DIRECTOR · BORN 1942
Martin Scorsese
- Born
- 17 November 1942
128 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
27 Facts From Martin Scorsese's Career
- #005
When he won the Best Director Oscar for The Departed (2006), Scorsese received the award from the legendary directors George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. All four were part of the 1970s "New Hollywood" movement and together had nine Oscars and 38 nominations.
- #009
Scorsese has directed 20 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jodie Foster, Robert De Niro (four times), Joe Pesci (three times), Leonardo DiCaprio (twice), Daniel Day-Lewis, Cate Blanchett, Winona Ryder, Ellen Burstyn, Sharon Stone, Diane Ladd, Cathy Moriarty, Juliette Lewis, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Newman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Alan Alda, Mark Wahlberg, Jonah Hill, Al Pacino and Lily Gladstone. Burstyn, De Niro, Newman, Pesci and Blanchett won Oscars for their roles in a Scorsese film.
- #011
Roger Ebert was a great admirer of Scorsese's work. Ebert gave four stars to 14 of Scorsese's films (Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), After Hours (1985), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), GoodFellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Kundun (1997), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) and Shine a Light (2008)); seven of his films appear on Ebert's Great Movies list (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ, GoodFellas and The Age of Innocence); and Ebert wrote a book of his reviews, interviews and commentary on Scorsese's work alone, titled "Scorsese By Ebert."
- #014
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) became the highest-grossing film of Scorsese's 47-year career, with $389,600,694 worldwide.
- #025
Leonardo DiCaprio thanked Scorsese when he won the Best Actor Oscar for Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant (2015). During his acceptance speech, DiCaprio thanked Scorsese for "teaching him so much about the cinematic art form" [28 February 2016].
- #036
Actors are eager to work with him because most of his actors have won or been nominated for awards. The film With Friends Like These (1998) pokes fun at this very desire.
- #044
Martin Scorsese directed five films selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Waltz (1978), Raging Bull (1980) and GoodFellas (1990). With Raging Bull and GoodFellas, he is the only director to have two films selected for the registry in the first year they were eligible.
- #047
As of March 2016, seven of Martin Scorsese's films appear on IMDb's Top 250 Films list: GoodFellas (1990), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Departed (2006), Casino (1995), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
- #050
Martin Scorsese lost three of his Best Director and Best Picture Oscars to lead actors who had turned to directing: Robert Redford, Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood (Raging Bull (1980) to Redford's Ordinary People (1980); GoodFellas (1990) to Costner's Dances with Wolves (1990); The Aviator (2004) to Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004)). In the only two instances in which he was nominated for Best Director in years ending in zero, he was defeated by actors making their directorial debuts (Redford and Costner). In a similar situation, he twice lost the Best Director Oscar to directors who occasionally acted. Those nominations came for Gangs of New York (2002) (he lost to the trained actor Roman Polanski for The Pianist (2002)) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (he lost to Barry Levinson for Rain Man (1988)).
- #058
The Aviator (2004) was Martin Scorsese's first film to gross more than 100 million dollars in the United States.
- #059
Martin Scorsese served as jury president at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998.
- #067
Martin Scorsese has directed ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), GoodFellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Irishman (2019) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). The Departed won in the category.
- #071
Haig Manoogian was Martin Scorsese's mentor at NYU. He eventually produced Scorsese's first film (Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)), and when he died in 1980, Scorsese dedicated Raging Bull (1980) to Manoogian.
- #072
Martin Scorsese is one of four directors who have directed Oscar-winning performances in all four acting categories. The others are William Wyler, Elia Kazan and Hal Ashby.
- #079
He is the recipient of the Robert Osborne Award, first presented in 2018. The award is given at the TCM Classic Film Festival, held annually by Turner Classic Movies, to "an individual whose work has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic films alive and thriving for future generations."
- #083
He is a recipient of the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors. That year's other honorees were Leon Fleisher, Steve Martin, Diana Ross and Brian Wilson.
- #085
In 1975, he accepted the Oscar for "Best Actress in a Leading Role" on behalf of Ellen Burstyn, who was not present at the ceremony. She won for her performance in Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974).
- #090
He has been involved in six Oscar Best Picture nominees, and he acted in five of his own Best Picture-nominated films (Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Hugo (2011)) as well as in Quiz Show (1994).
- #100
On 28 February 2003, Scorsese was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- #104
Martin Scorsese presented AFI Life Achievement Awards to both Robert De Niro and Mel Brooks.
- #106
Apart from eight of his feature films, every other feature Scorsese has directed has received at least one Oscar nomination. The eight that were not nominated are Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Boxcar Bertha (1972), Mean Streets (1973), New York, New York (1977), The King of Comedy (1982), After Hours (1985), Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and Shutter Island (2010).
- #108
Martin Scorsese has a dog named Oscar.
- #111
In 2013, Scorsese served as jury president at the 13th Marrakech Film Festival.
- #115
He was awarded the third annual John Huston Award for Artists Rights by the Artists Rights Foundation.
- #116
He was honored with a special tribute at the 1976 Telluride Film Festival, presented by Michael Powell.
- #120
Early in his career he was mentored by Roger Corman; Scorsese's first feature film as a director was Corman's Boxcar Bertha, which had to be shot in 24 days. He learned a great deal about the discipline of filmmaking and later recalled: "I'll always be grateful for the opportunity and the education he gave me. I'll always be proud to say I graduated from Roger Corman's school."
- #128
In 2002 he served as president of the Cinéfondation and Short Films jury at the 55th Cannes International Film Festival.
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