Martin Scorsese picks his favourite movies of the 1980s
As one of the New Hollywood wave’s most seminal forces, Martin Scorsese joined the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Brian De Palma in the 1970s to rejuvenate the film medium. The early triumphs Mean Streets and Taxi Driver debuted Scorsese’s whim for gritty inner-city realism and established his pivotal relationship with Robert De Niro.
As Scorsese’s career developed, his horizons broadened to encompass sports drama in Raging Bull, religious drama in The Last Temptation of Christ and the comedy biopic in The Wolf of Wall Street. Although his narratives and settings vary handsomely, Scorsese binds his catalogue with a distinctive lens, just as prevalent yet more subtle than that of his peer and admirer Quentin Tarantino.
Following the unexpected success of Raging Bull in 1980, Scorsese sought to pair up with De Niro for a fifth movie together, The King of Comedy. Released in 1982, the movie saw the acting legend take on the role of an aspiring stand-up comedian who becomes obsessed with a more successful comedian.
Similarly to Sidney Lumet’s satirical masterpiece, Network, The King of Comedy highlighted the burgeoning issues related to fame and the mass media. However, Scorsese’s adaptation of Paul D. Zimmerman’s screenplay failed to hit the same peaks at the box office. In the book, The Films of Martin Scorsese, De Niro said the movie “maybe wasn’t so well received because it gave off an aura of something that people didn’t want to look at or know.”
Earlier in 2023, Scorsese said The King of Comedy was “slept on.” The filmmaker added that “People hated it when it came out” and recalled that Entertainment Tonight labelled it “the flop of the year.”
In a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, Scorsese said: “[The King of Comedy] is about a certain aspect of our culture, and also about not taking yourself too seriously, even though I do. All of that came out during the making of the film.”
Although the movie was critically venerated, it began a comparative nadir in Scorsese’s career. Through the remainder of the 1980s, he ventured into independent cinema with After Hours and sought to repair reputational damage with The Color of Money and The Last Temptation of Christ. However, Scorsese wouldn’t fully bounce back until his triumphant De Niro reunion of 1990, Goodfellas.
In the 1980s, Scorsese was inspired by a host of budding talent and saw greatness in the rising actor Willem Dafoe. When making an extensive list of his favourite movies of all time in a 2012 feature with Fast Company, the Taxi Driver director listed five movies from the 1980s. Among his selections were Heaven’s Gate and Born on the Fourth of July, both of which starred Dafoe. Clearly impressed with the actor’s talent, Scorsese cast him in The Last Temptation of Christ.
Although it appears below, John Carpenter’s 1988 movie They Live was not included in Scorsese’s list of all-time favourites. However, he once sang the horror director’s praises, picking out They Live as one of the best pictures of its era. “John Carpenter is a filmmaker who is unashamed to stay within the genres he loves and who practices his trade like a master craftsman,” Scorsese said.
Addressing They Live directly, Scorsese added: “I like the humour of the picture, the hilariously long fight scene between ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper and Keith David, and the sense of outrage. They Live is one of the best films of a fine American director.”
See the full list of Martin Scorsese’s favourite movies from the 1980s below.
Martin Scorsese picks his favourite movies of the 1980s:
- Health – Robert Altman (1980)
- Heaven’s Gate – Michael Cimino (1980)
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters – Paul Schrader (1985)
- Born on the Fourth of July – Oliver Stone (1989)
- Do the Right Thing – Spike Lee (1989)
- They Live – John Carpenter (1988)
