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The Greatest Movie From Every Genre in Martin Scorsese's Filmography

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, standing amid a celebration at his office while confetti falls around him in The Wolf of Wall StreetImage via Paramount Pictures

By Luc Haasbroek Published 51 minutes ago Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap. Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week. Sign in to your Collider account follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

Few directors have explored as many genres (or reinvented them as thoroughly) as Martin Scorsese. His name is usually synonymous with crime epics and gangster mythology, but his filmography also contains religious dramas, psychological breakdowns, biopics, historical epics, documentaries, and even pitch-black comedies. Indeed, Scorsese might just be one of the most versatile filmmakers.

Considering this wide range of projects, themes, and styles, this list ranks Martin Scorsese's finest achievements in each of the genres he's worked in across his nearly sixty-year career. The titles below form a striking map of one filmmaker’s restless imagination, providing ample evidence why he's so often ranked among the all-time best in cinema.

Crime — ‘Goodfellas’ (1990)

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." Pretty much every crime film Scorsese has made is fantastic, but Goodfellas is his masterpiece. Based on the life of mob associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), the movie charts his rise from Brooklyn teenager to mid-level gangster, moving through decades of loyalty, paranoia, glory, cocaine, and betrayal. Henry climbs the ranks under Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), then watches everything disintegrate under drugs and FBI pressure.

The acting is great, the story is compelling, and the direction is utterly assured throughout. Here, Scorsese's storytelling fuses documentary realism with operatic flourish: the Copacabana tracking shot, the freeze-frames, the voiceover confessions, the rock needle drops, the casual brutality woven through everyday routine. Through it all, we understand why the lifestyle appeals, even as Scorsese makes its self-destruction feel inevitable.

Biopic — ‘Kundun’ (1997)

Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong in KundunImage via Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

"My enemy is my teacher." Kundun tells the life story of the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong) from his childhood in Tibet through the Chinese invasion and his eventual exile in India. The plot is gentle yet monumental: a young boy navigating spiritual responsibility while his nation collapses around him. Unlike his kinetic crime films, Kundun is contemplative and reverent. Rather than focusing on political machinations, Scorsese emphasizes interiority and character.

He shows the Dalai Lama not as a mythic figure but as a thoughtful, frightened, compassionate human being forced into leadership far too young. The aesthetics match this approach perfectly. Scorsese and cinematographer Roger Deakins give us painterly compositions, warm colors, and glowing mandalas, elevated further by Philip Glass' ethereal, experimental score. Ultimately, Kundun may not be objective (indeed, its affection and respect for the subject are obvious), but it is an important work of cultural preservation.

Black Comedy — ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)

Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie) holding Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) at bay with a stiletto in his face in The Wolf of Wall StreetImage via Paramount Pictures

"Sell me this pen." Scorsese’s most chaotic and gleefully immoral film, The Wolf of Wall Street is a three-hour carnival of greed, ambition, and self-delusion. A top-of-his-game Leonardo DiCaprio plays stockbroker Jordan Belfort, a fraudster who scales capitalism's highest heights only to come crashing back down to earth. The plot is a string of increasingly absurd episodes, replete with exploding yachts, Quaalude trips, and motivational speeches that sound like cult sermons. The decadence is sickening.

In the end, Belfort gets off relatively scot-free (though his personal life is a mess), his penance mostly consisting of a stint in a cushy prison. Some critics complained that the movie didn't do enough to lambast him, with some saying it even glorified Belfort, but that's precisely the point. Unlike fictional movies like Wall Street, the criminal here doesn't get his just deserts, making the film's social critique even more searing. In real life, we let the wolves get away with it.

Thriller — ‘Shutter Island’ (2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio dancing with Michelle Williams in Martin Scorsese's 'Shutter Island'Image via Paramount Pictures

"Which would be worse: to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?" Another strong collaboration between Marty and Leo. Part neo-noir, part psychological puzzle-box, Shutter Island begins as a simple detective story and slowly mutates into something far more unsettling. In 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) arrives at a remote asylum to investigate the disappearance of a patient. The island is fog-drenched and ominous, the staff evasive, and the clues increasingly contradictory. The deeper Teddy digs, the more the island mirrors his buried traumas: war memories, a broken marriage, and the fire that destroyed his life.

The thriller elements are gripping, all conspiracies and cryptic clues, along with a Gothic aesthetic of storms and shadows. However, the emotional devastation is what lingers. When the truth finally emerges, Scorsese reframes the entire movie as a tragedy about guilt, delusion, and the human instinct for self-protection.

Historical Epic — ‘Gangs of New York’ (2002)

Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio share a close conversation in Gangs of New YorkImage via Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection

"The blood stays on the blade." Gangs of New York is one of Scorsese's most ambitious undertakings, an operatic reconstruction of New York’s violent birth. At the center of it is Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio), the son of an Irish immigrant murdered by the brutal nativist leader Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis). Returning to the Five Points years later, Amsterdam infiltrates Bill's gang to seek revenge. The plot weaves personal vendetta into the broader story of America’s chaotic evolution, including immigration waves, political corruption, urban warfare, and the Draft Riots that tore the city apart.

Day-Lewis’s performance as Bill is volcanic, but the main achievement here is the world-building, showing a nation being forged through conflict, prejudice, and resilience. Rather than kings or generals, Gangs of New York is a tale of the marginalized fighting to exist. The production design is simply monumental, featuring entire neighborhoods recreated with ferocious detail, turning New York’s past into a breathing, roaring beast.

Documentary — ‘George Harrison: Living in the Material World’ (2011)

George Harrison in a pool with his head out in George Harrison_ Living in the Material World - 2011

George Harrison staring blankly at the camera while almost entirely submerged in waterImage via HBO

"All things must pass." In addition to his narrative features, Scorsese has made a string of excellent documentaries. The best of them is Living in the Material World, about Beatle George Harrison. The film charts Harrison’s evolution from shy musician to spiritual seeker, using archival footage, interviews, and Harrison’s own words to reveal a man constantly balancing fame with inner longing.

While the plot follows the familiar beats (The Beatles’ meteoric rise, the pressures of superstardom, the band’s dissolution), the heart of the film lies in Harrison’s spiritual journey. He was a deeply religious person who was never satisfied with wealth or fame, forever looking for something larger. As a result, the documentary becomes an exploration of creativity, burnout, and what it really means to find peace, as well as a vivid study of the '60s dream and its rude awakening. Plus, it's simply a showcase for phenomenal music. In particular, Beatles fans will find it an absolute treat.

Psychological Drama — ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976)

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in his cab in Taxi Driver

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi DriverImage via Columbia Pictures

"You talkin’ to me?" Taxi Driver is Scorsese’s most iconic descent into the fractured psyche of American loneliness. Together, he, Robert De Niro, and screenwriter Paul Schrader create one of the most fascinating characters in movie history. Travis Bickle is a sleepless New York cabbie drifting through neon streets and porn theaters, quietly rotting from isolation and rage. As he becomes fixated on a political aide and a young sex worker, Travis' fantasies of cleansing the city transform into violent delusions.

Through him, the film functions as both a character study and a cultural x-ray, exposing the alienation and moral rot of post-Vietnam America. At the eye of the storm, De Niro delivers a terrifyingly vulnerable performance. He portrays Travis not as a monster but a man whose loneliness metastasizes into a corrosive ideology. On the aesthetic side, Scorsese’s direction is fittingly feverish yet controlled: the rain-slicked streets, Bernard Herrmann’s aching score, the infamous mirror monologue. Few psychological dramas have captured interior collapse with such rawness.

Sports — ‘Raging Bull’ (1980)

Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta with a heavily bruised face fighting in the ring in Raging Bull.Image via United Artists

"You never got me down, Ray!" De Niro strikes again, turning in a very different kind of performance as middleweight champion Jake LaMotta. Raging Bull follows his rise through brutal fights, jealous tantrums, and the personal demons that sabotage everything he touches. The plot moves between the ring, where LaMotta’s violence becomes mythic, and his home life, where that same violence corrodes his marriage, friendships, and career. Indeed, while it's clothed in the trappings of a boxing movie, Raging Bull is fundamentally a chronicle of self-destruction.

It's a piercing character study. The black-and-white cinematography turns boxing matches into expressionist bursts of pain, while De Niro’s full-bodied transformation shows the toll of ego and insecurity. What emerges is a portrait of a man who can conquer opponents yet cannot conquer himself. Not for nothing, Raging Bull is frequently ranked among the greatest sports movies ever made.

Religious — ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ (1988)

Willem Dafoe wearing a thorn crown and bleeding in The Last Temptation of ChristImage via Universal Pictures

"I’m the saint of blasphemy." Scorsese’s most controversial film is also his most passionate exploration of faith. The Last Temptation of Christ dramatizes the life of Jesus (Willem Dafoe) with an emphasis on his humanity, fear, doubt, anger, longing, and moral struggle. The plot follows the familiar biblical arc, including baptism, preaching, miracles, betrayal, and crucifixion, but it also adds a sensibility that's very much Scorsese. It all comes through most clearly in the visionary sequence in which Jesus imagines an alternate life of marriage and ordinary existence.

It was an exceptionally challenging role to play, but Dafoe gives an amazingly raw, vulnerable performance, ranking among his very best. Likewise, Scorsese’s direction is passionate and unguarded, drawing on his Catholic upbringing to grapple with suffering, purpose, and sacrifice. In the end, The Last Temptation of Christ argues that Christ’s divinity derives not from immunity to temptation but from overcoming it.

Satire — ‘The King of Comedy’ (1982)

Rupert Pupkin laughing in The King of Comedy

Image via 20th Century Studios

"Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime." Decades before celebrity culture became a 24/7 ecosystem, Scorsese predicted its darkest edges with The King of Comedy. It centers on Rupert Pupkin (De Niro), an aspiring comedian who believes he deserves fame despite lacking talent, connections, or self-awareness. Convinced that late-night host Jerry Langford will make him a star, Rupert escalates from delusion to kidnapping in his quest for recognition. His tale becomes a statement on entitlement, obsession, and the dangerous blur between fantasy and reality.

De Niro is great as Rupert, playing him with unwavering sincerity rather than parody, making the character feel painfully real despite his ridiculousness. His story has only grown more relevant as social media and influencer culture have swallowed the modern world, and fame has become the highest currency. More than 40 years ago, Scorsese saw it all coming: loneliness, projection, and the hunger to be seen.

The King of Comedy PG Drama Comedy Thriller Crime Release Date December 18, 1982 Runtime 109 Minutes Director Martin Scorsese

Cast Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard, Diahnne Déa, Shelley Hack Writers Paul D. Zimmerman Genres Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Crime Powered by

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Goodfellas

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