Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese almost became a priest. He spent a year in a junior seminary as a teenager before deciding Catholic guilt translated better to film than to the confessional. Mean Streets (1973) was the proof of concept, a semi-autobiographical portrait of Little Italy that introduced Robert De Niro to the world. What followed was a streak most directors don't manage across an entire career: Taxi Driver won the Palme d'Or, Raging Bull pulled eight Oscar nominations, Goodfellas became the template for crime cinema. Every film ran on the same fuel: the same neighborhood, the same Catholicism, the same dread.

At 83, he's still in the conversation in a way most directors aren't at 53. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) made him the oldest Best Director nominee in Oscar history. He's currently in Prague shooting What Happens at Night, a Gothic horror film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, their seventh collaboration. A Frank Sinatra biopic sits on hold because the estate won't sign off. There's also a Hawaii mob film with Dwayne Johnson still circling. He refuses to slow down, and at 83, nobody's willing to bet against him.

He was too asthmatic to play outside as a kid in Little Italy, so his parents took him to the movies. The Film Foundation, which he founded in 1990 alongside Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stanley Kubrick, has since restored more than 800 films from around the world. Most people know him for Goodfellas and Taxi Driver. Fewer know he's spent more than 35 years personally saving cinema from its own carelessness.