Martin Scorsese, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and, in the eyes of many, the greatest filmmaker alive today.
Over the course of a career spanning nearly 60 years, Scorsese has directed 26 narrative features and 16 documentary features, among them 1973’s Mean Streets, 1976’s Taxi Driver, 1980’s Raging Bull, 1990’s Goodfellas, 1995’s Casino, 2006’s The Departed, 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street and, most recently, 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon. The adaptation of David Grann’s bestselling book features a script co-written by Eric Roth and Scorsese, who also produced the film, which stars his two great muses, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, plus breakout Lily Gladstone. It follows a series of murders in the Osage Nation after oil was discovered on tribal land in the 1920s.
Described by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Scorsese has been the recipient of just about every honor that exists. Those include an Oscar, three Emmys, a Grammy, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, two Directors Guild Awards, an AFI Life Achievement Award, a Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and a BAFTA Fellowship, among many others. He has also been recognized with achievement awards from the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival.
For Killers of the Flower Moon, specifically, he has already been awarded multiple best film and best director awards, including from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle. Killers was also chosen as one of 2023’s 10 best films by the AFI Awards, and Scorsese was nominated for best director and best screenplay at the Golden Globes. He also received nods for the best director at the Directors Guild Awards and the Critics Choice Awards, where he was nominated for best adapted screenplay. Oscar nominations are almost surely to follow.
Over the course of a conversation at the Hotel Bel-Air, the 81-year-old reflected on the tug of war that he felt as a kid growing up in Little Italy between his faith and the reality of his life, and how that shaped the films that he made. He also opened up about the origins and evolution of his special relationships with De Niro and DiCaprio, with whom he has made 10 features and six features, respectively; how he almost directed Schindler’s List; how he feels about the Scorsese vs. Marvel controversy; how Killers of the Flower Moon is sort of an amalgam of his gangster films, period costume drama, family film and trilogy of films about faith; plus much more.
