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Martin Scorsese
Directing Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, films about ambition, violence and guilt.
American cinema · Film preservation
- Born
- 17 November 1942
- Birthplace
- New York City, United States
More people
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese is an American filmmaker whose work combines restless camera movement, popular music and morally conflicted characters. He has also devoted decades to restoring films and expanding access to cinema history.
Early life
Little Italy
Born in Queens, he grew up in Manhattan’s Little Italy, a setting that shaped his early films.
Cinema and study
Childhood asthma limited sport; moviegoing became a major interest, followed by film studies at New York University.
Career
- 1967
First feature
Who’s That Knocking at My Door emerged from his early filmmaking in New York.
- 1973
Breakthrough
Mean Streets established his personal style and began his film partnership with Robert De Niro.
- 1980s–1990s
Expanding range
He moved between intimate dramas, historical settings and ambitious crime films.
- 2007
Directing Oscar
The Departed earned him his first Academy Award for directing.
Selected work
Taxi Driver
A lonely New York cab driver becomes increasingly detached and violent.
Raging Bull
A boxing biography turns Jake LaMotta’s self-destructive jealousy into its central drama.
Goodfellas
A rise-and-fall crime story follows the everyday workings of a Mafia circle.
Beyond work
Preservation
He co-founded The Film Foundation in 1990 to protect and restore cinema.
Documentary work
His documentaries explore music, Italian cinema and his own film influences.
Sources & photo credit
Biography ↗Life and work ↗Photo: Harald Krichel. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
