Martin Scorsese Makes a List of 85 Films Every Aspiring Filmmaker Needs to See

Image by “Sieb­bi,” Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Before the rise of insti­tu­tion­al film schools—ensconced in uni­ver­si­ty walls with all the for­mal­i­ty that entails—those seek­ing to learn the craft did so by appren­tic­ing them­selves to stu­dios and mas­ter direc­tors, and by watch­ing lots and lots of movies. If we take the exam­ple of some of the most inter­est­ing film­mak­ers work­ing today, this still may be the best way to become a film­mak­er. Wern­er Herzog’s Rogue Film School, for exam­ple, for­goes the trap­pings of class­rooms for a much more rough-and-tum­ble approach—and a direct con­fronta­tion with the medi­um. Kevin Smith dropped out of film school, as did Paul Thomas Ander­son, spurred on part­ly by a love of Ter­mi­na­tor 2. “My film­mak­ing edu­ca­tion,” revealed Ander­son, “con­sist­ed of find­ing out what film­mak­ers I liked were watch­ing, then see­ing those films.” It’s more or less how Quentin Taran­ti­no learned to make movies too.

You could hard­ly do better—if you’ve decid­ed to take this inde­pen­dent route toward a cin­e­mat­ic education—than appren­tice your­self under Mar­tin Scors­ese. Or at least find out what films he loves, and watch them all your­self.

Last year, we fea­tured a list of 39 for­eign films the estimable direc­tor of Taxi Dri­ver, Rag­ing Bull, Hugo, Good­fel­las (etc., etc., etc.) rec­om­mend­ed to a young film­mak­er. Today, we bring you a list of 85 films Scors­ese ref­er­enced in the course of a four-hour inter­view he gave to Fast Com­pa­ny. “Some of the movies he dis­cussed,” writes Fast­Co, “Oth­ers he just men­tioned. But the cumu­la­tive total reflects a life lived entire­ly with­in the con­fines of movie mak­ing.” Shoot on over to Fast Com­pa­ny to read Scorsese’s com­men­tary on each of the films below, and see an aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing ver­sion of his list over at MUBI as well.

Like I said, you could hard­ly do bet­ter.

• Ace in the Hole
• All that Heav­en Allows
• Amer­i­ca, Amer­i­ca
• An Amer­i­can in Paris
• Apoc­a­lypse Now
• Arsenic and Old Lace
• The Bad and the Beau­ti­ful
• The Band Wag­on
• Born on the Fourth of July
• Cape Fear
• Cat Peo­ple
• Caught
• Cit­i­zen Kane
• The Con­ver­sa­tion
• Dial M for Mur­der
• Do the Right Thing
• Duel in the Sun
• The Four Horse­men of the Apoc­a­lypse
• Europa ’51
• Faces
• The Fall of the Roman Empire
• The Flow­ers of St. Fran­cis
• Force of Evil
• Forty Guns
• Ger­many Year Zero
• Gil­da
• The God­fa­ther
• Gun Crazy
• Health
• Heaven’s Gate
• House of Wax
• How Green Was My Val­ley
• The Hus­tler
• I Walk Alone
• The Infer­nal Cake­walk
• It Hap­pened One Nght
• Jason and the Arg­onauts
• Jour­ney to Italy
• Julius Cae­sar
• Kansas City
• Kiss Me Dead­ly
• Klute
• La Ter­ra Trema
• The Lady From Shang­hai
• The Leop­ard
• Mac­beth
• The Mag­ic Box
• M*A*S*H
• A Mat­ter of Life and Death
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• The Mes­si­ah
• Mid­night Cow­boy
• Mishi­ma
• Deeds Goes to Town
• Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton
• Nashville
• Night and the City
• One, Two, Three
• Oth­el­lo
• Paisa
• Peep­ing Tom
• Pick­up on South Street
• The Play­er
• The Pow­er and the Glo­ry
• Stage­coach
• Raw Deal
• The Red Shoes
• The Rise of Louis XIV
• The Roar­ing Twen­ties
• Roc­co and his Broth­ers
• Rome, Open City
• Secrets of the Soul
• Sen­so
• Shad­ows
• Shock Cor­ri­dor
• Some Came Run­ning
• Strom­boli
• Sullivan’s Trav­els
• Sweet Smell of Suc­cess
• Tales of Hoff­man
• The Third Man
• T‑Men
• Touch of Evil
• The Tri­al
• Two Weeks in Anoth­er Town

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­tin Scors­ese Cre­ates a List of 39 Essen­tial For­eign Films for a Young Film­mak­er

Mar­tin Scors­ese Reveals His 12 Favorite Movies (and Writes a New Essay on Film Preser­va­tion)

Wes Anderson’s Favorite Films: Moon­struck, Rosemary’s Baby, and Luis Buñuel’s The Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists His Favorite Films Since 1992

Aki­ra Kurosawa’s List of His 100 Favorite Movies

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness