Martin Scorsese: Ranking His Feature Films

15) Gangs of New York (2002)

Of course Martin Scorsese was fascinated by this chunk of American history. And to know the demographics of the area, where the Dutch, Gemrans, Irish would live. Why they immigrated to New York. That violence was a way of life, as was corruption and politics. The birth of America in the mean streets of New York back in the nineteenth century was the premise for Scorsese’s 2002 origin epic.

My review of the film itself would be far less favorable than the praise I would bestow on the technical brilliance. Set designer Dante Ferretti made a ton of drawings to show his director prior to building. One of the largest sets of modern cinema, the construction of Paradise Square, and the interiors, huge parts of the harbor,the ships, of course the Five Points. It was like shooting on location.

Costume designer Sandy Powell also did intense research. Studying the period, including paintings and photographs. Powell would embelish slightly the original designs, and create a fascinating sartorial wardrobe, with well over 3,000 different costumes made from scratch.

Robin Write

14) Hugo (2011)

This fantasy drama follows the adventures of orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris living with his resentful, alcoholic uncle Claude (Ray Winstone). It is Hugo’s job is to oil and maintain the station’s clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father (Jude Law). Accompanied by the goddaughter (Chloë Grace Moretz, who plays Isabelle) of a bitter toy merchant (Ben Kingsley), Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton whilst trying to outsmart the station’s inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who is determined to send Hugo to an orphanage. As Hugo grows closer to Isabelle, he discovers that her godfather is actually silent film pioneer Georges Méliès

This is Scorsese’s first 3D film and is based on the 2007 book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The backstory and primary features of Georges Méliès’ life as depicted in the film are largely accurate, he was a toymaker an a magician, and he experimented with automata. And more tragically Méliès’ was forced into bankruptcy and he became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station. This is Scorsese’s love letter to early cinema and is a delight for children and adults alike.

Bee Garner

13) Shutter Island (2010)

Through many viewings there are apparent clues that Scorsese gives us, whether it’s missing objects, character tics, or blatant hallucinations. We are following someone who is under mass delusion that he’s a U.S. Marshall investigating a missing persons case, and everyone must play along. It occurred to me when watching Shutter Island that it’s really Scorsese’s first genre piece. It’s something that pays homage to Hitchcock and feels like maybe something he would have done if he had been part of a younger generation. It lays on the atmosphere, mood, and tone of a psychological thriller very thick, I love Scorsese’s commitment to telling a narrative story.

It’s stylistically put together with impeccable spacing and placement of environmental objects. The dangling chains in the prison, the caged walls from the floor to the ceiling, the spiral black narrow staircase leading to the very top of the lighthouse. The Prison is housed in a Civil War era fort and its structure adds to the imposing tone of the prison; it’s walls and facilities. Despite being a genre film, Shutter Island has a real commitment to the theme of Identity.

Rob Motto

12) The Aviator (2004)

Experimenting with color palettes and saturation, Scorsese and his team designed a kind of color timeline to somehow mimic the early American Technicolor dye-transfer process. Replicating the vintage look of the period, and the films made back then. Styles of processing we perhaps take for granted today. And know very little about. Scorsese, of course, is an ambassador when it comes to the revitalization of film disrepair. And the Digital Intermediate phase of the production, utilized given our modern methods, was a first for Scorsese. A filmmaker who had nothing to prove to us, but still bagfuls of raw passion to show.

The Aviator was five years in the making. John Logan must have written in the region of fifteen drafts of the screenplay. Leonardo DiCaprio threw himself into the role of Howard Hughes – he was already an inquisitive fan of the filmmaker. Likely the finest turn of his acting career. Gwen Stefani had the once in a lifetime opportunity to portray her idol, Jean Harlow. Scorsese did not want to recreate movie stars with prosthetics. Rather, he present the essence of those characters, through top-notch, well-researched make up and hair-styling.

Robin Write

11) The Age of Innocence (1993)

Scorsese took a huge risk in following up his Oscar-winning Goodfellas and Oscar-nominated Cape Fear with the on-the-surface gentility of The Age of Innocence. Those earlier films heavily trafficked in high tension and graphic violence, so it was a major departure for Scorsese to take on a costume drama more suited to the likes of Merchant Ivory. But if audiences were to look closer at the material, the themes and patterns so prevalent in other Scorsese films are boldly on display here in what I would argue as a more mature and accomplished manner.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Edith Wharton, the film stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer, a young lawyer in late 19th century New York. His well-established world of opera, manners, customs, and pending engagement to the proper May Welland (Winona Ryder, sadly the only Oscar nominee in the whole bunch) is shattered by the vibrance and social customs-eschewing Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Ellen fled her potentially abusive European husband for the supposed safety and comfort of her New York-based family, but she catches the eye of Newland who, over the course of the film, is prepared to abandon everything to fulfill his love for her.

Clarence Moye

10) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

Peter Gabriel, who was in charge of the score, gathered a who’s who of world music composers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to contribute to what would become one of the most successful films scores ever produced. It’s beauty and simplicity added an aura of authenticity to the film that could never have been achieved by the clichéd orchestral scores that boomed away in the background of previous Bible epics.

Scorsese’s piece de resistance was the dream/hallucination sequence that graced the last third of the film – Satan’s temptation. As Jesus hangs from the cross in agony, fulfilling his duty, a child appears to temporarily remove his spirit and guide him through “what could be”, should he decide to forsake his destiny. What he presents to Jesus is a logical and simple argument, a promise of a normal, long-lived life filled with love, children and, most appealing, normalcy. It’s a fantastic, life-affirming sequence and, unfortunately, one that drove the Christian purists absolutely nuts.

Steve Schweighofer