Martin Scorsese

Director & actor · born 17 November 1942 · Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Martin Charles Scorsese (/skɔːrˈsɛsi/ skor-SESS-ee, Italian: [skorˈseːze, -se]; born November 17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honoured with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Scorsese received a Master of Arts degree from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in 1968. His directorial debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), was accepted into the Chicago Film Festival. In the 1970s and 1980s, Scorsese's films, much influenced by his Italian-American background and upbringing in New York City, centred on macho-posturing men and explored crime, machismo, nihilism and Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption. His trademark styles of extensive use of slow motion and freeze frames, voice-over narration, graphic depictions of extreme violence and liberal use of profanity were first shown in Mean Streets (1973).

Where to start: GoodFellas (1990).