A comprehensive list of the favorite films of iconic filmmaker Martin Scorsese are examined below. The Oscar-winning director’s career spans over fifty years, with an immense body of work that includes many of the greatest movies ever made, including three films on the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Films of all time (#4: Raging Bull, #52: Taxi Driver, and #92: Goodfellas). Principal photography on Scorsese’s next film, The Irishman, wrapped on March 5, 2018. The film, which will be distributed on Netflix in 2019, is based on the life of mobster Frank Sheeran (played by Robert De Niro), who was a close associate of both mob boss Russell Bufalino and Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. The screenplay for the film was adapted from Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses, which details hours of conversations between Brandt and Sheeran and includes Sheeran’s infamous deathbed confession whereby he recounted how he personally murdered his close friend Hoffa at the behest of Bufalino and the Mafia Commission.
I Heard You Paint Houses
For more information on any of the films below, feel free to click on the respective image (via Amazon).
MARTIN SCORSESE’S INFLUENCES & FAVORITE FILMS
2001: A Space Odyssey
8 1/2
Ashes and Diamonds
Citizen Kane
The Leopard
Paisan
The Red Shoes
The River
Salvatore Giuliano
The Searchers
Ugetsu Monogatari
Vertigo
Scorsese submitted the above-list of personal favorites to Sight and Sound Magazine in 2013. In addition to the foregoing, Scorsese has expressed admiration for the following films during numerous interviews.
The Great Train Robbery
Sullivan’s Travels
The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ
Rome, Open City
Senso
The Skipping Cheeses
The Thief of Bagdad
Some Came Running
The Roaring Twenties
The Third Man
The Trial
The Shock Corridor
M
Two Weeks in Another Town
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Tales of Hoffman
Rocco and His Brothers
The Flowers of St. Francis
Peeping Tom
The Power and the Glory
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Hell’s Angels
Paisa
Night and the City
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Mishima
The Messiah
Nashville
The Fall of the Roman Empire
Cape Fear (1962)
The Conversation
MASH
Ace in the Hole
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
It Happened One Night
How Green Was My Valley
Midnight Cowboy
The Godfather
All That Heaven Allows
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If you are unfamiliar with any of the below films by Scorsese, we strongly recommend checking them out.
* The film Raging Bull was adapted from Jake LaMotta’s memoir, Raging Bull: My Story
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