3. Martin Scorsese
Filmography:
Who's That Knocking At My Door, Boxcar Bertha, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Kundun, Bringing out the Dead, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, Hugo. Critics will say Martin Scorsese has made plenty of poor and underwhelming movies, but this is Martin Scorsese and his worst films are infinitely better than most directors' very best work. His weaker work such as Kundun, Bringing out the Dead and Boxcar Bertha still have much to appreciate within them. Scorsese has had an incredibly high work-rate since 1968, releasing a film every two or three years which is remarkable given the quality of them. The collaborations with De Niro are what immediately stand out from his filmography. Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Raging Bull and Goodfellas are the films everybody immediately thinks about, but Scorsese has made numerous underrated classics in his career. The King of Comedy was one of the very best movies of the 80's, The Last Temptation of Christ likewise. Films like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and The Age of Innocence have also gone underappreciated as the years have gone by, so much so a copy of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is incredibly hard to get hold of. There's not a weak spot in Scorsese's catalogue, there's the odd messy film such as Gangs of New York and his mainstream genre effort with Shutter Island got some ridiculous criticism when it was one of the most enjoyable films of the year. His collaboration with Paul Schrader always resulted in excellence as seen in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and Scorsese to this day is still making incredible films, 2011's Hugo was a masterpiece and an extraordinary watch. Scorsese's weaker films, when judged on their own terms and not in comparison to his masterpieces, stand up as legitimately good films. Watch Boxcar Bertha again with an open mind, it's a good film that features some classic Scorsese violence that would go on to become a staple in his iconic films.