115 Facts About Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era.

Martin Scorsese has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

Martin Scorsese has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012.

Martin Scorsese won the at Cannes with Taxi Driver, which starred Robert De Niro as a disturbed Vietnam Veteran.

Martin Scorsese worked with both De Niro and DiCaprio on Killers of the Flower Moon.

Martin Scorsese directed After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, Hugo, and Silence.

Martin Scorsese has directed several rock documentaries including The Last Waltz, No Direction Home, and Shine a Light.

Martin Scorsese has explored film history in the documentaries A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and My Voyage to Italy.

Martin Charles Scorsese was born in the Flushing neighborhood of New York City's Queens borough on November 17,1942.

Martin Scorsese grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood of the city's Manhattan borough.

All four of Martin Scorsese's grandparents were Italian immigrants from Sicily, hailing from Polizzi Generosa on his father's side and Ciminna on his mother's side.

Martin Scorsese has spoken of the influence of Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes.

Martin Scorsese was one of only two people who regularly rented it; the other, George A Romero, became a director.

Martin Scorsese has named Sabu and Victor Mature as his favorite actors in his youth.

Martin Scorsese recalls his father taking him to see Jean Renoir's The River and being fascinated by its depiction of India.

Martin Scorsese became "obsessed" with Renoir's La Grande Illusion when it was rereleased.

Martin Scorsese remembers responding "very strongly" to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Martin Scorsese attended the all-boys Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, graduating in 1960.

Martin Scorsese initially desired to become a priest, attending a preparatory seminary, but failed after the first year and was unable to attend Fordham University.

Martin Scorsese went on to earn his Master of Arts from NYU's School of Education in 1968, a year after the school was founded.

Martin Scorsese stated: "It was really important because they were filming on 35mm".

Martin Scorsese stated he was terrible at the job because he could not judge the distance of the focus.

In 1967, Martin Scorsese made his first feature-length film, the black and white I Call First, later retitled Who's That Knocking at My Door, with his fellow students actor Harvey Keitel and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, both of whom were to become long-term collaborators.

Martin Scorsese became friends with the influential "movie brats" of the 1970s: Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

Martin Scorsese met Roger Corman after coming to Hollywood to edit Medicine Ball Caravan and Corman, who had seen and liked Who's That Knocking at My Door, asked Martin Scorsese to make a sequel to Bloody Mama.

Martin Scorsese followed with Taxi Driver in 1976, which depicted a Vietnam veteran who takes the law into his own hands on New York's crime-ridden streets.

Martin Scorsese subsequently blamed his act on his obsession with Jodie Foster's Taxi Driver character.

The critical and financial success of Taxi Driver encouraged Martin Scorsese to move ahead with his first big-budget project: the highly stylized musical New York, New York.

Martin Scorsese helped provide footage for the documentary Elvis on Tour.

Visually, it was far less kinetic than the style Martin Scorsese had developed previously, often using a static camera and long takes.

In 1983, Martin Scorsese made a brief cameo appearance in Anna Pavlova, originally intended to be directed by one of his heroes, Michael Powell.

Martin Scorsese made a brief venture into television, directing an episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

In 1983, Martin Scorsese began work on this long-cherished personal project.

In 1986, Martin Scorsese directed the 18-minute short film Bad featuring Michael Jackson and Wesley Snipes.

Martin Scorsese noted the influence of Taxi Driver in Spike Lee's documentary Bad 25.

Martin Scorsese received his second nomination for a Best Director Academy Award.

Martin Scorsese directed "Life Lessons", one of three segments in the anthology film New York Stories.

The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and Martin Scorsese earned his third Best Director nomination but again lost to a first-time director, Kevin Costner.

The film marked the first time Martin Scorsese used wide-screen Panavision with an aspect ratio of 2.39:1.

In 1990, Martin Scorsese acted in a small role as Vincent van Gogh in the film Dreams by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

Martin Scorsese produced a wide range of films, including major Hollywood studio productions, low-budget independent films, and even the foreign film.

Martin Scorsese was interested in doing a "romantic piece", and he was strongly drawn to the characters and the story of Wharton's text.

Martin Scorsese wanted his film to be as rich an emotional experience as the book was to him rather than the traditional academic adaptations of literary works.

Comparisons were drawn to his earlier film Goodfellas, and Martin Scorsese admitted Casino bore a superficial resemblance to it, but he maintained that the story was significantly larger in scope.

Not only a departure in subject matter, Kundun saw Martin Scorsese employing a fresh narrative and visual approach.

On various occasions Martin Scorsese has been asked to present the Honorary Academy Award during the Oscar telecast.

In 1998, at the 70th Academy Awards, Martin Scorsese presented the award to film legend Stanley Donen.

In 1999, Martin Scorsese directed a documentary on Italian filmmakers titled Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, known as My Voyage to Italy.

The final cut of the movie ran to 168 minutes, while Martin Scorsese's original cut was over 180 minutes long.

Originally filmed for a release in the winter of 2001, Martin Scorsese delayed the final production of the film until after the beginning of 2002; Miramax Films consequently delayed the film until its release in the Oscar season of late 2002.

Martin Scorsese produced several documentaries, such as The Soul of a Man and Lightning in a Bottle.

Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator is a lavish, large-scale biopic of eccentric aviation pioneer and film mogul Howard Hughes and reunited Martin Scorsese with actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Martin Scorsese lost again, this time to director Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby.

Martin Scorsese returned to the crime genre with the Boston-set thriller The Departed, based on the Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs.

The Departed opened to widespread critical acclaim, with some proclaiming it as one of the best efforts Martin Scorsese had brought to the screen since 1990's Goodfellas, and still others putting it at the same level as Martin Scorsese's most celebrated classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

On October 22,2007, Daily Variety reported that Martin Scorsese would reunite with Leonardo DiCaprio on a fourth picture, Shutter Island.

In 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that Martin Scorsese was supporting the David Lynch Foundation's initiative to help 10,000 military veterans overcome posttraumatic stress disorder through Transcendental Meditation; Martin Scorsese has publicly discussed his own practice of TM.

Martin Scorsese directed a television commercial for Chanel's then-new men's fragrance, Bleu de Chanel, starring French actor Gaspard Ulliel.

Martin Scorsese directed the series premiere for Boardwalk Empire, an HBO drama series, starring Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt, based on Nelson Johnson's book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City.

Martin Scorsese directed the three-and-a-half-hour documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World about the life and music of former Beatles' member George Harrison, which premiered in the United States on HBO over two parts on October 5 and 6,2011.

Martin Scorsese's next film Hugo is a 3D adventure drama film based on Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Martin Scorsese's 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street, is an American biographical black comedy based on Jordan Belfort's memoir of the same name.

Martin Scorsese directed the pilot for Vinyl written by Terence Winter and George Mastras, with Mick Jagger producing and Mastras as showrunner.

Martin Scorsese has acted as executive producer of several indie films, like the 2014 The Third Side of the River, another 2014 film Revenge of the Green Dragons, as well as Bleed for This and Free Fire.

Martin Scorsese directed The Audition, a short film that served as a promotional piece for casinos Studio City in Macau and City of Dreams in Manila, Philippines.

Martin Scorsese had long anticipated filming an adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel Silence, a drama about the lives of two Portuguese Jesuit priests in Japan during the 17th century.

Martin Scorsese had originally planned Silence as his next project following Shutter Island.

Martin Scorsese was recognized as an Italian citizen by jus sanguinis in 2018.

In July 2019, Martin Scorsese started scouting locations in preparation for the 2020 filming of his next film Killers of the Flower Moon, a film adaptation of the book of the same name by David Grann.

In 2024, Martin Scorsese narrated the documentary film Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger directed by David Hinton.

In November 2021, Martin Scorsese was set to direct a biopic feature about rock band the Grateful Dead for Apple Studios featuring Jonah Hill.

In May 2023, after meeting with Pope Francis, Martin Scorsese said he was considering writing and directing a new film about Jesus.

In 2023, during an interview with GQ, it was revealed that Martin Scorsese was working on an adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's Home with Todd Field and Jones.

Martin Scorsese has established a filmmaking history which involves repeat collaborations with actors, screenwriters, film editors, and cinematographers, sometimes extending over several decades, such as that with recurring cinematographers Michael Ballhaus, Robert Richardson, and Rodrigo Prieto.

Martin Scorsese is known for his frequent use of slow motion, for example, in Who's That Knocking at My Door and Mean Streets.

Martin Scorsese is known for using freeze frames, such as: in the opening credits of The King of Comedy, throughout Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, and in The Irishman.

Martin Scorsese often uses long tracking shots, as seen in Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, and Hugo.

Martin Scorsese sometimes highlights characters in a scene with an iris, an homage to 1920s silent film cinema.

Martin Scorsese provides the opening voice-over narration in Mean Streets and The Color of Money; plays the off-screen dressing room attendant in the final scene of Raging Bull, and provides the voice of the unseen ambulance dispatcher in Bringing Out the Dead.

Martin Scorsese appears as the director of fictional newly formed Vatican Television in the Italian comedy In the Pope's Eye.

Martin Scorsese is known for his liberal usage of profanity, dark humor, and violence.

Martin Scorsese has often said he thinks De Niro's best work under his direction was Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy.

The latter had a small role in Cape Fear using the name Domenica Martin Scorsese and has continued to act, write, direct and produce.

In March 1983, Martin Scorsese met Dawn Steel at an annual ShoWest Convention, after which the pair began a romantic relationship.

Martin Scorsese moved from New York to live in her Sunset Plaza residence while his Last Temptation of Christ was initially in development at Paramount.

From 1989 to 1997, Martin Scorsese was romantically involved with actress Illeana Douglas.

In March 2024, Martin Scorsese settled a lawsuit with aspiring screenwriter Simon Afram.

Martin Scorsese had been at the forefront in film preservation and restoration ever since 1990, when he created The Film Foundation, a non-profit film organization which collaborates with film studios to restore prints of old or damaged films.

Martin Scorsese launched the organization with Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg, who all sat on the foundation's original board of directors.

Martin Scorsese stated as of 2020, the Foundation has helped restore 850 films.

Macfarlane and Martin Scorsese funded the restoration, and worked with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and The Film Foundation with Paramount Pictures Archives.

In 2007, Martin Scorsese established the World Cinema Project with the mission to preserve and present marginalized and infrequently screened films from regions generally ill-equipped to preserve their own cinema history.

Martin Scorsese's organization has worked with the Criterion Collection to not only preserve the films but to allow them to be released on DVD and Blu-ray boxsets and on streaming services such as The Criterion Channel.

In 2017, Martin Scorsese introduced The African Film Heritage Project, which is a joint initiative between Martin Scorsese's non-profit The Film Foundation, UNESCO, Cineteca di Bologna, and the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers.

Martin Scorsese has mentioned his mentors being such filmmakers as John Cassavetes, Roger Corman, and Michael Powell.

Martin Scorsese has chosen to name filmmakers throughout the years that he admires such as fellow New York City-based directors Woody Allen and Spike Lee, as well as other artists such as Wes Anderson, Bong Joon-ho, Greta Gerwig, Ari Aster, Kelly Reichardt, Claire Denis, Noah Baumbach, Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, the Coen Brothers, and Kathryn Bigelow.

Martin Scorsese listed Pickup on South Street as one of his favorite films.

Martin Scorsese picked 12, which are listed below in alphabetical order:.

In 2012, Martin Scorsese recommended 39 foreign films to Colin Levy.

In 2019, Martin Scorsese contributed his list of favorite films to LaCinetek, a streaming platform that compiles film lists from filmmakers worldwide.

Martin Scorsese included a letter to Cedric Klapisch, one of LaCinetek's founders, explaining his selections and noting that many filmmakers and films he admires are not included in these lists.

Martin Scorsese's films have been nominated for numerous awards both nationally and internationally, with an Academy Award win for The Departed.

At a ceremony in Paris, France, on January 5,2005, Martin Scorsese was awarded the French Legion of Honour in recognition of his contribution to cinema.

On February 8,2006, at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards, Martin Scorsese was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video for No Direction Home.

In 2007, Martin Scorsese was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

The Institute provides support to Italian film students in the US Martin Scorsese received his award from Mary Margaret Valenti, Jack Valenti's widow.

On January 17,2010, at the 67th Golden Globe Awards, Scorsese was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B DeMille Award.

On September 18,2011, at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, Martin Scorsese won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his work on the series premiere of Boardwalk Empire.

In 2011, Martin Scorsese received an honorary doctorate from the National Film School in Lodz.

On February 12,2012, at the 65th British Academy Film Awards, Martin Scorsese was the recipient of the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award.

On September 16,2012, Martin Scorsese won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special for his work on the documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World.

Martin Scorsese was the first filmmaker chosen for the honor.

Martin Scorsese's lecture, delivered on April 1,2013, at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, was titled "Persistence of Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema".

Martin Scorsese was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008.

Martin Scorsese was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Oxford on June 20,2018.