Martin Scorsese movies in order
Sixty years and more than twenty-five features. Here are the ones that matter, and the one to open with.
Updated 5 August 2026 · 13 titles tracked
Scorsese has directed for six decades, so any list is a selection. This one covers the major features rather than every credit.
The films do not connect, but they rhyme relentlessly: guilt, violence, Catholicism, and men who narrate their own downfall while it is happening.
Scorsese films, in a suggested starting order
His major features. An entry path rather than release order — toggle on the filmography page.
- 1Goodfellas1990 · Major work
- 2Taxi Driver1976 · Major work
- 3The Departed2006 · Major work
- 4Raging Bull1980 · Major work
- 5The Wolf of Wall Street2013 · Major work
- 6The Irishman2019 · Major work
- 7Killers of the Flower Moon2023 · Major work
- 8Casino1995
- 9Shutter Island2010
- 10Mean Streets1973
- 11The King of Comedy1982
- 12The Aviator2004
- 13Silence2016
Start with Goodfellas
It is the most immediately enjoyable film he has made, and it contains everything he does — the voiceover, the needle drops, the Copacabana long take, and thirty years of moral collapse compressed into 146 minutes.
Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are greater films. They are also much harder first watches: one is genuinely unpleasant by design, the other is about a man with no redeeming qualities, shot in black and white.
Go Goodfellas, then Taxi Driver, then The Departed, then Raging Bull.
The late run is not a decline
Unusually for a director in his eighties, the recent work is among his best. The Irishman is a three-and-a-half-hour elegy for every gangster film he ever made, and Killers of the Flower Moon tells the Osage murders from the perpetrators' side — a genuinely difficult structural choice that pays off.
Both are long. Neither is slack.
The underrated one
The King of Comedy flopped in 1982 and is now the template for a whole strain of modern film — Joker is essentially a remake of its mood. De Niro as a delusional aspiring comedian is closer to horror than comedy.
Common questions
What order should I watch Scorsese movies in?
They are standalone, so any order works. Start with Goodfellas, then Taxi Driver, The Departed and Raging Bull.
Which Scorsese movie should I watch first?
Goodfellas. It is the most accessible and contains everything that defines his style.
What is considered Scorsese's best film?
Usually Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or Goodfellas. Raging Bull is frequently named the best American film of the 1980s.