Scorsese was born in Queens, New York, and raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy by Sicilian-American parents, Charles and Catherine Scorsese, both of whom later appeared in several of his films. Severe childhood asthma kept him from playing sports, and he has said he spent much of his youth watching films instead, an experience he has credited as foundational to his later career. He briefly considered the priesthood before enrolling at New York University’s film school.

Scorsese’s breakthrough came with Mean Streets (1973), a low-budget New York crime drama that began his long collaboration with Robert De Niro. Taxi Driver (1976), also starring De Niro, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and established Scorsese as one of the defining voices of the New Hollywood era of American filmmaking.

Photo: Georges Biard via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Scorsese went on to direct Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and Gangs of New York (2002), building one of film history’s most celebrated bodies of work. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006) after several prior nominations, and continued directing major films including The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Silence (2016), the Netflix-financed The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), a large-scale production backed by Apple. His collaborations with Robert De Niro span more than ten films, and with Leonardo DiCaprio more than six, among the longest-running actor-director partnerships in American film. Alongside his own directing work, Scorsese has been a prolific producer on other filmmakers’ projects and a vocal advocate for both classic and independent cinema, frequently using his public platform to champion films and directors he believes deserve wider recognition.

Photo: Created by Rita Molnár 2002. via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Scorsese’s income today comes primarily from director and producer fees on large-scale film productions, along with ongoing royalties from his extensive back catalog. Reports on The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon, both financed by major streaming and technology companies at budgets exceeding $150-200 million, suggest director fees in the low tens of millions of dollars for his more recent projects. His decades-long track record of critically acclaimed, award-winning films has also allowed him to command premium fees relative to most directors of any era, reflecting both his box office history and his cultural stature.

Netflix’s financing of The Irishman (2019) was widely reported at close to $159 million, one of the largest budgets the platform had committed to a single film at the time, reflecting Scorsese’s stature. Apple similarly financed Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) at a reported budget of roughly $200 million, underscoring the premium studios and streamers continue to place on his direction even deep into his career.

Scorsese has been far less involved in commercial endorsements than most actors of his stature, focusing his public work almost entirely on filmmaking, though he has appeared in select television commercials over the decades, including a well-known 1990s campaign for the Spanish wine and cava producer Freixenet.

Scorsese founded Sikelia Productions, his production company, through which he produces both his own films and projects by other directors. He is also the founder of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to film preservation, and co-founded the World Cinema Project to restore and preserve international films at risk of being lost.

Scorsese has maintained residences in New York, including a Manhattan home, consistent with his lifelong connection to the city that has provided the backdrop for many of his films. He has generally kept a lower public profile around personal assets compared to actors of similar wealth.