15 Best Martin Scorsese Movies Ranked (May 2026)

Martin Scorsese has directed 26 narrative feature films across six decades, and ranking the best Martin Scorsese movies ranked is no small task. From the gritty streets of 1970s New York to the sweeping plains of 1920s Oklahoma, his filmography reads like a masterclass in American cinema. Our team spent weeks rewatching, comparing critical reception data, and debating every entry to build this definitive ranking for 2026.

Whether you are a lifelong Scorsese fan building your ultimate watchlist or a newcomer wondering where to start, this guide breaks down his 15 greatest films with the context you need. We cover critical scores, key performances, and why each film earned its spot in our ranking.

Scorsese is widely regarded as the greatest living American filmmaker, and for good reason. His movies have earned a combined 87 Oscar nominations, spawned entire subgenres of crime cinema, and influenced virtually every director working today. This list reflects both critical consensus and the cultural footprint each film has left behind.

The Top 5 Martin Scorsese Movies at a Glance

Before we get into the full breakdown, here are the five films that sit at the absolute peak of Martin Scorsese’s filmography. If you only have time for a handful of must-watch Scorsese movies, start here.

1. Goodfellas (1990) — Rotten Tomatoes: 96% | IMDb: 8.7 — The definitive gangster film and arguably the greatest movie of the 1990s.
2. Taxi Driver (1976) — Rotten Tomatoes: 94% | IMDb: 8.2 — A haunting character study of isolation and urban decay anchored by Robert De Niro’s iconic performance.
3. Raging Bull (1980) — Rotten Tomatoes: 94% | IMDb: 8.2 — A brutal, beautiful boxing biopic that redefined what a sports film could be.
4. The Departed (2006) — Rotten Tomatoes: 91% | IMDb: 8.5 — The film that finally won Scorsese his Best Director Oscar, a tense cat-and-mouse thriller.
5. The Irishman (2019) — Rotten Tomatoes: 95% | IMDb: 7.8 — A reflective, elegiac crime saga that serves as a meditation on aging and regret.

These five represent the core of Scorsese’s legacy. But the full list below digs deeper into why each film matters and where his other masterpieces land.

Best Martin Scorsese Movies Ranked: The Definitive Top 15

This ranking considers critical consensus, cultural impact, performances, and Scorsese’s own directorial ambitions. Every film on this list earned its place through a combination of artistic achievement and lasting influence on cinema. We weighed Rotten Tomatoes scores, IMDb user ratings, Oscar recognition, and each film’s ongoing relevance to the broader conversation about great filmmaking.

1. Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas is not just the best Martin Scorsese movie — it is one of the greatest films ever made. Based on Nicholas Pileggi’s true-crime book Wiseguy, the film traces the rise and fall of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) through the Lucchese crime family. The opening narration, delivered over a trunk murder, sets the tone immediately: this is gangster cinema stripped of romance.

Robert De Niro plays Jimmy Conway with quiet menace, but Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito steals every scene. His “Funny how?” improv remains one of the most quoted moments in movie history, a masterclass in building tension from a simple conversational misunderstanding. The character won Pesci a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Scorsese’s use of long takes — the Copacabana tracking shot alone took 36 takes — and his needle-drop soundtrack curation (Layla, Gimme Shelter, Then He Kissed Me) created a template that filmmakers still copy today. The editing, handled by his longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, earned an Oscar and set a new standard for kinetic pacing in American film.

Critically, Goodfellas won the BAFTA for Best Film, earned six Oscar nominations, and took home the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion. It lost Best Picture to Dances with Wolves — a decision that still sparks heated debate among film fans. With a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 8.7 IMDb rating, the consensus is clear: this is Scorsese at his absolute peak. In 2000, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

2. Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver is a character study that burrows into your mind and stays there for days. Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a Vietnam veteran driving a cab through the filth-soaked streets of 1970s Manhattan. His descent from lonely outsider to armed vigilante plays out against Bernard Herrmann’s haunting final score, recorded just days before the composer’s death and completed by his widow.

The film captured the paranoia and decay of post-Vietnam America with uncomfortable accuracy. Paul Schrader’s screenplay drew from his own struggles with isolation and existential loneliness, giving Travis a voice that feels disturbingly relatable even at his most dangerous. The screenplay was so lean and focused that it reads almost like a novel — Schrader wrote it in ten days while living in his car.

The “You talkin’ to me?” mirror scene was largely improvised by De Niro and became an instant cultural touchstone, referenced in everything from The Simpsons to political speeches. But the quieter moments land just as hard: Travis alone in his apartment, writing in his journal, slowly unraveling as the city pushes him toward violence.

Taxi Driver earned four Oscar nominations, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and holds a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score. Its influence extends far beyond cinema — it shaped how filmmakers and audiences think about unreliable narrators, urban alienation, and the thin line between vigilante heroism and dangerous delusion. John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, motivated by his obsession with Jodie Foster’s character, cemented the film’s place in the cultural conversation about media and violence.

3. Raging Bull (1980)

Raging Bull is the most physically and emotionally punishing film Scorsese has ever made. Robert De Niro gained 60 pounds to play boxer Jake LaMotta in his later years, a transformation that set a new standard for method acting commitment and took the production to a halt while he gained the weight in Italy. The black-and-white cinematography by Michael Chapman turns the boxing ring into a brutal ballet of sweat, blood, and shadow.

But the fights are almost secondary to LaMotta’s self-destruction outside the ring. His jealousy, paranoia, and emotional violence toward his wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) and brother Joey (Joe Pesci) form the real tragedy. Scorsese structured the film around LaMotta’s inability to understand why he keeps losing everything he loves — a man who can take any punch in the ring but cannot handle rejection or vulnerability in his personal life.

The boxing sequences themselves were shot with deliberate artistry. Scorsese used a single camera placed inside the ring, moving it like a dancer between the fighters. He also employed exaggerated sound design — punching impacts were amplified to sound like gunshots, making each blow viscerally shocking. The effect is less a sports broadcast and more an expressionist nightmare.

De Niro won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance, and the film earned eight nominations total. It holds a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score with an 8.2 IMDb rating. Many critics, including Roger Ebert, have called it the greatest film of the 1980s. In 1990, it became one of the first 25 films selected for the National Film Registry.

4. The Departed (2006)

The Departed is Scorsese working at peak tension across every single frame. A remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, the film pits an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) embedded in the Irish mob against a mob mole (Matt Damon) embedded in the Boston police force, with Jack Nicholson’s unhinged crime boss Frank Costello pulling strings on both sides.

The cat-and-mouse structure keeps you locked in for all 151 minutes. Scorsese balances the dual narratives with sharp editing and a soundtrack that mixes Dropkick Murphys punk with Howard Shore’s brooding orchestral score. The tension builds methodically — every phone call, every close call in a bar, every whispered conversation could blow either man’s cover. The rooftop confrontations pay off the suspense with genuine shocks.

The ensemble cast delivers some of the best performances of their careers. Mark Wahlberg earned an Oscar nomination as the profane, suspicious Staff Sergeant Dignam. Martin Sheen brings quiet authority to Captain Queenan. Vera Farmiga grounds the chaos as the psychiatrist torn between both men. And Nicholson, given room to improvise, creates a villain who is terrifying precisely because he seems to enjoy his own unpredictability.

This was the film that finally earned Scorsese his long-overdue Best Director Oscar, along with Best Picture. It holds a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 8.5 IMDb rating. For many viewers, it is the most rewatchable film in his entire catalog — a tightly wound thriller that reveals new details with every viewing.

5. The Irishman (2019)

The Irishman feels like a reflection on everything Scorsese has explored across his career — loyalty, betrayal, violence, and the hollow emptiness that follows. Robert De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a truck driver turned hitman who recounts his involvement with the Bufalino crime family and the disappearance of union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). The framing device — an aged Frank sitting alone in a nursing home, narrating his life to no one in particular — sets the melancholy tone from the first scene.

At 209 minutes, it demands patience. But the de-aging technology, while controversial in early trailers, serves the story’s theme of time passing and erasing everything Frank once valued. The digital rejuvenation is most effective in the quieter domestic scenes, where you can see the weight of decades in the actors’ eyes even as their faces appear younger.

Joe Pesci came out of retirement to play Russell Bufalino with a quiet, menacing restraint that is the polar opposite of his volatile Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas. It may be his finest performance — a man who never raises his voice but commands absolute terror. Al Pacino brings explosive energy to Hoffa, creating a character whose stubbornness is both admirable and self-destructive.

The film earned 10 Oscar nominations and holds a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score with a 7.8 IMDb rating. It is a quieter, sadder Scorsese film than audiences expected — and that is exactly what makes it so powerful. The final shot of Frank alone, choosing to leave his door slightly open, is one of the most devastating images in his entire career.

6. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Killers of the Flower Moon is Scorsese’s most ambitious late-career work, a three-and-a-half-hour epic about the Osage Nation murders in 1920s Oklahoma. The film centers on the real-life conspiracy to steal oil-rich Osage land through marriage and systematic murder, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Ernest Burkhart, a man caught between genuine love for his Osage wife and complicity in a genocidal plot orchestrated by his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro).

What sets this film apart is how Scorsese approaches the story. Rather than centering the narrative on the FBI investigation, he focuses on the Osage perspective and the human cost of systematic exploitation. Lily Gladstone delivers a luminous, devastating performance as Mollie Burkhart — the heart and moral center of the entire film. Her quiet dignity as she watches her family members die one by one is more powerful than any monologue.

DiCaprio gives one of his most internal performances, playing a man who is not particularly bright but genuinely torn between love and greed. De Niro’s William Hale is a chilling portrait of banal evil — a man who murders with a smile and a handshake. The film’s pacing is deliberate, allowing the horror to accumulate slowly rather than hitting the audience over the head with it.

The film earned 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. It holds a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.6 IMDb rating. For a director in his eighth decade to deliver something this sweeping, this relevant, and this emotionally devastating is remarkable by any standard.

7. Casino (1995)

Casino is Scorsese’s love letter and hate letter to Las Vegas, all wrapped into one sprawling crime saga. Robert De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a meticulous gambling expert running a mob-backed casino, while Joe Pesci plays his unstable best friend Nicky Santoro, whose violent temper brings everything crashing down. Sharon Stone earned an Oscar nomination as Ginger, the woman caught between them, delivering a performance of raw emotional need and self-destruction.

The film operates as a companion piece to Goodfellas — same writer (Pileggi), same stars, same kinetic energy. But where Goodfellas is about the appeal of the gangster life, Casino is about its inevitable collapse. The voiceover narration from De Niro and Pesci intercuts throughout, giving the film a propulsive, almost breathless rhythm. Scorsese also uses narration from Stone, providing a rare female perspective in his male-dominated filmography.

The opening car bombing sequence, told in slow motion with classical music playing, sets up the film’s central tension: the collision of refined business and brutal violence. The casino management scenes are almost educational in their detail, showing exactly how the mob skimmed millions from Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s.

Casino holds an 80% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 8.2 IMDb rating. It was slightly overshadowed by Goodfellas at release, with some critics feeling it was too similar in style. But its reputation has grown significantly over the years. Many fans now rank it among his top five, and the film’s themes of corporate greed and institutional corruption feel more relevant with each passing year.

8. Mean Streets (1973)

Mean Streets is where Martin Scorsese found his voice. Before this film, he had directed two features — Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Boxcar Bertha — but neither prepared audiences for the raw energy on display here. Harvey Keitel plays Charlie, a small-time debt collector torn between his Catholic guilt and his loyalty to his reckless friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a deadbeat who owes money to dangerous people.

The film introduced so many Scorsese signatures: the pop-music soundtrack (opening with Be My Baby by the Ronettes), the kinetic camera movements, the exploration of Italian-American identity and moral conflict. The handheld street scenes in Little Italy feel like documentary footage, grounded in the neighborhood Scorsese grew up in. He has said that Mean Streets is the most personal film he ever made, drawn directly from his own experiences watching petty criminals in his childhood parish.

De Niro’s Johnny Boy is electric in every scene — bursting through doors, dodging creditors, lighting fireworks on rooftops. The character established the chaotic energy he would bring to later roles in Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. His entrance in the pool hall, scattering money he does not have, is pure cinema.

Mean Streets holds an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.5 IMDb rating. It was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1997. Without this film, there is no Taxi Driver, no Goodfellas, no Casino. It is the Rosetta Stone for everything Scorsese would build over the next five decades.

9. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street is Scorsese at his most frenetic and darkly comedic. Based on the true story of stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), the film is a three-hour descent into financial debauchery that never once pauses to moralize. Scorsese lets the excess speak for itself, and the result is both hilarious and horrifying — a satire so outrageous that some viewers mistook it for celebration.

DiCaprio gives one of his most physically committed performances, selling Belfort’s charm even as the character becomes more reprehensible. His speech to the boardroom after a particularly devastating setback — a moment of improvised motivational madness — is one of the finest scenes in his career. Jonah Hill earned an Oscar nomination as his equally unhinged partner Donnie Azoff, matching DiCaprio beat for manic beat.

The Quaalude country club sequence is one of the funniest, most carefully choreographed scenes in any Scorsese film. DiCaprio and Hill play incapacitated characters trying to drive a car, and the physical comedy recalls the silent film era — Charlie Chaplin by way of Wall Street. It is a masterclass in staging and timing.

The film earned five Oscar nominations and holds an 80% Rotten Tomatoes score with an 8.2 IMDb rating. It was controversial at release for its perceived glorification of Belfort’s crimes, but time has clarified Scorsese’s satirical intent. It is a movie about America’s addiction to money and the people who exploit that addiction, and its commentary has only grown sharper as financial scandals continue to dominate the headlines.

10. The King of Comedy (1982)

The King of Comedy was ahead of its time by about four decades. Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, a delusional aspiring comedian who stalks late-night host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) in pursuit of a slot on his show. What felt like an oddity in 1982 now plays like a prophetic takedown of celebrity culture, toxic fandom, and the dangerous entitlement that social media has only amplified.

De Niro’s performance is unnerving precisely because Pupkin does not see himself as a villain. He genuinely believes he deserves fame, and his complete lack of self-awareness makes him both pitiable and terrifying. His basement “talk show,” where he hosts imaginary conversations with cardboard cutouts of celebrities, is one of the most cringe-inducing sequences in any Scorsese film — because Pupkin thinks it is perfectly normal.

Sandra Bernhard delivers a wild supporting performance as his equally obsessed accomplice Masha, bringing a chaotic energy that complements De Niro’s uncomfortable calm. Jerry Lewis plays against type as the weary, dismissive Langford, a man who has seen a thousand Ruperts and wants nothing to do with any of them.

The film holds an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.6 IMDb rating. Its influence on later films like Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019) is obvious and well-documented — both films feature De Niro in key roles, creating a direct lineage from Pupkin to Arthur Fleck. For viewers discovering The King of Comedy for the first time, it feels shockingly contemporary, as if Scorsese saw the influencer age coming four decades early.

11. After Hours (1985)

After Hours is Scorsese’s strangest and most underrated film. Griffin Dunne plays Paul Hackett, a word processor whose mundane evening spirals into a surreal nightmare across downtown Manhattan. Every attempt to get home goes wrong: his money blows out a window, he is mistaken for a burglar, he winds up chased by an angry mob, and he ends up trapped inside a papier-mache sculpture with a paper bag over his head.

The film operates as a dark comedy of errors, but it is also a portrait of SoHo in the 1980s — artsy, dangerous, and deeply weird. Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, and Catherine O’Hara play the various women Paul encounters, each more unhinged than the last. The sense of mounting absurdity never lets up; every time Paul thinks he has escaped, the situation gets worse.

Scorsese shot it on a tight budget after The King of Comedy underperformed at the box office, and the constraints actually work in the film’s favor. The pacing is relentless, the locations feel genuinely lived-in, and the performances have an improvisatory energy that matches the anything-can-happen tone. The camera work is some of the most dynamic of Scorsese’s career, swooping through streets and corridors with infectious urgency.

After Hours holds a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.6 IMDb rating. It won Best Director for Scorsese at the Cannes Film Festival. If you want proof that Scorsese can make magic outside the crime genre — and on a fraction of his usual budget — this is the film to watch.

12. The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Age of Innocence is Scorsese’s most elegant film, a period romance set in 1870s New York high society that proves he can do restraint as powerfully as he does excess. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer, a lawyer engaged to the conventional May Welland (Winona Ryder) but drawn to her scandalous cousin, Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), who has separated from her abusive Polish husband and dares to live independently.

The film is a masterclass in suppressed emotion. Every glance, every paused conversation, every unfinished sentence carries enormous weight. Scorsese uses his camera to capture the stifling social rituals of upper-class New York — the right fork, the right guest list, the right silence at the right moment. The voiceover narration, drawn directly from Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, gives the film a literary quality unlike anything else in his catalog.

Day-Lewis plays Archer with barely contained longing, his face a mask of propriety that occasionally cracks to reveal genuine desire. Pfeiffer matches him as the Countess, conveying volumes through the slight tilt of her head or the catch in her voice. Ryder, in a quietly devastating performance, turns May from a simple obstacle into a fully realized woman who understands more than anyone gives her credit for.

The Age of Innocence won the Oscar for Best Costume Design and holds an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score with a 7.2 IMDb rating. It remains the film Scorsese himself has said he is most proud of, even above his more celebrated crime dramas. For anyone who thinks Scorsese only makes movies about gangsters and violence, this film is a beautiful contradiction.

13. Hugo (2011)

Hugo is Scorsese’s love letter to cinema itself. Based on Brian Selznick’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the film follows a young boy (Asa Butterfield) living in a Paris train station who discovers a connection to pioneering filmmaker Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), now running a toy booth in obscurity. It is Scorsese’s first family film, his only 3D feature, and one of his most deeply personal projects.

The 3D technology is used not for spectacle but for immersion, drawing you into the station and the world of early film. Scorsese, who has spent decades advocating for film preservation through his Film Foundation, uses every tool at his disposal to recreate the magic of Melies’s studio — the hand-painted sets, the theatrical trick photography, the sheer joy of making images move. The sequence recreating Melies’s A Trip to the Moon is a breathtaking visual tribute.

Kingsley brings real pathos to Melies, capturing the pride of an artist who once dazzled the world and the bitterness of a man who believes he has been forgotten. The supporting cast includes Chloe Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, and Christopher Lee, each bringing warmth to their small roles.

Hugo earned 11 Oscar nominations (winning five) and holds a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score with a 7.5 IMDb rating. It is the most visually beautiful film Scorsese has made, and one of his most personal — a passionate argument that preserving film history is not nostalgia but necessity.

14. Cape Fear (1991)

Cape Fear is Scorsese having fun with pure thriller mechanics, and the result is one of his most commercially successful films. Robert De Niro plays Max Cady, a convicted rapist who stalks the family of the lawyer (Nick Nolte) who failed to defend him properly fourteen years earlier. The film is a remake of the 1962 Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum vehicle, but Scorsese turns it into something far more unsettling by blurring the moral lines between hero and villain.

De Niro is genuinely terrifying as Cady. His Bible-quoting, tattooed predator was a dramatic departure from his more restrained roles, and he earned an Oscar nomination for the performance. The southern drawl, the theatrical hair dye, the tattoos drawn from prison culture — every physical choice amplifies the menace. Juliette Lewis matches him intensity for intensity as the teenage daughter targeted by Cady’s manipulation, and their improvised theater scene crackles with uncomfortable chemistry.

Scorsese layers in references to the original film with affection: Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum both appear in cameos, and Bernard Herrmann’s score from the 1962 version is adapted by Elmer Bernstein. The houseboat climax, shot during an actual thunderstorm, is genuinely suspenseful — one of Scorsese’s most effective set pieces.

Cape Fear earned two Oscar nominations and holds a 74% Rotten Tomatoes score with a 7.3 IMDb rating. It was Scorsese’s highest-grossing film at that point in his career, proving his commercial instincts were as sharp as his artistic ones. It remains one of his most purely entertaining films.

15. The Last Waltz (1978)

The Last Waltz is widely considered the greatest concert film ever made. Scorsese documented The Band’s final performance at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976, capturing performances of their most beloved songs alongside guests like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Van Morrison, and Dr. John. The result transcends the concert film genre entirely.

The film intersperses concert footage with intimate interviews that reveal the tensions and bonds within The Band. Robbie Robertson’s articulate weariness, Levon Helm’s folksy warmth, and Richard Manuel’s quiet vulnerability create a portrait of a group at the end of something extraordinary. Scorsese’s interview style is conversational and relaxed, drawing out stories that feel like eavesdropping on old friends.

The camera work during performances is precise and dynamic. Scorsese used seven cameras and hired some of the best cinematographers in the business, including Michael Chapman (Raging Bull), Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters), and Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider). Each performance was filmed multiple times to get coverage from every angle. The result captures not just the music but the physicality of performance — the sweat, the glances between musicians, the spontaneous moments that make live music irreplaceable.

The Last Waltz holds a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 8.2 IMDb rating. It was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2019. Even if you are not a fan of The Band’s music, the filmmaking itself is extraordinary. It shows that Scorsese’s documentary instincts are as sharp as his narrative ones, and his ability to find the dramatic arc in real events is unmatched.

What Makes a Martin Scorsese Film Instantly Recognizable

Several signature techniques appear across Scorsese’s best films, creating a visual and sonic language that is immediately identifiable. Understanding these elements adds a whole new layer of appreciation when you revisit his work. These are not just stylistic flourishes — they are narrative tools that Scorsese has refined over five decades.

The tracking shot. Scorsese is famous for long, unbroken takes that follow characters through spaces — the Copacabana entrance in Goodfellas, the pool hall walk in The Color of Money, the nightclub arrivals in Casino, the restaurant entrance in The Irishman. These shots pull you into the character’s world without a single cut, making you a participant rather than an observer. They also communicate status and power: notice how the camera movement changes depending on who is leading the way through a room.

Soundtrack curation as storytelling. Few directors use popular music as deliberately as Scorsese. He does not just score scenes — he uses songs to comment on the action. The piano exit of “Layla” over the discovery of mob bodies in Goodfellas transforms a gangster murder montage into something approaching tragedy. The tribal drums underscoring urban menace in Taxi Driver create a sense of primal threat. The Rolling Stones needle-drops across multiple films function as a kind of recurring motif, connecting disparate stories through shared musical DNA. Each choice carries meaning beyond mood.

Voiceover narration. Scorsese uses voiceover more effectively than almost any working director. Ray Liotta’s narration in Goodfellas, De Niro’s in Casino, DiCaprio’s in The Wolf of Wall Street — these narrations do not just explain the plot. They reveal character, expose self-delusion, and create ironic distance between what we see and what we hear. When Liotta tells us how great the gangster life is while the visuals show bodies piling up, the gap between narration and image is the entire point.

Rapid-fire editing and freeze frames. Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker has been his collaborator since Raging Bull, winning three Oscars for their work together. They developed a style that mixes slow motion, freeze frames, and rapid cuts to punctuate key emotional moments. The opening freeze frame of Raging Bull, the crash zooms in Goodfellas, the whip-pans in The Wolf of Wall Street — these techniques have become Scorsese signatures that countless directors have tried to replicate.

Violence as narrative, not spectacle. Scorsese’s films are often violent, but the violence is never gratuitous in the traditional sense. It serves the story. The baseball bat beatings in Casino, the shootings in The Departed, the boxing matches in Raging Bull — each violent moment reveals character and advances theme rather than existing for shock value alone. The violence in Goodfellas happens suddenly and without warning, mirroring the real unpredictability of criminal life. In The Irishman, violence is presented as cold and matter-of-fact, reflecting Frank Sheeran’s emotional detachment from his own actions.

The De Niro and DiCaprio Eras of Scorsese

Martin Scorsese’s career can be roughly divided into two creative partnerships that define his filmography: the Robert De Niro era and the Leonardo DiCaprio era. Together, these collaborations account for the vast majority of his most celebrated work.

The De Niro era (1973-1995). Scorsese and De Niro made eight films together over two decades, and five of them appear in this top 15 ranking. Their collaboration began with Mean Streets in 1973 and produced some of the most iconic performances in cinema history — Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta, Jimmy Conway, Max Cady, Rupert Pupkin. De Niro brought an intensity and physical commitment that matched Scorsese’s restless camera, and their partnership helped define New Hollywood cinema alongside the work of Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas.

Their most productive stretch ran from 1976 to 1982: Taxi Driver, New York New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy. Four films in six years, each radically different from the last, each pushing both artist into new territory. De Niro’s two Oscar wins (The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull) and Scorsese’s growing critical reputation made them the premier director-actor partnership of their generation.

Their partnership cooled after Casino in 1995, partly due to scheduling conflicts and partly due to De Niro’s shift toward broader comedic roles. But they reunited spectacularly for The Irishman in 2019 and Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023, proving that their creative chemistry remains potent after fifty years.

The DiCaprio era (2002-present). Scorsese and DiCaprio have made six films together and counting. Their collaboration began with Gangs of New York in 2002, and DiCaprio has since become Scorsese’s go-to leading man for the 21st century. The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon all feature DiCaprio in dramatically different roles — from brooding undercover cop to manic stockbroker to conflicted husband to naive participant in a genocidal conspiracy. His range under Scorsese’s direction keeps expanding with each film.

What makes this partnership work is DiCaprio’s willingness to be unsympathetic. Unlike many leading men of his generation, he consistently chooses characters who are flawed, compromised, or outright reprehensible. Under Scorsese’s guidance, he has developed a physicality that recalls De Niro’s transformative work — the sweating paranoia of The Departed, the drug-fueled chaos of Wolf of Wall Street, the swollen-faced confusion of Killers of the Flower Moon.

Joe Pesci bridges both eras. His collaborations with Scorsese span from Raging Bull (1980) through Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995) to The Irishman (2019). Each role showcased a different facet of his talent: the loyal brother, the volatile psychopath, the unstable enforcer, and finally the quietly terrifying mob boss. His retirement and selective return for The Irishman added an extra layer of significance to that film.

FAQ

Final Thoughts on the Best Martin Scorsese Movies

Ranking the best Martin Scorsese movies ranked is inherently subjective, but the top tier is remarkably stable across critical and fan lists: Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull form a trinity that has anchored his reputation for decades. The films that follow — The Departed, The Irishman, Killers of the Flower Moon — show that his talent has not dimmed with age.

If you are new to Scorsese, start with Goodfellas. It is the most accessible entry point and the film that best represents everything he does well: dynamic editing, unforgettable performances, curated soundtracks, and a story that moves like a freight train. From there, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull will show you the depth. The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street will show you the range.

Six decades in, Martin Scorsese remains the most vital American filmmaker working today. His filmography is not just a collection of great movies — it is a running commentary on American ambition, violence, faith, and identity. Every rewatch reveals something new, and every generation discovers his work fresh. That may be the highest compliment any director can receive.