Martin Scorsese: Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

4. Mean Streets

"You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home. The rest is bulls**t, and you know it." The immortal lines which summed up some of the key themes that Martin Scorsese would explore throughout his career as a filmmaker, Mean Streets is where it all really began. Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro star as low-level gangsters desperate to hit the big time; it remains to this day Scorsese's first masterpiece. From the intense and energetic performances from two of Hollywood's biggest rising stars, to the frenetic camerawork which renders the city streets with a kinetic immediacy, this is Scorsese showing what he is truly capable of for the first time. It's almost impossible to understate just how influential Means Streets has been, not just on the gangster genre but on cinema as a whole. It also marked Scorsese as an intuitive director when it comes to music - the soundtrack to Mean Streets is as memorable as anything the director has made since.