Martin Scorsese, born in Queens in 1942 and raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy, turned a childhood constrained by asthma into a lifelong apprenticeship in movie theaters. Deeply shaped by Catholicism and his Sicilian heritage, he absorbed influences from Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, and directors like Powell, Pressburger, Rossellini, De Sica, and Hitchcock. After studying at NYU, he emerged from the New Hollywood generation with Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Mean Streets, developing hallmarks—restless cameras, slow motion, freeze frames, rock soundtracks, and voice-over confessionals.
In the 1970s and 1980s he made landmark collaborations with Robert De Niro, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, New York, New York, and The King of Comedy, while battling depression and drug addiction. Later, he alternated personal, often controversial projects like The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun with more commercial work such as Cape Fear and The Color of Money. His partnership with editor Thelma Schoonmaker and recurring actors and craftspeople became central to his filmmaking identity.
From the 1990s on, Scorsese consolidated his status with Goodfellas, Casino, and the Oscar-winning The Departed, while finding a new muse in Leonardo DiCaprio for films such as Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon. Parallel to his narrative work, he directed major documentaries on music and film history, from The Last Waltz to No Direction Home. As founder of The Film Foundation and the World Cinema Project, he has restored hundreds of films. Lauded with Oscars, BAFTAs, Emmys, and international honors, Scorsese remains an influential artist, teacher, and preservationist well into his eighties.