Martin Scorsese
Mean Streets and Taxi Driver fused Catholic guilt with rock and roll editing, and five decades on the energy has not dropped. Between his own films he restores, teaches and champions everyone else's.
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GoodFellas
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
Defining films
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New Hollywood titans who redefined American cinema, both obsessed with loyalty, family, and the dream corroded.
A Prophet is the French GoodFellas, a man rising through criminal hierarchy, losing himself entirely in the process.
City of God shares Scorsese's kinetic grammar and moral complexity, different continent, identical human truth.
Both through Irwin Winkler, the New York school of morally serious, socially urgent crime cinema.
In their own words
The whole idea of a film being alive, on the streets, no sets, capturing the moment – that was the dream for Mean Streets. Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave, especially Godard's Breathless, were really important influences.
When I was 10, a teacher showed us Scorsese's 'Mean Streets,' and I was like, 'Oh my god, I want to be Martin Scorsese.' It showed me cinema could be about anything and everything.
When I was preparing for 'Gangs of New York,' I went back to Luchino Visconti's 'The Leopard' and 'Senso.' The scale, the historical sweep, the meticulous detail, the way those films captured a changing society – they were huge inspirations.
I always liked the idea of somebody being stuck in a situation where they can't get out. Kafka's The Trial, Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel where people can't leave, and Polanski films like Repulsion or The Tenant – that sense of paranoia and being trapped.
Films by decade
