Martin Scorsese has long been considered one of the greatest film directors in history, with a distinct body of work spanning 56 years. His movies have mostly been adapted from novels and have ranged from themes about greedy corruption to religious guilt, and have amassed a grand total of 91 Oscar nominations and 20 wins, including victories for actors like Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn and Joe Pesci. To celebrate his latest release, Apple Original Films’ “Killers of the Flower Moon,” let’s take a closer look at his individual whopping 14 Oscar nominations, which include two screenplay mentions and three Best Picture notices to go with his nine director bids.
After some recognition from the academy for his films “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and “Taxi Driver,” Scorsese finally broke into the director category in 1981 with his first nomination for “Raging Bull” (1980) pushing the boundaries of violence and depicting the rise and fall of boxer Jake LaMotta, played by De Niro. Based on LaMotta’s titular memoir, the film received eight nods including Best Picture and bids for Pesci and Cathy Moriarty, and gave Scorsese’s longtime collaborators De Niro and editor Thelma Schoonmaker their first triumphs. Scorsese and “Raging Bull” would lose in a close race to “Ordinary People” directed by Robert Redford in the two top categories, but the movie has remained a huge legacy.
Scorsese’s next nomination would come for another controversial movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), adapted from the Nikos Kazantzakis novel about the life of Jesus Christ and struggles of temptation, starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey. The controversy with the narrative resulted in death threats, protests and worldwide bans, but the movie was critically well-received and Scorsese nabbed his second Best Director nomination in 1989, the only one for the religious epic, losing to Barry Levinson for “Rain Man.”
Two years later, he would direct another acclaimed masterpiece that would define his career with the biographical crime “Goodfellas” (1990), of which he also co-wrote with Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the 1985 original novel “Wiseguy.” Starring De Niro, Pesci, Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco, it is another character study of gangster Henry Hill spanning 1955 to 1980. Arguably considered Scorsese’s best work, “Goodfellas” is one of eight films to win Best Picture from the three major film critics’ groups with Los Angeles, New York and National Society. Scorsese would receive two Oscar nominations for the first time in Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay with Pileggi, and the film would get bids for Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Supporting Actress for Bracco, while Pesci would win Best Supporting Actor. Scorsese lost both categories to writer Michael Blake and director Kevin Costner for “Dances with Wolves,” in what would be another loss to a famous actor in their directorial debut with the latter, similar to Redford.
Scorsese would explore a new historical society in 1993, adapting the classic 1920 Edith Wharton novel “The Age of Innocence” (1993) and co-write the screenplay with Jay Cocks. The historical romantic drama stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder in a love triangle during the 1870s in New York high society as a gentleman lawyer and an American heiress embark on an affair while he is set to marry her cousin. Scorsese and Cocks would be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, defeated by Steven Zaillian for “Schindler’s List,” while “The Age of Innocence” received five Oscar noms – including Ryder for Best Supporting Actress – winning for Best Costume Design for Gabriella Pescucci.
In the longest span between Oscar nominations, Scorsese would return nine years later for the historical drama “Gangs of New York” (2002), based on the 1927 Herbert Asbury book and starring Day-Lewis, DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. The movie set in the Five Points about a young man avenging the death of his father by becoming a protégé to his killer gave Scorsese his first Golden Globe win for Best Director, and gained 10 Oscar nominations, including Day-Lewis for Best Actor. Scorsese would lose Best Director in an upset to Roman Polanski for “The Pianist” and “Gangs of New York” went home empty-handed as “Chicago” took home Best Picture.
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The year honoring 2004 was also an uncertain year for awards when Scorsese made the Howard Hughes biopic “The Aviator” starring DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett, with the epic winning Best Picture trophies at the Golden Globes, Producers Guild of America Award and BAFTA Awards, but Scorsese falling short of director prizes to Clint Eastwood for “Million Dollar Baby,” leading many to believe there may be a split at the Oscars. While “The Aviator” led the 2005 Oscar ceremony tally with 11, “Million Dollar Baby” ended the night with Best Picture to go along with Eastwood’s win, but the film won five Oscars: Best Editing (Schoonmaker), Best Costume Design (Sandy Powell), Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson), Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo) and Best Supporting Actress for Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn.
Scorsese’s Oscar moment would finally arrive with an American remake of Alan Mak and Andrew Lau’s 2002 Hong Kong action crime film “Infernal Affairs” with “The Departed” (2006). Starring DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, about two moles implanted within opposing forces between the state police and a mob crew, Scorsese finally won Best Director at the Oscars on his sixth nomination in the category and eighth overall after triumphing at the Directors Guild of America Award, Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. “The Departed” would end up winning four of its five bids in Best Editing (Schoonmaker), Best Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan) and Best Picture after losing all the major precursors except Critics Choice. Wahlberg was also cited in Best Supporting Actor.
After his win, Scorsese started taking on the producer’s chair with his next three Oscar-nominated films, starting with “Hugo” (2011), based on Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” and his first movie shot in 3D. The story inspired by Georges Méliès about a young boy’s adventure to rediscover him gave Scorsese his third Golden Globe and went the same Oscar route as “The Aviator,” going five for 11, leading the nominations, and winning cinematography (Richardson), art direction (Ferretti and Lo Schiavo), visual effects (Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann and Alex Henning), sound mixing (Tom Fleischman and John Midgley) and sound editing (Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty). Scorsese lost to Michel Hazanvicius, director of the Best Picture winner “The Artist.”
His fifth collaboration with DiCaprio would be in the Jordan Belfort biopic “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), based on Belfort’s 2007 titular memoir, where Scorsese would shift to the comedy genre depicting his life of excess and financial corruption. Because of the crowded field of contenders and controversy surrounding the film’s explicit profanity and sexual content, it was uncertain how many noms it would get outside of Best Picture, given it was on the edge in many other categories. But it came away with five bids come Oscar morning, including DiCaprio for Best Actor after he won the Golden Globe in the Musical/Comedy category, Terence Winter for Best Adapted Screenplay, a surprise nomination for Jonah Hill in Best Supporting Actor, and Scorsese for Best Picture and Best Director after nabbing a DGA nom. This was a split year as Best Director was won by Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity” and “12 Years a Slave” went away with Best Picture.
Scorsese’s last run at the Oscars was with “The Irishman” (2019), based on the 2004 Charles Brandt book “I Heard You Paint Houses,” reuniting with De Niro after 24 years and brought Pesci out of semi-retirement, while also working with Al Pacino for the first time. The gangster epic about the life of hitman Frank Sheeran was the second Scorsese film to get 10 Oscar nominations and unfortunately the second to walk away without any wins. As part of its haul, Pesci as Russell Bufalino and Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa received recognition for Best Supporting Actor, losing to Brad Pitt for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” while Scorsese lost Best Director and Best Picture to Bong Joon Ho and “Parasite” in a historic year.
Now Scorsese is back with another crime epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” – soon to stream on Apple TV+ – bringing back both his muses DiCaprio and De Niro, whose characters plot to murder the Osage Nation after oil is discovered on their land in the 1920s. Based on the 2017 nonfiction David Grann book, the film is all but certain to be a surefire Oscar contender in many creative aspects and both leads along with Lily Gladstone are expected to be in the awards conversation. This will be the second film that Scorsese will direct, produce and write (with screenwriter Eric Roth) after his historical religious epic “Silence” in 2016, and he will very likely get three Oscar nominations for the first time in his career (four for producing “Maestro” if it is recognized in Best Picture).
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