
Biography
Martin Charles Scorsese (/skɔːrˈsɛsi/ skor-SESS-ee, Italian: [skorˈseːze, -se]; born November 17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honoured 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. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Scorsese received a Master of Arts degree from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in 1968. His directorial debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), was accepted into the Chicago Film Festival. In the 1970s and 1980s, Scorsese's films, much influenced by his Italian-American background and upbringing in New York City, centred on macho-posturing men and explored crime, machismo, nihilism and Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption. His trademark styles of extensive use of slow motion and freeze frames, voice-over narration, graphic depictions of extreme violence and liberal use of profanity were first shown in Mean Streets (1973). Scorsese won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Taxi Driver (1976), which starred Robert De Niro as a disturbed Vietnam Veteran. De Niro became associated with Scorsese through eight more films, including New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) and The Irishman (2019). In the following decades, he garnered box office success with a series of collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio, including Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). He worked with both De Niro and DiCaprio on Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). He also directed After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Age of Innocence (1993), Kundun (1997), Hugo (2011), and Silence (2016). On television, he has directed episodes for the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) and Vinyl (2016), as well as the HBO documentary Public Speaking (2010) and the Netflix docu-series Pretend It's a City (2021). He has also directed several rock documentaries, including The Last Waltz (1978), No Direction Home (2005), and Shine a Light (2008). He has explored film history in the documentaries A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies(1995) and My Voyage to Italy (1999). An advocate for film preservation and restoration, he has founded three nonprofit organisations: The Film Foundation in 1990, the World Cinema Foundation in 2007 and the African Film Heritage Project in 2017.
Awards & recognition
- Honorary Golden Bear · 2024
- Princess of Asturias Award — the Arts · 2018
- Praemium Imperiale · 2016
- BAFTA Fellowship · 2012
- Golden Globe Award — Best Director · 2011
Show all 51 awards →
- Primetime Emmy Award — Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series · 2011
- Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award · 2010
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2007
- Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award — Best Director · 2006
- Golden Globe Award — Best Director · 2006
- Grammy Award — Best Music Film · 2005
- Officer of the Legion of Honour · 2005
- Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award — Best Director · 2004
- Golden Globe Awards · 2003
- Honorary César · 2000
- Light of Truth Award · 1998
- AFI Life Achievement Award · 1997
- Golden Bear · 1995
- Britannia Awards · 1993
- BAFTA Award — Best Adapted Screenplay · 1991
- BAFTA Award — Best Film · 1991
- BAFTA Award — Best Direction · 1991
- Silver Lion · 1990
- Cannes Best Director Award · 1986
- Palme d'Or · 1976
- David di Donatello Award — Lifetime Achievement
- Directors Guild of America Award
- Evelyn F. Burkey Award
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- honorary doctorate from Princeton University
- Kennedy Center Honors
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
- Library of Congress Living Legend
- National Board of Review Award — Best Film
- star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
- The George Pal Memorial Award
- Academy Award — Best Picture · 2024 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2024 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2020 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Picture · 2014 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2014 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Picture · 2012 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2012 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2007 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2005 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 2003 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay · 1994 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay · 1991 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 1991 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 1989 · nominated
- Academy Award — Best Director · 1981 · nominated
Filmography50+ titles

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

GoodFellas

Michael Jackson Video Greatest Hits: HIStory

One Direction: This Is Us

Shutter Island

The Departed

Mr. Scorsese

Long Strange Trip

Taxi Driver

Peter Gabriel: Live in Athens 1987

The Wolf of Wall Street

Boardwalk Empire

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Casino

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Raging Bull

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

John Ford: Dreaming the Quiet Man

The King of Comedy

Homebound

The Studio

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger

Before the Flood

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

Dreams

The Last Waltz

The Irishman

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World

Spielberg

Lightning in a Bottle

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story

The Irishman: In Conversation

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Life Itself

30 Rock

Amazing Stories

After Hours

Woodstock

Killers of the Flower Moon

Pretend It's a City

Happy as Lazzaro

Surviving Progress

Entourage

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

Blow

I Am Alfred Hitchcock

Side by Side

Bad 25

Gangs of New York

Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows