Martin Scorsese
Bringing Out the Dead
(1999)
Joe Connelly (novel), Paul Schrader (screenplay)
2 wins & 4 nominations.
Haunted by the patients he failed to save, an extremely burned-out Manhattan ambulance paramedic fights to maintain his sanity over three fraught and turbulent nights.
Cape Fear
(1991)
John D. MacDonald (novel), James R. Webb (earlier screenplay), Wesley Strick (screenplay)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 14 nominations.
Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte)is a small-town corporate attorney/"Leave It to Beaver" type family-man. Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, bible-quoting, rapist. What do they have in common? Fourteen years, ago Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey, bibliophile Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.
Casino
(1995)
Nicholas Pileggi (book), Nicholas Pileggi (screenplay), Martin Scorsese (screenplay)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 9 nominations.
This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970's and '80's are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.
Gangs of New York
(2002)
Jay Cocks (story), Jay Cocks (screenplay), Steven Zaillian (screenplay), Kenneth Lonergan (screenplay)
Nominated for 10 Oscars. Another 44 wins & 93 nominations.
In 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher, his father's killer.
Goodfellas
(1990)
Nicholas Pileggi (book), Nicholas Pileggi (screenplay), Martin Scorsese (screenplay)
Won 1 Oscar. Another 37 wins & 31 nominations.
Henry Hill is a small time gangster, who takes part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to climb up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, is badly affected by his partners' success, but will he stoop low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?
Mean Streets
(1973)
Martin Scorsese (screenplay), Mardik Martin (screenplay), Martin Scorsese (story)
6 wins & 5 nominations.
A small-time hood struggles to succeed on the "mean streets" of Little Italy.
Raging Bull
(1980)
Jake LaMotta (based on the book by), Joseph Carter (with), Peter Savage (with), Paul Schrader (screenplay), Mardik Martin (screenplay)
Won 2 Oscars. Another 23 wins & 24 nominations.
An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.
Shutter Island
(2010)
Laeta Kalogridis (screenplay), Dennis Lehane (novel)
7 wins & 53 nominations.
It's 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston's Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He's been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn't been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.
Taxi Driver
(1976)
Paul Schrader
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 21 wins & 15 nominations.
Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, or thinking about how the world, New York in particular, has deteriorated into a cesspool. He's a loner who has strong opinions about what is right and wrong with mankind. For him, the one bright spot in New York humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes obsessed with her. After an incident with her, he believes he has to do whatever he needs to make the world a better place in his opinion. One of his priorities is to be the savior for Iris, a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession and under the thumb of her pimp and lover Matthew.
The Departed
(2006)
William Monahan (screenplay), Alan Mak, Felix Chong
Won 4 Oscars. Another 83 wins & 111 nominations.
In South Boston, the state police force is waging war on Irish American organized crime. Young undercover cop Billy Costigan is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Frank Costello. While Billy quickly gains Costello's confidence, Colin Sullivan, a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the state police as an informer for the syndicate is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by their double lives, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations they have penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police both discover a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save themselves. But is either willing to turn on their friends and comrades they've made during their long stints undercover?
The Wolf of Wall Street
(2013)
Terence Winter (screenplay), Jordan Belfort (book)
Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 35 wins & 151 nominations.
Jordan Belfort is a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 22 months in prison for defrauding investors in a massive 1990s securities scam that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including shoe designer Steve Madden.