Martin Scorsese, born in 1942, is universally regarded as one of the most important directors in the history of the Seventh Art. The director has been able to leave, with his cinema, an indelible imprint in all the eras he crosses and is remembered for his enveloping, refined and hyper-realistic style, which translates into virtuous camera movements, used to accompany contents linked to the violence inherent in man, the sense of guilt, sin and religion.

niood lists the 5 best movies of Martin Scorsese:

1. Taxi Driver (1976)

R 1976, Drama, 1h 53m

Rotten Tomatoes AUDIENCE SCORE: 93% (250,000+ Ratings)

Storyline

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city. When Travis meets pretty campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), he becomes obsessed with the idea of saving the world, first plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate, then directing his attentions toward rescuing 12-year-old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster).

Why we love it

A hallucinatory journey into a deviated mind and into a New York that’s never been so dirty and hellish. The city, portrayed in the vivid night lights of Michael Chapman’s photography, is the mirror of a nation unable to overcome Vietnam’s heavy legacy and hiding its filth under the carpet of the most hypocritical politics. On this corrupt, putrescent and racist society, the alienated Travis, the anti-hero par excellence of the New Hollywood revisionist cinema, can only invoke a cathartic “universal deluge” or unleash his repressed anger in the first person.

2. Goodfellas (1990)

R 1990, Crime/Drama, 2h 26m

Rotten Tomatoes AUDIENCE SCORE: 97% (250,000+ Ratings)

Storyline

A young man grows up in the mob and works very hard to advance himself through the ranks. He enjoys his life of money and luxury, but is oblivious to the horror that he causes. A drug addiction and a few mistakes ultimately unravel his climb to the top. Based on the book “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi.

Why we love it

One of the best gangster movies ever produced is the analysis of a mafia anthropology and Italian-American delinquency of those years: thirty years of robberies, murders, smuggling and prison but also of family lunches. Between the maniacal precision of James who carries out his criminal activity as if it were a job like any other, the heinous madness of the funny Tommy and the passion for drugs and for women of Henry, Scorsese describes the rules of a mafia world that deceives and disillusiones.

3. Raging Bull (1980)

R 1980, Biography/Drama, 2h 8m

Rotten Tomatoes AUDIENCE SCORE: 93% (100,000+ Ratings)

Storyline

The story of a middleweight boxer as he rises through ranks to earn his first shot at the middleweight crown. He falls in love with a gorgeous girl from the Bronx. The inability to express his feelings enters into the ring and eventually takes over his life. He eventually is sent into a downward spiral that costs him everything.

Why we love it

Scanned in stages that alternate meetings in the ring with moments of an over-the-top personal life, LaMotta’s sporting / existential parable disrupts the boundaries of the boxing film, because the author is mainly interested in exploring the brutal personality and self-harm of the protagonist and portray the social fresco of a corrupt and violent world (boxing and its links with the underworld).

4. Casino (1995)

R 1995, Crime/Drama, 2h 57m

Rotten Tomatoes AUDIENCE SCORE: 93% (250,000+ Ratings)

Storyline

In early-1970s Las Vegas, low-level mobster Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he’s a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), his ex-hustler wife Ginger (Sharon Stone), her con-artist ex Lester Diamond (James Woods) and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger. Martin Scorsese directs this adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi’s book.

Why we love it

The film focuses on the description of the criminal world that hid behind gambling in those years, Scorsese, with a semi-documentary slant, describes the functioning of the Casino and delves into the intimate psyche of its three main characters. There are three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the way I do them.

5. Gangs of New York (2002)

R 2002, Drama/History, 2h 48m

Rotten Tomatoes AUDIENCE SCORE: 81% (250,000+ Ratings)

Gangs of New York (2002) Daniel Day Lewis

Storyline

Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young Irish immigrant released from prison. He returns to the Five Points seeking revenge against his father’s killer, William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting’s inner circle. Amsterdam’s journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people in 1860’s New York.

Why we love it

New York, 1846. Cutting is the ruthless leader of the Native gang. Thanks to a grotesque Daniel Day-Lewis, the violent and brutal leader flaunts Native American supremacy and an almost sick patriotism. With his mustache, his glass eye and his imposing cylinder he is the conservative philosopher of a pure America and the strength of the whole film.