Even though Martin Scorsese was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars many times, he only managed to bring a statuette home once: a deserved win for The Departed, which also won Best Picture - the ceremony's most prestigious prize. One of the most talented directors of all time, Scorsese influenced a whole generation with his intricate crime thrillers, many of them adapting unbelievable true stories to the big screen. While Scorsese writes screenplays every once in a while, his best achievements come from directing and producing.
Scorsese constantly preaches the importance of keeping the culture of going to the movie theater alive. His career is over 50 years old: his first feature film was released in 1967 — Who's That Knocking On My Door — and it didn't take long before he received international recognition with Mean Streets (the movie that would seal Scorsese's long-term partnership with Robert DeNiro and his ion character psychology). While it's a good thing that Scorsese eventually got his Oscar, some of his best movies were criminally snubbed. However, the competition was undeniably tough.
1 Raging Bull (1980)
Scorsese began to attract the attention of critics after his Palme D'or wins for Raging Bull offers a violent, yet intimate depiction of Jake LaMotta's life, a real-life boxer whose violent impulses would often burst outside the ring. The film was strong at the Oscars, earning 8 nominations and winning Robert DeNiro his second Best Actor statuette.
The snub at the Oscars has been heavily debated as Scorsese's movie was a clear favorite among the public audience (with Raging Bull even holding up to this day). However, it's clear why the Academy voters struggled with their decision as Scorsese competed with Robert Redford, whose Ordinary People accrue a lot of attention for its sensitive approach on mental health and family matters. Nevertheless, while Redford won Best Director and the movie won Best Picture, Raging Bull has still managed to have a great impact on the film industry.
2 The Last Temptation Of Christ (1989)
After Raging Bull's success, Scorsese dedicated himself mostly to black comedies that weren't really of the Oscars' taste. Then all of a sudden, Scorsese released The Last Temptation Of Christ, a brutal retelling of Jesus Christ's final days and his dreams of an ordinary life. As expected from a movie of this nature, controversies got in the way of any serious winning campaign for Scorsese, who was nominated for Best Director.
Although The Last Temptation Of Christ is classed as one of Scorsese's best movies, there was a certain backlash surrounding the film's violence and recurring instances of nudity (via Decider). Additionally, the film even earned Harvey Keitel a Razzie nomination. The only Oscar nomination it got was for Scorsese as Best Director, but the award went unsurprisingly to Barry Levinson for his achievement in Rain Man, the Best Picture winner.
3 Goodfellas (1990)
Of all Scorsese's Oscar losses, Goodfellas' Best Director loss was perhaps the most shocking. The film told the real-life story of Henry Hill, a young man who climbs his way up the Mafia scene under the wings of the dreaded Jimmy Conway. Scorsese was in a comfortable position with Goodfellas, working around a topic he was deeply interested in and with enough freedom to make the film as he wanted, resulting in one of his most ionate and impressive projects.
Goodfellas, one of the highest-rated mafia movies of all time, seemed like it would be a favorite after it won several awards at the BAFTAs, including the deserved Best Director win. However, despite Scorsese being nominated for director and screenplay, Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves outperformed Goodfellas, taking home 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. It certainly was a shocking result, but Goodfellas has still managed to have a huge impact on the film industry, particularly in the crime genre.
4 Gangs Of New York (2002)
costing over $90 million to make and turning the influential city of 19th-century New York into a compelling microhabitat isolated from the rest of the country.
Ultimately, Scorsese lost the Best Director award to Roman Polanski's achievement in The Pianist (which is also based on a true story): the film revolves around Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman and the atrocities he witnessed during the Nazi occupation. Given that Gangs Of New York received a lot more criticism compared to his other movies, with esteemed critic Roger Ebert stating it wasn't close to "the first rank of his masterpieces", it didn't really come as a surprise that he didn't win the award time around.
5 The Aviator (2004)
After working with The Aviator was another ambitious project that deviated from Scorsese's famous crime narratives. However, the movie was certainly his best shot at winning Best Director since Goodfellas.
As evidenced by Scorsese's previous losses, the Oscar's Best Director win relied too much on a Best Picture win, and with The Aviator, it wasn't any different. Although the film earned incredible 11 nominations, winning four technical categories and giving Cate Blanchett her first Oscar, Scorsese lost to Clint Eastwood and his Million Dollar Baby, which won Best Picture. The situation certainly could have been different had The Aviator won the Best Picture, although that was unlikely considering it didn't win it at the Golden Globes or BAFTAs.
6 Hugo (2011)
Hugo might seem like an unusual movie to fall in Scorsese's hands, but it's one of the director's must-see movies: the film tells a lighthearted story about childhood, flirts with fantastical elements, and was made with an estimated $180 million (via IndieWire). Hugo was undeniably Scorsese's love letter to the movies, bringing out the kid in him and earning him two nominations: Best Director, and since he was one of the film's producers, Best Picture.
Hugo swept the technical categories at the Oscars, but Best Director was really between Martin Scorsese and The Artist's Michel Hazanavicius, which had also been heavily praised for its clever old-fashioned style. The awards ended up going to Hazanavicius, who pulled off a silent movie right in the beginning of a new decade.
7 The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)
In 2013, Scorsese found himself, once again, nominated at the Academy Awards when his movie, The Wolf Of Wall Street, cemented his place in the Best Director and Best Picture category. The movie followed the rise and fall of former stockbroker, Jordan Belfort, who was found guilty of fraud.
This time, the challenge was to effectively campaign such a controversial movie in the awards season: The Wolf Of Wall Street counted on an excessive amount of twisted sex scenes, drugs, and profanity. Despite it being a huge success, earning over $406 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo), it didn't thrive at the Oscars: 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture, and the Best Director award went to Alfoson Cuáron, who directed Gravity, a visually stunning sci-fi drama.
8 The Irishman (2019)
The Irishman was Netflix's best shot at the Oscars and earned Scorsese a Best Director and Best Picture nomination, receiving 10 nominations in total. However, just like Gangs Of New York in 2002, the movie didn't win a single statuette, with Scorsese losing to Parasite director Bong Joon-ho. While The Irishman was certainly an entertaining story, no one was really surprised that Martin Scorsese didn't take home the win as Parasite was an unstoppable force ever since its Palme D'or win, and was heavily praised for highlighting the inequality and the disparity of wealth between classes.
