Ranking the 10 greatest Martin Scorsese characters
No other director knows how to craft cinematic characters quite like Martin Scorsese. Over the course of his six decades behind the camera, Scorsese has become perhaps the most iconic director in the history of American cinema. He’s certainly on a shortlist with names like Steven Spielberg and John Ford in terms of craft, execution, and hallmarks of style. No matter what genre he dives into, you know immediately when you sit down in front of a screen that you’re watching a Martin Scorsese movie.
That largely comes down to the kinds of people he likes to focus on, namely the flawed anti-heroes on the hunt for power. Whether we’re talking about the lead figures from Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Color of Money, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, or Silence, Scorsese is always at his best when his character’s journey’s conflict with their sense of morals and willingness to sacrifice parts of themselves in order to achieve their goals.
That ties into Scorsese’s legendary obsession with catholicism and the guilt that permeates nearly his entire body of work. It also surrounds his history with the mob, his romanticisation of New York City, and his undeniable penchant for excitement, whether it comes from the dynamics of his dialogue or the substances that his characters indulge in. Every person that shows up on screen in a Martin Scorsese movie is different, but they all go through the trials and tribulations that Scorsese remains enthralled by.
We’re playing fast and loose with what officially constitutes a Scorsese “character” for this list. Although he’s the visionary that puts all the pieces together, Scorsese has only co-written six of his 24 feature films (soon to be seven with his upcoming 25th feature Killers of the Flower Moon). Quite often, his most fascinating figures are real people or characters based heavily on real people. For this list, it doesn’t matter if the person was a one-to-one retelling of a historical figure or a completely fictional entity made up in the mind of Marty: if they appear on screen in one of his films, then they’re a Martin Scorsese character.
We’ve also had to leave this list open for multiple actors (one actor, specifically) to show up multiple times. That’s because it’s impossible just to pick a single Robert De Niro character for this list – the entire list could just be De Niro characters. But to appreciate the wide scope of Scorsese’s ambitions, it’s important to look at a diverse range of actors and their unique interpretations of Scorsese’s vision. That being said, of course, you’re going to see De Niro’s name more than once.
Here are the ten greatest characters to ever appear in a Martin Scorsese movie.
The 10 greatest Martin Scorsese characters:
10. Frank Costello – The Departed
Evidently, there’s a solid contingent of Scorsese fans who find both this character and this performance to be one of the worst in Scorsese’s filmography. If you’re a diehard Boston local or a scholar on Whitey Bulger, then you probably have your gripes with Jack Nicholson’s cinematic Bulger stand-in, Frank Costello from The Departed.
Whether you agree with some of the choices being made (cocaine threesomes and dildo porn theatre scenes notwithstanding), few characters are as electrifying and menacingly magnetic as Costello is in The Departed. It’s a role tailor-made for Nicholson and his sinister silver screen presence, equally deplorable and strangely alluring. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan is the better-written character, and Mark Wahlberg’s Sergeant Dignam is more fun, but nobody chews up and spits out the scenery in a more entertaining way than Nicholson’s take on the premier Boston mob boss.
9. Edward ‘Teddy’ Daniels – Shutter Island
Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese’s collaboration is one of the most important director-actor team-ups of the last 20 years. Nobody will replace Scorsese’s iconic work with De Niro, but what DiCaprio and Scorsese have been able to get out of each other on screen is nothing short of incredible. On a different day, this spot would go to the deplorable scumbag Jordan Belfort at the heart of The Wolf of Wall Street, but instead, we’re going to highlight DiCaprio’s work as Edward ‘Teddy’ Daniels in the tightly-wound thriller Shutter Island.
For the film to work, DiCaprio has to play Daniels as both a whip-smart detective and a hapless put-upon outsider who is constantly in the dark regarding the truth about the titular island hospital. When the film’s big reveal comes around, you start to pick up on the hints and clues that DiCaprio has sprinkled in the character’s actions and visions over the course of the entire film. That kind of switcheroo could feel like a dirty trick in the hands of a less capable duo, but Scorsese and DiCaprio pull it off with flying colours.
8. Ginger McKenna – Casino
Martin Scorsese doesn’t exactly have the strongest track record when it comes to portraying female characters on screen. He hit an early peak with Zina Bethune’s role in Who’s That Knocking at My Door and was able to craft some wonderfully complex women like Karen Hill in Goodfellas and Naomi Lapaglia in The Wolf of Wall Street, but even in some of his best films like Raging Bull and Mean Streets, the women tend to be underwritten, one note, and under-represented. Female characters just aren’t really Marty’s thing.
A major exception comes in the form of Ginger McKenna, the femme fatale with a crafty nerviness who shines in Casino. Brought to life with impeccable style and a palpable edginess by Sharon Stone, McKenna is the sun that most characters orbit around throughout Casino, right up to her tragic end. For a slightly overstuffed film, Ginger is sleek and perfectly crafted.
7. Jesus Christ – The Last Temptation of Christ
Martin Scorsese has spent his entire life grappling with his catholic faith throughout his filmography. Sometimes it comes out explicitly, while other times it lurks in the background, always ready to come down on the various characters who succumb to sin. But only once has Scorsese actually taken on the story of Christ with the director answering the question: “What would Jesus be like as a Scorsese character?”
Featuring an all-time great performance from Willem Dafoe as the son of God, The Last Temptation of Christ presents Jesus as a flawed everyman who is simply trying to make sense of the destiny presented before him. The characterization caused Scorsese to be vilified by true believers when the film came out in 1988, but today his version of Jesus Christ is right up there with the most compelling and complicated depictions ever put to screen.
6. Rupert Pupkin – The King of Comedy
We could sit here all day talking about the iconic characters that Martin Scorsese crafted for Robert De Niro. Over his legendary career, no actor “got” Scorsese more than De Niro. In turn, De Niro brought the complexities of Scorsese’s characters to the fore with more skill and deftness than any other actor that the director has ever worked with. The fact that Jake LaMotta, Max Cady, and ‘Johnny Boy’ Civello don’t even appear on this list proves just how great the pair were together.
Perhaps their most underappreciated collaboration is The King of Comedy, Scorsese’s cracked reflection of the entertainment world. Just by his nature, Rupert Pupkin is a decrepit and disgustingly repulsive character, but De Niro doesn’t play him like a monster. Instead, he brings real emotion and vulnerability to the role, so much so that the audience can’t help but root for the loser when he finally gets his moment in the sun.
5. Donnie Azoff – The Wolf of Wall Street
The Wolf of Wall Street is a feature-length magic trick: for almost three hours, audiences follow some of the most deplorable and least sympathetic human beings to ever appear on screen. The sheer amount of excess that goes down in The Wolf of Wall Street risks sinking the film, and yet, it soars with an intoxicating mix of debauchery and dreamlike liveliness.
Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff is impossible to take your eyes off whenever he appears on screen. From his confirmation that he’s fucking his cousin to his quaaludes episodes to his confusion around non-alcoholic beer, Hill is in absolute peak form with the wildest and most wonderfully cracked fool that ever graced a Scorsese film. The Wolf of Wall Street is all about knowing what to love and what to condone, but Hill’s Azoff blurs those lines better than anyone else.
4. William ‘Bill the Butcher’ Cutting – Gangs of New York
Gangs of New York is one of the stranger films in Scorsese’s oeuvre. With a strangely off-his-game DiCaprio and an absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel Cameron Diaz performance, it’s sometimes hard to see Scorsese’s intricate craft shine through. But it’s obvious to see where all that craft went: it went into the making of William ‘Bill the Butcher’ Cutting.
As the real-life leader of the Bowery Boys gang and an amateur politician, Butcher would have been a great character with anybody portraying him. But with the dedication and skill of Daniel Day-Lewis behind the wheel, Bill the Butcher quickly becomes something else entirely: an enigma of ruthlessness and power-seeking that lures you in, only to slit your throat when you get too close.
3. Tommy DeVito – Goodfellas
Pure explosive energy is a trademark of Scorsese’s work, but nobody seemed to embody that thin line between excitement and anxiousness quite like Joe Pesci did as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas. At any given moment, you never know whether Tommy’s actions will end with fits of laughter or a dead body in the group. He’s unpredictable, dangerous, volatile, and effortlessly engaging.
As the only actor to win an Oscar for portraying a Scorsese character, Pesci’s spot on this list was all but guaranteed. But here’s the thing: Pesci’s performance might still somehow be underrated. It’s easy to see the untamed fury in his performance, but once you pick up on the nuances and intricacies of the character, Tommy DeVito somehow becomes even more astounding to watch. It’s funny how that works, but hey, Tommy is a funny guy.
2. James ‘Jimmy the Gent’ Conway – Goodfellas
Every great character needs their foil, but it’s rare for a film to feature those two characters working closely together on the same side. It’s even rarer for the calmer foil to be the more interesting character, but that’s exactly what happens in Goodfellas when Robert De Niro shows up as perhaps the scariest and most purely menacing character that ever appeared in a Scorsese film, Jimmy ‘the Gent’ Conway.
Whereas Tommy DeVito is a lightning bolt of live-wire energy and sloppy anger, Jimmy Conway is methodical and exact in his execution. As he puffs on a cigarette and contemplates what he must do to avoid going to jail, Conway transforms from the likeable gangster to the living embodiment of evil. It’s the perfect handoff between director and actor, even if one Scorsese-De Niro collaboration stands just slightly above it.
1. Travis Bickle – Taxi Driver
Perhaps the most iconic and complex character that Martin Scorsese ever crafted, Travis Bickle is still one of the most fascinating figures ever put to screen. Helmed by a never-better Robert De Niro, Bickle is pure confusion and anger that keeps your attention no matter how far off the deep end he goes. It’s the kind of role that any other director or actor would probably ruin, but Scorsese and De Niro make the despicable Bickle not only interesting but incredibly watchable as well.
The remarkable way that the central figure hanging over Taxi Driver continues to be reinterpreted and revisited with every new generation and discussion of violent discourse just proves how timeless of a creation Bickle is. For better, and often for worse, he’s a reflection of the times and of a very specific subset of the general public, one that’s not going away any time soon.
