’s enduring power (and reputation) lies in Scorsese’s ability to make us feel Bickle’s horror, rage, and pain.
1. Goodfellas (1990)
Are there better Scorsese films than Goodfellas? I mean, it’s possible. Taxi Driver is more groundbreaking. The Departed is more decorated. Silence is more complex. This list could be easily expanded. So why does Goodfellas top my list? The answer, I think, lies in its crucial position in Scorsese’s oeuvre. Scorsese’s early student films date to the early 1960s; he released Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023. He has been making films for over sixty years, and Goodfellas lies at the midpoint of this trajectory. The first half of Scorsese’s filmography is constitutive of Goodfellas; the second half is defined by it. This is especially true on a formal level, as the entirety of Scorsese’s “route tree” (to borrow a concept from football) is present in Goodfellas. The story, it should be added, is worthy of such cinematic ambition. On the surface, Goodfellas is a morality play, tracing the rise and fall of Henry Hill—a lieutenant in the Lucchese crime family. Yet, on a deeper level, it is an exploration of why people turn to crime in the first place. Scorsese’s answer is as unsettling and frantic as the snorting of cocaine throughout the film: people become criminals because it’s more exciting and fun than living “life like a schnook.” Philosophically, this is a debatable thesis, and doubtless that is why Scorsese has returned to it over the years. But the genius of Goodfellas lies not in its philosophy, but in its passion.
First Five Out
Raging Bull (1980)
Cape Fear (1991)
Mean Streets (1973)
Casino (1995)
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)