Thelma Schoonmaker Movies

Legendary director Martin Scorsese takes the helm for this tale of questionable loyalties and blurring identities set in the South Boston organized crime scene and inspired by the wildly popular 2002 Hong Kong crime film Infernal Affairs. As the police force attempts to reign in the increasingly powerful Irish mafia, authorities are faced with the prospect of sending in an undercover agent or seeing their already frail grip on the criminal underworld slip even further. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young cop looking to make a name for himself in the world of law enforcement. Collin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a street-smart criminal who has successfully infiltrated the police department with the sole intention of reporting their every move to ruthless syndicate head Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). When Costigan is assigned the task of working his way into Costello's tightly guarded inner circle, Sullivan is faced with the responsibility of rooting out the informer before things get out of hand. With the stakes constantly rising and time quickly running out for the undercover cop and his criminal counterpart, each man must work feverishly to reveal his counterpart before his identity is exposed by the other. Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and Ray Winstone co-star, and writer William Monahan adapts a screenplay originally penned by Alan Mak and Felix Chong. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese directed this fast-moving, epic-scale biopic documenting the life and loves one of the most colorful Americans of the 20th century, Howard Hughes. The Aviator follows Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as the twentysomething millionaire, having already made a fortune improving the design of oil-drilling bits, comes to Hollywood with an interest in getting into the picture business. It doesn't take long for Hughes, with his passion for airplanes, to jump from producer to director of his first major film project, a World War I air epic called Hell's Angels, which took three years to complete thanks to the shift from silent to sound filming and Hughes' relentless perfectionism. However, the film was a massive hit, and the eccentric inventor became a mogul in Hollywood, making Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani) a star and enjoying a romance with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). But Hollywood's old-boy network never fully accepted Hughes, and in time his passion for flying began to reclaim his attentions as he began designing new planes, setting air speed records, flying around the world, and risking his life testing aircraft. Hughes also found time to romance Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and founded his own airline, Trans-World Airlines, though as his ideas became bolder, his approach became more eccentric, and he gained many powerful enemies, including the head of Pan-American Airlines, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), and Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), who attempted to prove that Hughes' radical design ideas were actually part of an effort to bilk taxpayers for millions of dollars through government contracts. The Aviator's star-studded cast also includes John C. Reilly, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Ian Holm, and Frances Conroy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The violent rise of gangland power in New York City at a time of massive political corruption and the city's evolution into a cultural melting pot set the stage for this lavish historical epic, which director Martin Scorsese finally brought to the screen almost 30 years after he first began to plan the project. In 1846, as waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points, a number of citizens of British and Dutch heritage who were born in the United States began making an open display of their resentment toward the new arrivals. William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), better known as "Bill the Butcher" for his deadly skill with a knife, bands his fellow "Native Americans" into a gang to take on the Irish immigrants; the immigrants in turn form a gang of their own, "The Dead Rabbits," organized by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). After an especially bloody clash between the Natives and the Rabbits leaves Vallon dead, his son goes missing; the boy ends up in a brutal reform school before returning to the Five Points in 1862 as Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Now a strapping adult who has learned how to fight, Amsterdam has come to seek vengeance against Bill the Butcher, whose underworld control of the Five Points through violence and intimidation dovetails with the open corruption of New York politician "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam gradually penetrates Bill the Butcher's inner circle, and he soon becomes his trusted assistant. Amsterdam also finds himself falling for Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful but street-smart thief who was once involved with Bill. Amsterdam is learning a great deal from Bill, but before he can turn the tables on the man who killed his father, Amsterdam's true identity is exposed, even though he has concealed it from nearly everyone, including Jenny. Gangs Of New York was the first film in two years from actor Leonardo DiCaprio; ironically, it was at one time scheduled to open on the same day as Catch Me if You Can, the Steven Spielberg project that DiCaprio began filming immediately after Gangs wrapped. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This tense urban drama stars Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, a paramedic on the brink of physical and emotional collapse. Frank has worked for years in one of New York's most brutal neighborhoods, and the pressure of his job has taken its toll; plagued with self-doubt, he is haunted by the spirits of the people he couldn't save, and while he desperately wants to quit his job, outside forces won't let him walk away. Bringing Out the Dead brought director Martin Scorsese back to the streets of contemporary New York, one of his favorite locations, after three films set elsewhere: Kundun, Casino, and The Age of Innocence. The film also reunited Scorsese with screenwriter Paul Schrader, who scripted Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ. The supporting cast includes Patricia Arquette as the daughter of a heart attack victim that Frank has fallen in love with, and John Goodman and Ving Rhames as two of Frank's fellow drivers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Martin Scorsese film drama detailing the Dalai Lama's life story was in development for seven years, with the Dalai Lama having input into the 14 screenplay drafts by Melissa Mathison (The Black Stallion, E.T.). With four actors portraying the Dalai Lama at different ages, Scorsese's chronicle begins in 1933 with the death of the 13th Dalai Lama. Born in a remote area, the new Dalai Lama (seen at ages two and five in early sequences) is observed by monks who determine that he is the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion. In 1944 the Dalai Lama uses newsreels and Western magazines to study WWII events, and as the war ends, he is forced to deal with Chinese Communist aggression. Protests from the Dalai Lama in 1949 are ignored as Mao (Robert Lin) maintains a military stranglehold on Tibet, eventually forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to Dharmsala, India. With a $28 million budget, Scorsese re-created Tibet's tragedy by filming in south-central Morocco with a cast of nonprofessional Tibetan actors. Second unit work took place at locations in Idaho and British Columbia. Avant-garde composer Philip Glass contributed a score with hypnotic, ritualistic overtones. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In 1994, the British Film Institute commissioned a set of films to mark the centenary of the movies. They would trace the history of several national cinemas, and the BFI's choice for interpreting the history of American film fell to director Martin Scorsese, a longtime champion of film history and preservation. Scorsese's approach to his subject is director-centered, as he examines the tension inherent in the struggle of an artist wishing to make a personal statement against the collaborative nature of films and the commercial pressures of the Hollywood moviemaking factory. Segments of this series are devoted to the director as storyteller (examining narrative devices in the Western, gangster film, and musical), illusionist (technical tricks), smuggler (imbedding personal messages), and iconoclast (bucking the system to make films his own way). The series is replete with telling clips, not just snippets or shots, but entire scenes which illustrate Scorsese and co-director Michael Henry Wilson's points. Other filmmakers, including John Ford, Francis Ford Coppola, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles, are seen in archival footage or interviews created for the series, offering their own take on the art of filmmaking. Scorsese doesn't discriminate between filmmakers with glossy reputations and those who always worked on the fringe of public awareness. If anything, he goes out of his way to champion mavericks like Samuel Fuller whose "visceral cinema" never enjoyed box-office success or awards. Personal Journey was first shown on British TV, released in limited fashion to theaters in the United States, and shown here on TV as well. A tie-in book was published in 1997 by Miramax Books; it contains the entire script for the series, excellent black-and-white stills, and dialogue from some of the clips. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

In Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel, romance between an upper-class gentleman and an ostracized lady is doomed by 19th century New York society. Shortly after his engagement to blandly genteel May Welland (Winona Ryder), Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is reacquainted with May's scandalous cousin Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). As the head of an esteemed family, Archer initially uses his standing to try to rehabilitate Ellen's reputation, but he finds himself increasingly drawn to her disregard for the codes of New York manners. Bound by ingrained society mores and his peers' insinuations, Newland tries to dodge his growing passion by rushing his marriage to May, but he cannot keep himself from confessing his love to Ellen. Recognizing that Newland could never abandon his sense of honor and be happy, Ellen pushes Newland to May and leaves town. The marriage proceeds as dictated, but when Newland unexpectedly sees Ellen again, he yearns for the affair to come to fruition. However, he underestimates not only what May knows but also her ability to uphold the rules of propriety. Sumptuously shot by Michael Ballhaus, the film offers meticulously designed costumes and settings that evoke a culture as seductively beautiful in its surfaces as it is stifling in its rituals. Unspoken emotions are expressed through such details as yellow roses or a clipped cigar, a fade to red or a single camera move. Using Wharton's original prose to comment on the setting's hypocrisies, Joanne Woodward's voiceover narration suggests how much decisive power is buried beneath dainty femininity. The Age of Innocence received five Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Ryder and Best Screenplay for Scorsese and Jay Cocks, and a win for Best Costumes. Although The Age of Innocence seemed like a departure from Scorsese's prior work, Newland is as much at the mercy of his circle's Byzantine structure (and his own conscience) as are Scorsese's more familiar mobsters; Newland's persecutors just wear white tie and tails. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese explores the life of organized crime with his gritty, kinetic adaptation of Nicolas Pileggi's best-selling Wiseguy, the true-life account of mobster and FBI informant Henry Hill. Set to a true-to-period rock soundtrack, the story details the rise and fall of Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian New York kid who grows up idolizing the "wise guys" in his impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood. He begins hanging around the mobsters, running errands and doing odd jobs until he gains the notice of local chieftain Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), who takes him in as a surrogate son. As he reaches his teens, Hill (Ray Liotta) is inducted into the world of petty crime, where he distinguishes himself as a "stand-up guy" by choosing jail time over ratting on his accomplices. From that moment on, he is a part of the family. Along with his psychotic partner Tommy (Joe Pesci), he rises through the ranks to become Paulie's lieutenant; however, he quickly learns that, like his mentor Jimmy (Robert DeNiro), his ethnicity prevents him from ever becoming a "made guy," an actual member of the crime family. Soon he finds himself the target of both the feds and the mobsters, who feel that he has become a threat to their security with his reckless dealings. Goodfellas was rewarded with six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture; Pesci would walk away with Best Supporting Actor for his work. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Willem Dafoe plays Jesus Christ in this extraordinarily controversial adaptation of Nikos Kazantzaki's novel. The film depicts a sometimes reluctant, self-doubting Jesus, gradually coming to accept His divinity and the inexorability of His ultimate fate. The much-maligned sex scene with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) occurs as an hallucination experienced by Jesus as he suffers on the cross. This particular sequence was what infuriated the film's most rabid critics, but in fact it is just one of many iconoclastic musings to be found in the film and its source novel. Equally volatile are the intimations that, as a carpenter, Jesus indifferently shaped the crucifixes for other condemned prisoners long before his own fate was sealed, and that Judas (Harvey Keitel) was literally manipulated into betrayal by a Christ whose preoccuption with his own destiny compelled him to "use" others. None of these departures from the normal interpretation of the scriptures are offered as any more than theory; as such, it was accepted as food for thought by the more open-minded clerics and Biblical scholars who recommended the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's After Hours is a dark, tragi-comic tale of a fish out of water, centering on an uptight, white-bread computer consultant from uptown Manhattan who finds himself in the nightmarish and incomprehensible (to him) world of Soho after dark. The ordeal begins when Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) gets lonely and decides to leave the posh East Side and search the Soho streets for some loving from Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), the pretty young woman he met in a downtown cafe. He has her phone number and works up the nerve to call. She wants to see him, and so Paul grabs $20, hails a taxi and sets out. The weirdness begins when he loses his money during the high-speed cab ride. His visit to Marcy's loft, where he meets her crazed artist roommate Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), is a disaster, as is his encounter with the beehive-wearing retro waitress Julie (Teri Garr). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's brutal character study incisively portrays the true rise and fall and redemption of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, a violent man in and out of the ring who thrives on his ability (and desire) to take a beating. Opening with the spectacle of the over-the-hill La Motta (Robert De Niro) practicing his 1960s night-club act, the film flashes back to 1940s New York, when Jake's career is on the rise. Despite pressure from the local mobsters, Jake trusts his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) to help him make it to a title bout against Sugar Ray Robinson the honest way; the Mob, however, will not cave in. Jake gets the title bout, and blonde teenage second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), but success does nothing to exorcise his demons, even as he channels his rage into boxing. Alienating Vickie and Joey, and disastrously gaining weight, Jake has destroyed his personal and professional lives by the 1950s. After he hits bottom, however, Jake emerges with a gleam of self-awareness, as he sits rehearsing Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront speech in his dressing room mirror: "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody." Working with a script adapted by Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader from La Motta's memoirs, Scorsese and De Niro sought to make an uncompromising portrait of an unlikable man and his ruthless profession. Eschewing uplifting Rocky-like boxing movie conventions, their Jake is relentlessly cruel and self-destructive; the only peace he can make is with himself. Michael Chapman's stark black-and-white photography creates a documentary/tabloid realism; the production famously shut down so that De Niro could gain 50-plus pounds. Raging Bull opened in late 1980 to raves for its artistry and revulsion for its protagonist; despite eight Oscar nominations, it underperformed at the box office, as audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" films in the late '70s and early '80s. The Academy concurred, passing over Scorsese's work for Best Director and Picture in favor of Robert Redford and Ordinary People, although De Niro won a much-deserved Oscar, as did the film's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Oscar or no Oscar, Raging Bull has often been cited as the best American film of the 1980s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese oversees and edits this uneven collection of student videos filmed in New York. Protesters shout down profanely at anyone who opposes them and receive cat calls from construction workers. Anti war demonstrators march on Wall Street and travel to Washington to continue the protest. Students bemoan the state of world affairs. Black and white with color film is combined and dozens are listed in the production credits, most notably Oliver Stone. Persons on the street are subjected to interviews by the eager young filmmakers. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Shot over a period of several years and shown under the alternate titles I Call First and J.R., Martin Scorsese's debut feature is an autobiographical look at the conflicted life of a young, Italian-American, Catholic man in early 1960s New York. J.R. (then-unknown Harvey Keitel) spends his days and nights hanging out with his buddies in Little Italy, going to the movies, goofing around, and looking to score with "broads." When he meets The Girl (Zina Bethune) on the Staten Island ferry, she rocks his world with a shared admiration for John Ford's The Searchers (1956). A blond WASP beauty, the girl is more sophisticated than J.R.'s parochial friends and shows him that there's more to life than the neighborhood. J.R. falls in love, yet he refuses to soil her by sleeping with her. The girl, however, reveals that she is not a virgin because of a date rape. Locked in his Catholic virgin-whore complex, J.R. is disgusted by the revelation, but, after a squalid evening with his friends, J.R. decides to do the righteous thing by forgiving and marrying her. The girl will have none of it, leaving J.R. to sort out his prejudices on his own. Originally conceived as part of a trilogy with what would become Mean Streets (1973), the black-and-white Who's That Knocking already has the acute grasp of daily life, fluid camera movements, and vivid editing of images to music (such as the slo-mo scuffle to the lilting "El Watusi") that would define Scorsese's later work. Despite a successful debut at the 1967 Chicago Film Festival, no distributor picked up the film until a soft porn distributor agreed to release it if Scorsese added a nude scene. By the time, Who's That Knocking was finally released in 1969, with J.R.'s sexy fantasy accompanied by The Doors's "The End," the loose counterculture mood had made the focus on sexual repression seem out-of-date. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide