Scorsese makes us spend time with men we might prefer to avoid, and we recommend the discomfort. His patience with actors produces frighteningly convincing people, though his fascination with them can leave everyone else short of space.
Fi1m perspective
Robert De Niro barely needs to move to make his company troubling in Taxi Driver (1976). Scorsese lets Travis Bickle remain guarded, while Bernard Herrmann’s ominous music makes that restraint harder to take as reassurance. We were frightened by how little De Niro had to do. Working with screenwriter Paul Schrader, Scorsese makes us feel sympathy for a lonely man without allowing loneliness to excuse him.
The breakthrough came with Mean Streets (1973), before Raging Bull (1980) and GoodFellas (1990). Long tracking shots, rapid editing, popular songs and voice-over became familiar parts of his filmmaking. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto are among his recurring collaborators, but speed is only part of what we value in his work. He can hold our attention by letting an actor remain difficult to read.
In Taxi Driver, Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy and Jodie Foster’s Iris have to compete with that interest in Travis. Both make us curious about lives beyond his, but Scorsese keeps pulling us back before that curiosity can go far. We recommend the film strongly while wishing he had given those women more time to be considered separately from its central man.
The later films slow down: Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) belong together in their patience. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese tells us early who is arranging the Osage murders, leaving us to watch the killing continue rather than solve it. Lily Gladstone’s Mollie holds the film together, particularly when she asks Ernest to sit quietly through a storm and Scorsese lets the scene run in near silence. It moved us more than we expected. The film is weaker when she is absent, and we wanted more of the attention he gives her in that room.
His own voice offers a smaller pleasure in The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026), where he plays the street vendor Hugo Durant. For about a minute he makes a tidy, forgettable film funnier than anything around him. Start with Taxi Driver for his directing, with no expectation of a comforting evening.
Biography
Martin Scorsese is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Born on 17 November 1942 in Queens, New York City, he received a Master of Arts degree from New York University in 1968. His directorial debut was Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967).
Scorsese is known for films including Taxi Driver (1976), GoodFellas (1990), Casino (1995), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Irishman (2019) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), on which he also served as producer and co-wrote the screenplay. He produced Die My Love (2025) and provided the voice of Hugo Durant in The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026).
He has received numerous awards, including an Academy Award, BAFTA Awards and others, and several of his films have been selected for the National Film Registry.
