Martin Scorsese

Born on November 17, 1942, in Queens, New York City, and raised in the bustling Italian-American enclave of Little Italy in Manhattan, Martin Charles Scorsese suffered from severe childhood asthma, which prevented him from playing sports and led him to spend endless hours in neighborhood movie theaters. Initially intending to enter the Catholic priesthood, Scorsese discovered an all-consuming passion for film and enrolled in New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, earning his master's degree in 1966. In 1973, Scorsese achieved his major critical breakthrough with 'Mean Streets', starring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, pioneering a raw, gritty cinematic rhythm infused with rock soundtracks, handheld cinematography, and guilt-ridden Catholic morality. In 1976, 'Taxi Driver' captured the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and four Academy Award nominations, establishing Scorsese as a towering auteur of the New Hollywood era. In 1980, he directed 'Raging Bull', a black-and-white tour de force widely voted by international film critics as the greatest American film of the 1980s. In 1990, Scorsese redefined the gangster genre with 'Goodfellas', featuring virtuoso Steadicam tracking shots, rapid-fire freeze frames, and visceral pacing. In 2006, after decades of critical acclaim, Scorsese won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture for 'The Departed'. Demonstrating extraordinary artistic versatility across subsequent decades, he directed 'Hugo' (2011), 'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013), 'Silence' (2016), 'The Irishman' (2019), and 'Killers of the Flower Moon' (2023). In 1990, Scorsese founded The Film Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to film preservation that has saved and restored over 900 historic motion pictures across the globe.