
Age: 83
male
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). Scorsese won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Taxi Driver (1976), which starred Robert De Niro as a disturbed Vietnam Veteran. De Niro became associated with Scorsese through eight more films, including New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) and The Irishman (2019). In the following decades, he garnered box office success with a series of collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio, including Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). He worked with both De Niro and DiCaprio on Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). He also directed After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Age of Innocence (1993), Kundun (1997), Hugo (2011), and Silence (2016). On television, he has directed episodes for the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) and Vinyl (2016), as well as the HBO documentary Public Speaking (2010) and the Netflix docu-series Pretend It's a City (2021). He has also directed several rock documentaries, including The Last Waltz (1978), No Direction Home (2005), and Shine a Light (2008). He has explored film history in the documentaries A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies(1995) and My Voyage to Italy (1999). An advocate for film preservation and restoration, he has founded three nonprofit organisations: The Film Foundation in 1990, the World Cinema Foundation in 2007 and the African Film Heritage Project in 2017.

Martin Scorsese

Director
for Director in Free Bird: The Ronnie Van Zant Story
Suggested by kamsismith

Free Bird tells the electrifying yet profoundly human story of Ronnie Van Zant, the legendary frontman of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The film is a raw, authentic journey through the rise of Southern rock, anchored in the spirit, grit, and heartbreak of one of rock 'n' roll’s most enigmatic figures. Opening in Jacksonville, Florida, Free Bird follows Ronnie from his scrappy beginnings in a working-class neighborhood to his meteoric rise as the voice of a generation. A natural-born leader with a rebellious streak and boundless talent, Ronnie dreamed of using music to tell the stories of the South—stories of pride, struggle, resilience, and community. With scenes that capture the fire and intensity of early Skynyrd rehearsals, the tension of their climb, and the raw energy of their performances, viewers will be immersed in the turbulent world of 1970s rock and the complex character at its center.
