Is Martin Scorsese America?s greatest living director? It?s open to debate, but most movie buffs would agree that he?s created a body of work that is astonishing in its consistency and depth. Scorsese?s films contain many grand themes ? organized crime, male insecurity, spiritual and moral uncertainty ? and they?re executed with a level of artistic panache and intimate detail that few can match. Scorsese has exerted a profound influence on many important directors, including Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, and John Woo. And with apologies to Lee and Woody Allen, Scorsese is perhaps the greatest cinematic chronicler of New York?s distinctive social landscape.
While he?s considered one of the most important filmmakers to emerge in the 1970s, the 2000s have found Scorsese enjoying yet another fertile period, one that culminated with The Departed, for which he was granted his first Best Director Oscar. With his latest, Shutter Island, hitting theaters Feb. 19, we?ve decided to take a closer look at some of Scorsese?s most important films. However, rather than rank them by Tomatometer, we chose the movies that we feel best define the man?s art and stylistic breadth.
So join us for a tour of Scorsese's career -- a journey that will take us from the Bronx to Vegas, from Tibet to Boston, with plenty of interesting scenery along the way.
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One of my favorite directors.
I personally found Taxi Driver as his best movie.
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Probably my favourite director. Mean Streets is my personal favourite of his films, followed closely by Taxi Driver.
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5) Goodfellas
4) Taxi Driver
3) The King of Comedy
2) Raging Bull
1) The Last Temptation of Christ
P.S. Oh, and Mike Leigh is the greatest living filmmaker, actually.
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Bed Head, Mike Leigh isn't an American director. Talented, yes; but RT qualified their opening remark just fine. Scorsese has one of the best track records for American directors in the film industry, period.
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Says the person who think The Last Temptation of Christ is his best film.
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There are no words to describe how much I love Goodfellas.
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I applaud RT for disregarding the tomatometer here. I was so upset when Howl's Moving Castle was within the top five Christian Bale movies in an article a year back or so, I registered myself just to vent. American Psycho was nowhere to be found! Nice job acknowledging a master here though. Scorsese is the man.
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Raging Bull would be my favorite Scorsese film, I also love what he's done for film restoration over the years. DiCaprio was right, if the time lines were reversed, Cecil B. DeMille would have won the Martin Scorsese Award this year.
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I'm weird and prefer The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun to Scorsese's other work. I'm not really a huge gangster film fanatic, though.
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Some of my personal favorites is Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Goodfellas, I can watch those repeatedly in bits n' parts !!!
Bedhead
It's quite interesting that you enjoy Mike Leigh's films since improvising is all he does! Mike Leigh had only did one film which doesn't use any improvising of any sort as far as I know and that was Topsy Turvy (which was critically acclaimed) and upon watching it for the first I thought it bored me to hell!! I thought "Life Is Sweet" was Mike Leigh's best though on which he ended up marrying the lead actress starring on that film!!!
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"The King of Comedy" is HARDLY mediocre, Dave J.
Meanwhile, regarding Mike Leigh ... I suspect his reliance on improvisation has been somewhat overstated, actually. And though I wouldn't call "Topsy Turvy" boring, necessarily, the subject didn't quite seem to suit him as well as in my favorite of his films ("Secrets and Lies", "Naked", "All or Nothing", "Life is Sweet", "High Hopes", "Happy-Go-Lucky", etc).
IMO, Mike Leigh is essentially the cinematic equivalent of Raymond Carver (depressing topics, dark humor, so on and so forth).
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Bringing Out the Dead is his most underrated film, imo
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I highly agree. Scorsese is for my money the best filmmaker in the history of filmmakers.
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Top 3 Scorcese Films:
3) GoodFellas
2) GoodFellas
1) GoodFellas
And I'm glad he got his Academy Award, even if it was one of his weaker films.
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It's certainly not Scorcese's best, but the "Cape Fear" remake is a personal fav of mine. Deniro all buffed, tattooed and psychotic, with those one-liners in his sleazy southern drawl! And Juliette Lewis playing wise-*** jailbait- man, I wanted her back in the day....and I was young enough to not be arrested for it!
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Wow, I just got done watching Gangs of New York and thought I would check out some of Scorsese's past films in case I forgot something. What a coincidence and what an absolutely amazing director!
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Like so many directors, Scorcese hasn't made a watchable film in a decade or more. Arguably, GoodFellas with all of its crippling weaknesses was the pinacle of his career.
It is a travesty that his name is invoked with respect to contemporary filmmaking.
Let us remember him for what he did well and not what he continues to do badly.
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Just ****ing die.
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So are you saying The Departed wasn't watchable? I can definitely understand how you could say this about Gangs of New York (which I still think is a great film noir crime drama/historical pic), but The Departed? The Departed is one of Scorsese's best in my opinion, and while it may not have the "epic" feel of The Goodfellas and Aviator, it is well a well represented directorial piece for Scorsese and far from unwatchable.
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The Pianist did not win best picture as this author states in the Gangs of New York description, Chicago did
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Well Christopher F. is high on something this evening.
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Bringing out the dead sucked. one of the only bad movies he's ever made. there are some cool visals and edits in that movie, but overall it's just terrible. i like Casino and Goodfellas the best, but most of his flms are solid.
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I've seen The Departed, though I don't really see what the big deal is. I loved Cape Fear. I've seen The King of Comedy and Casino on television. And I have a couple of his movies in my Netflix queue. I think he's okay but not the greatest.
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ARTaylor
The ones that you have mentioned are mediocre at best but you haven't mentioned any others...
You haven't mentioned anything like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Raging Bull, or the drama film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and especailly Goodfellas which some critics have said was one of the best movies about the Italian mafia in America- a movie based on actual events as well as it caused a major uproar with Italian Americans.
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I didn't mention any others cause I haven't seen any others.
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You need to rewatch casino! Of course casino sucked, you watched it on tv....
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Raging Bull.
Nuff' said.
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Here's my List of Marty's best in order...
1.Raging Bull
2.Taxi Driver
3.Goodfellas
4.Mean Streets
5.Casino
6.The King of Comedy
7.The Departed
8.After Hours
9.The Aviator
10.Cape Fear
11.The Last Temptation of Christ
12.Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
13.Gangs of New York
14.Bringing Out the Dead
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