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Martin Scorsese All the Films: The Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short
Discover the cinematic genius behind every Martin Scorsese film. From gritty urban tales to sweeping epics, this definitive book celebrates every feature film, documentary, and short by one of cinema’s greatest directors.
Scorsese is a living legend. Over the last 50 years, he has redefined cinema, crafting stories of crime, faith, obsession, and redemption, becoming one of the most revered directors alive. All the Films is the ultimate deep dive into every one of his films from his early indie days with Who That Knocking at My Door to his latest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, plus classics such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas that are regularly cited as being among the finest films ever made.
Covering each of the director’s 26 feature films, 17 documentary films, 7 short films, and 4 television episodes, the book draws upon years of research to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how each project was conceived, cast, and produced. It explores the themes, techniques, and cultural impact of each movie, examining how Scorsese’s work evolved alongside his personal obsessions and how he has navigated Hollywood’s changing landscape. Also included are insights into his collaborations with actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, screenwriter Paul Schrader and many more. With more than 250 behind-the-scenes stills, photographs, posters, and ephemera, this is a definitive celebration of one of cinema’s most enduring talents.
Scorsese is a living legend. Over the last 50 years, he has redefined cinema, crafting stories of crime, faith, obsession, and redemption, becoming one of the most revered directors alive. All the Films is the ultimate deep dive into every one of his films from his early indie days with Who That Knocking at My Door to his latest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, plus classics such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas that are regularly cited as being among the finest films ever made.
Covering each of the director’s 26 feature films, 17 documentary films, 7 short films, and 4 television episodes, the book draws upon years of research to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how each project was conceived, cast, and produced. It explores the themes, techniques, and cultural impact of each movie, examining how Scorsese’s work evolved alongside his personal obsessions and how he has navigated Hollywood’s changing landscape. Also included are insights into his collaborations with actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, screenwriter Paul Schrader and many more. With more than 250 behind-the-scenes stills, photographs, posters, and ephemera, this is a definitive celebration of one of cinema’s most enduring talents.
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504 pages, Hardcover
Published March 3, 2026
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March 24, 2026
Originally published in Boston's Art Fuse
Martin Scorsese: All The Films offers a comprehensive survey of more than six decades of the director’s career. The book combines biographical notes, production histories, critical commentary, background details, anecdotes, and a strong selection of production photos. Coming in at 500 pages, authors Olivier Bousquet, Arnaud Devillard and Nicolas Schaller manage to keep chronology moving, supplying a clear, readable overview that informs and engages. Covering 26 feature films, 17 documentaries, seven shorts, and four television projects, the volume is a smorgasbord filled with behind-the-scenes photos, thematic essays, concise summaries, and insights into casting decisions and performances.
Best of all, there are welcome surprises along the way. Midway through the book arrives an essay entitled “Guardian of the Temple,” the temple being the “seventh art” of cinema. The piece goes into the making of the documentary series A Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, as well as his concerns with the fading of color film stock. The piece also contextualizes his 2019 comments on Marvel blockbusters: “That’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are, are theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” He later clarified his position: in a response published in The New York Times, he stated that he believes that film is an art form — not just a business. Here is how he put it: “I’ve always felt visual literacy is just as important as verbal literacy.”
A lifelong infatuation with film and early appetite for B-movies contributed to a style that embraced an encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood history as well as European art-house cinema. As a student at New York University’s Television, Film and Radio Department, Scorsese became familiar with the everyday workings of moviemaking. A formative directing workshop with Haig P. Manoogian led to a short feature, What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This. Intended as a horror film, the piece “actually turned out to be a comedy,” a statement that speaks to Scorsese’s sensibility, which is comfortable with paradox. The book notes that the hero of that film “already bears the hallmarks of the Scorsese antihero: anxious and paranoid.” It is infrequently screened, but can be viewed on YouTube.
Next came The Big Shave, a short film about a man shaving. Blood pours out razor touches flesh. The project has been called “a personal vision of death” (from Scorsese on Scorsese). The authors call this “the first Christ-like image in Scorsese’s cinema.” Next came a trilogy of small films, in which his mentor Manoogian instructed him to “free himself from the Hollywood format and to allow personal experience to express itself.”
Scorsese’s first commercial film was 1967’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, while he was still at NYU. It was followed by 1972’s Boxcar Bertha, produced with Roger Corman, whose low-budget production methods were of use to many notable figures in film. Bertha was made in 24 days for $600,000 ($4.4 million in 2024 dollars) — it doubled its investment. John Cassavetes advised Scorsese, “You spent a year of your life making a piece of shit. You’re better than that stuff; you don’t do that again.” The warning stuck: 1973’s Mean Streets (originally titled Season of the Witch) established Scorsese as a personal filmmaker. It also introduced Harvey Keitel, whom the book calls “his double,” and cast the young Robert De Niro, who later became a well-known alter ego for Scorsese. The following year, the director also made the 49-minute documentary Italianamerican. Eschewing the tough talk of the streets, the narrative was about the young director’s parents, their roots, heritage, and family stories. It was a return to the stories of the immigrant experience that had initially fed his imagination.
In 1972, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore followed, introducing the kind of strong female characters to which the book devotes an essay, “Blondes, Mothers, and Madonnas.” Amid the flood of films dominated by men with type-A personalities, women like Barbara Hershey in Boxcar Bertha, Sharon Stone in Casino or Lili Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon exemplified a response: these are resolute women who confront and/or endure childish men.
With Taxi Driver, which the authors call a “sociological horror film,” Scorsese fully established himself as one of the stars of the New Hollywood. An essay titled “With the Movie Brats” places the director into sociopolitical perspective alongside Coppola, DePalma, Spielberg, Lucas, and several others of this new generation of “friendly individualities with their own agenda.”
A venture into musical genres followed. New York, New York, the De Niro-Minnelli musical, was met with controversy and mixed reception, but The Last Waltz has become a landmark concert film, a star-studded record of The Band’s farewell performance. Before his next major project, Scorsese returned to an examination of his life and times with “American Boy: Profile of Steve Prince,” a 55-minute profile, reminiscent of the earlier Italianamerican. It was a quick experiment, an effort to “tell the story of America.” Prince was a sort of all-purpose worker for the director, best known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is set up as the voice of his generation, representing its “disillusionment and excess.” This jittery film was never released, though it, too, is available online and at the Criterion Channel.
While filming The Last Waltz, the director had become close with Robbie Robertson. In his 2016 memoir, Insomnia, the musician writes about what he calls the “outer limits of excess and experience” that the two experienced. American Boy and the production of Raging Bull (1980) came at a time when Scorsese was also sliding into serious cocaine addiction. This book, however, largely sidesteps that chaotic period. Instead, it devotes a detailed chapter to Jake LaMotta, Robert De Niro, and the film’s long, difficult path to production. Raging Bull is now acknowledged as a masterpiece.
In the 1980s, Scorsese continued his winning streak with King of Comedy, The Color of Money, New York Stories, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Each one furthers his experiment with genres. In 1990, he returned to the gangster picture with Goodfellas, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. His editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, handed him the script, and his friend, 80 year-old British director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes), encouraged him to take it on to “revitalize the genre.”
The 1990s saw Scorsese expanding his narrative reach: remakes of Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence, a return to the gangster epic with Casino, the spiritual biography Kundun, and the urban drama Bringing Out the Dead. In the midst of this flurry came the three-part documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), first broadcast in the UK and later shown on PBS. The series was divided into three parts: “The Storyteller,” “The Illusionist,” and “The Smuggler.” The director speaks directly to the camera about the filmmakers who shaped him. He continued that cinematic reflection with My Voyage to Italy (1999), which traces Italian cinema from the silent era through De Sica, Antonioni, and Fellini. Together, the two documentaries form an aesthetic self-portrait: Hollywood and Italian neorealism, spectacle and moral inquiry, the twin traditions that define Scorsese’s paradoxical vision.
Following an essay titled “Blood on the Pavement: The Spectacle of Violence,” Martin Scorsese: All the Films dives into Gangs of New York, the first of the director’s many collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio. That film was anchored by the bravura performance of Daniel Day-Lewis; it was also supported by a $77 million budget, with Robbie Robertson composing the score and Michael Ballhaus as cinematographer (he had shot five previous Scorsese films). Set in 1863 in the vicious Five Points section of New York, the director intended it to be a mythic film about democracy’s primal growing pains. He told writer Jay Cocks (who penned the script with Kenneth Lonergan and Steve Zaillian) that the film should emphasize archetype over historical reality, or, as Scorsese put it, “Think of it like a Western in Outer Space.”
This first two-thirds of the volume offers valuable insights into Scorsese’s artistic evolution across 18 features, several personal documentaries, shorts, and accompanying essays. The remaining third still has a lot of ground to cover, including eight more features and eight remarkable documentaries that Scorsese has directed since 2005. At age 83, he is still experimenting with genre while maintaining a commitment to examining the American cultural landscape. These investigations include No Direction Home, a series on Bob Dylan (2005); Shine a Light (2008), a Rolling Stones concert film; A Letter to Elia (Kazan) (2010); Rolling Thunder Review (2019); George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2021); and two television documentaries with Fran Lebowitz, Public Speaking and Pretend It’s a City.
Wisely, the authors do not attempt a definitive analysis of the director’s style and substance. Instead, Martin Scorsese: All the Films succeeds as a brisk, thoughtful survey of a large and significant body of work consolidated into a thick, coffee-table-style book that includes a generous array of photographs. The volume is consistently engaging and informative — a lively, visually appealing guide to one of cinema’s most formidable careers.
Martin Scorsese: All The Films offers a comprehensive survey of more than six decades of the director’s career. The book combines biographical notes, production histories, critical commentary, background details, anecdotes, and a strong selection of production photos. Coming in at 500 pages, authors Olivier Bousquet, Arnaud Devillard and Nicolas Schaller manage to keep chronology moving, supplying a clear, readable overview that informs and engages. Covering 26 feature films, 17 documentaries, seven shorts, and four television projects, the volume is a smorgasbord filled with behind-the-scenes photos, thematic essays, concise summaries, and insights into casting decisions and performances.
Best of all, there are welcome surprises along the way. Midway through the book arrives an essay entitled “Guardian of the Temple,” the temple being the “seventh art” of cinema. The piece goes into the making of the documentary series A Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, as well as his concerns with the fading of color film stock. The piece also contextualizes his 2019 comments on Marvel blockbusters: “That’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are, are theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” He later clarified his position: in a response published in The New York Times, he stated that he believes that film is an art form — not just a business. Here is how he put it: “I’ve always felt visual literacy is just as important as verbal literacy.”
A lifelong infatuation with film and early appetite for B-movies contributed to a style that embraced an encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood history as well as European art-house cinema. As a student at New York University’s Television, Film and Radio Department, Scorsese became familiar with the everyday workings of moviemaking. A formative directing workshop with Haig P. Manoogian led to a short feature, What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This. Intended as a horror film, the piece “actually turned out to be a comedy,” a statement that speaks to Scorsese’s sensibility, which is comfortable with paradox. The book notes that the hero of that film “already bears the hallmarks of the Scorsese antihero: anxious and paranoid.” It is infrequently screened, but can be viewed on YouTube.
Next came The Big Shave, a short film about a man shaving. Blood pours out razor touches flesh. The project has been called “a personal vision of death” (from Scorsese on Scorsese). The authors call this “the first Christ-like image in Scorsese’s cinema.” Next came a trilogy of small films, in which his mentor Manoogian instructed him to “free himself from the Hollywood format and to allow personal experience to express itself.”
Scorsese’s first commercial film was 1967’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, while he was still at NYU. It was followed by 1972’s Boxcar Bertha, produced with Roger Corman, whose low-budget production methods were of use to many notable figures in film. Bertha was made in 24 days for $600,000 ($4.4 million in 2024 dollars) — it doubled its investment. John Cassavetes advised Scorsese, “You spent a year of your life making a piece of shit. You’re better than that stuff; you don’t do that again.” The warning stuck: 1973’s Mean Streets (originally titled Season of the Witch) established Scorsese as a personal filmmaker. It also introduced Harvey Keitel, whom the book calls “his double,” and cast the young Robert De Niro, who later became a well-known alter ego for Scorsese. The following year, the director also made the 49-minute documentary Italianamerican. Eschewing the tough talk of the streets, the narrative was about the young director’s parents, their roots, heritage, and family stories. It was a return to the stories of the immigrant experience that had initially fed his imagination.
In 1972, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore followed, introducing the kind of strong female characters to which the book devotes an essay, “Blondes, Mothers, and Madonnas.” Amid the flood of films dominated by men with type-A personalities, women like Barbara Hershey in Boxcar Bertha, Sharon Stone in Casino or Lili Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon exemplified a response: these are resolute women who confront and/or endure childish men.
With Taxi Driver, which the authors call a “sociological horror film,” Scorsese fully established himself as one of the stars of the New Hollywood. An essay titled “With the Movie Brats” places the director into sociopolitical perspective alongside Coppola, DePalma, Spielberg, Lucas, and several others of this new generation of “friendly individualities with their own agenda.”
A venture into musical genres followed. New York, New York, the De Niro-Minnelli musical, was met with controversy and mixed reception, but The Last Waltz has become a landmark concert film, a star-studded record of The Band’s farewell performance. Before his next major project, Scorsese returned to an examination of his life and times with “American Boy: Profile of Steve Prince,” a 55-minute profile, reminiscent of the earlier Italianamerican. It was a quick experiment, an effort to “tell the story of America.” Prince was a sort of all-purpose worker for the director, best known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is set up as the voice of his generation, representing its “disillusionment and excess.” This jittery film was never released, though it, too, is available online and at the Criterion Channel.
While filming The Last Waltz, the director had become close with Robbie Robertson. In his 2016 memoir, Insomnia, the musician writes about what he calls the “outer limits of excess and experience” that the two experienced. American Boy and the production of Raging Bull (1980) came at a time when Scorsese was also sliding into serious cocaine addiction. This book, however, largely sidesteps that chaotic period. Instead, it devotes a detailed chapter to Jake LaMotta, Robert De Niro, and the film’s long, difficult path to production. Raging Bull is now acknowledged as a masterpiece.
In the 1980s, Scorsese continued his winning streak with King of Comedy, The Color of Money, New York Stories, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Each one furthers his experiment with genres. In 1990, he returned to the gangster picture with Goodfellas, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. His editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, handed him the script, and his friend, 80 year-old British director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes), encouraged him to take it on to “revitalize the genre.”
The 1990s saw Scorsese expanding his narrative reach: remakes of Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence, a return to the gangster epic with Casino, the spiritual biography Kundun, and the urban drama Bringing Out the Dead. In the midst of this flurry came the three-part documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), first broadcast in the UK and later shown on PBS. The series was divided into three parts: “The Storyteller,” “The Illusionist,” and “The Smuggler.” The director speaks directly to the camera about the filmmakers who shaped him. He continued that cinematic reflection with My Voyage to Italy (1999), which traces Italian cinema from the silent era through De Sica, Antonioni, and Fellini. Together, the two documentaries form an aesthetic self-portrait: Hollywood and Italian neorealism, spectacle and moral inquiry, the twin traditions that define Scorsese’s paradoxical vision.
Following an essay titled “Blood on the Pavement: The Spectacle of Violence,” Martin Scorsese: All the Films dives into Gangs of New York, the first of the director’s many collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio. That film was anchored by the bravura performance of Daniel Day-Lewis; it was also supported by a $77 million budget, with Robbie Robertson composing the score and Michael Ballhaus as cinematographer (he had shot five previous Scorsese films). Set in 1863 in the vicious Five Points section of New York, the director intended it to be a mythic film about democracy’s primal growing pains. He told writer Jay Cocks (who penned the script with Kenneth Lonergan and Steve Zaillian) that the film should emphasize archetype over historical reality, or, as Scorsese put it, “Think of it like a Western in Outer Space.”
This first two-thirds of the volume offers valuable insights into Scorsese’s artistic evolution across 18 features, several personal documentaries, shorts, and accompanying essays. The remaining third still has a lot of ground to cover, including eight more features and eight remarkable documentaries that Scorsese has directed since 2005. At age 83, he is still experimenting with genre while maintaining a commitment to examining the American cultural landscape. These investigations include No Direction Home, a series on Bob Dylan (2005); Shine a Light (2008), a Rolling Stones concert film; A Letter to Elia (Kazan) (2010); Rolling Thunder Review (2019); George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2021); and two television documentaries with Fran Lebowitz, Public Speaking and Pretend It’s a City.
Wisely, the authors do not attempt a definitive analysis of the director’s style and substance. Instead, Martin Scorsese: All the Films succeeds as a brisk, thoughtful survey of a large and significant body of work consolidated into a thick, coffee-table-style book that includes a generous array of photographs. The volume is consistently engaging and informative — a lively, visually appealing guide to one of cinema’s most formidable careers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Black Dog & Leventhal for an advance copy of this guide to the life and works of one of not only one of the best film directors currently working, but a booster and supporter of films of all kinds, a preserver of cinema history, a a documentarian of some of music's biggest stars.
There are few people in the world who enjoy what they do more than Martin Scorsese. Not only a film director, but an actor, a historian of the rich history of cinema. A preserver and walking encylopedia of movies, not just here but from all around the world. An actor not only in his own works, but in commercials for credit cards, and for other famous directors. Scorsese's oeuvre is one filled with movies that will played well after all of us are gone, starting discussions, turning heads and entertaining as Scorsese was entertained watching films on the small television screen in his apartment. This love came from a lot of influences, influences that the authors of the book discuss and share, along with the highs and lows of the director's career. Martin Scorsese All the Films: The Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short by Olivier Bousquet, Arnaud Devillard and Nicolas Schaller is an exhaustive investigation of the director's life, works, successes, those that got away and the films that got away from even the master.
The book begins with a look at the Scorsese family, his parents who later became actors in many of the director's films. Martin Scorsese was born in Queens, but changes in the family fortune brought him back to his parent's old neighborhood, Little Italy in Manhattan. Scorsese had asthma which limited Scorsese's world to his bedroom, and the fire escape where he watched the people around him, the gangsters and wannabes, the good people, the odd people, all those who he drew on for his movies. Movies were his escape from his limited circumstances, watching movies on channel 9 and channel 11, reading a book on film history at his library constantly. Films were a constant, the one thing Scorsese knew he wanted to do. And films became more important to him than oxygen. Short films in school lead to interest lead to bigger things, but his big break came from B-movie maven Roger Corman, who gave him a his first big break. Other movies followed, along with meeting his muse Robert De Niro, his accomplice in many of his films. Success was balanced by failures, movies that have since become part of the film cannon. And Scorsese is still not finished yet.
An exhaustive look at a director who always seems on. Full of energy, full of passion, and boisterous about film, the power of film and how films should be preserved for later generations. The book covers everything, shorts, commercials, documentaries, and of course all the features. There are asides about the work of others editors, screenwriters, actors and more. The writers are honest about when a film doesn't seem to gel, about Scorsese's drug use, and numerous marriages. The authors really know their stuff, with stories about casting problems, behind the scenes problems, and the inevitable studio influence. I have not read a book that really covers a career this well, and frankly there is a lot to cover.
A book for fan's and more importantly for those who love film. There are technical notes, notes on how to film scenes, and lots of mentions of movies that will help fill the watch list of many a streaming service. A really wonderful book about a man who loves what he does, and is good at what he loves. And we are the better for it.
There are few people in the world who enjoy what they do more than Martin Scorsese. Not only a film director, but an actor, a historian of the rich history of cinema. A preserver and walking encylopedia of movies, not just here but from all around the world. An actor not only in his own works, but in commercials for credit cards, and for other famous directors. Scorsese's oeuvre is one filled with movies that will played well after all of us are gone, starting discussions, turning heads and entertaining as Scorsese was entertained watching films on the small television screen in his apartment. This love came from a lot of influences, influences that the authors of the book discuss and share, along with the highs and lows of the director's career. Martin Scorsese All the Films: The Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short by Olivier Bousquet, Arnaud Devillard and Nicolas Schaller is an exhaustive investigation of the director's life, works, successes, those that got away and the films that got away from even the master.
The book begins with a look at the Scorsese family, his parents who later became actors in many of the director's films. Martin Scorsese was born in Queens, but changes in the family fortune brought him back to his parent's old neighborhood, Little Italy in Manhattan. Scorsese had asthma which limited Scorsese's world to his bedroom, and the fire escape where he watched the people around him, the gangsters and wannabes, the good people, the odd people, all those who he drew on for his movies. Movies were his escape from his limited circumstances, watching movies on channel 9 and channel 11, reading a book on film history at his library constantly. Films were a constant, the one thing Scorsese knew he wanted to do. And films became more important to him than oxygen. Short films in school lead to interest lead to bigger things, but his big break came from B-movie maven Roger Corman, who gave him a his first big break. Other movies followed, along with meeting his muse Robert De Niro, his accomplice in many of his films. Success was balanced by failures, movies that have since become part of the film cannon. And Scorsese is still not finished yet.
An exhaustive look at a director who always seems on. Full of energy, full of passion, and boisterous about film, the power of film and how films should be preserved for later generations. The book covers everything, shorts, commercials, documentaries, and of course all the features. There are asides about the work of others editors, screenwriters, actors and more. The writers are honest about when a film doesn't seem to gel, about Scorsese's drug use, and numerous marriages. The authors really know their stuff, with stories about casting problems, behind the scenes problems, and the inevitable studio influence. I have not read a book that really covers a career this well, and frankly there is a lot to cover.
A book for fan's and more importantly for those who love film. There are technical notes, notes on how to film scenes, and lots of mentions of movies that will help fill the watch list of many a streaming service. A really wonderful book about a man who loves what he does, and is good at what he loves. And we are the better for it.
November 18, 2025
Martin Scorsese All the Films by Olivier Bousquet, Arnaud Devillard, andNicolas Schaller is everything you would want about all of Scorsese's work in a single volume.
Whether you're specifically a Scorsese fan or a film buff in general, this book will be a source of endless information. The entries for each film includes how the concept came to be, pre-production and production highlights as well as reception and any additional context to help the reader understand the film. This was what I was expecting and hoping for, and I would have been completely satisfied had that been the extent of the content. But there was more.
Scattered throughout are short essays that focus on some key themes that run through his work, as well as portraits of key collaborators and explanations on key motifs as well. These serve to help tie all of his work together into a more complete whole, and are just plain interesting to read.
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in film and film history as well as any Scorsese fans. You can read this cover-to-cover, jump around based on what interests you, or keep it as a reference. I started reading straight through and after getting well into the 2000s I decided to start over and read each selection while viewing either the complete film or specific scenes, so I think a reader will be tempted to do all three: read it through to get the big picture, then jump around when they are curious about something they want to be sure of, as well as use it as a reference whether for further research or for a personal multimedia course.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Whether you're specifically a Scorsese fan or a film buff in general, this book will be a source of endless information. The entries for each film includes how the concept came to be, pre-production and production highlights as well as reception and any additional context to help the reader understand the film. This was what I was expecting and hoping for, and I would have been completely satisfied had that been the extent of the content. But there was more.
Scattered throughout are short essays that focus on some key themes that run through his work, as well as portraits of key collaborators and explanations on key motifs as well. These serve to help tie all of his work together into a more complete whole, and are just plain interesting to read.
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in film and film history as well as any Scorsese fans. You can read this cover-to-cover, jump around based on what interests you, or keep it as a reference. I started reading straight through and after getting well into the 2000s I decided to start over and read each selection while viewing either the complete film or specific scenes, so I think a reader will be tempted to do all three: read it through to get the big picture, then jump around when they are curious about something they want to be sure of, as well as use it as a reference whether for further research or for a personal multimedia course.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Martin Scorsese: All the Films (UK release March 3) is a hugely enjoyable and informative survey of the great director’s career.
Alongside a chronological account of every film, documentary, and television project, the book explores Scorsese’s recurring themes, his use of music, his casting choices, and even the films that never made it to the screen. Side panels and breakout sections highlight points of interest for each movie, and the volume is sumptuously illustrated with hundreds of photographs, mixing stills with behind-the-scenes images.
Translated from the French — with the occasional transliteration eccentricity that only adds to its charm — the book is absorbing and impressively well researched, offering a rounded sense of Scorsese both as filmmaker and as man.
After a concise biography of his early years and influences, we move into decade-by-decade studies of the films themselves. These sections — concise, considered, and revealing — are interspersed with Motif, Focus, and Portrait interludes, which provide brief but persuasive appraisals of his themes, techniques, and collaborators.
I’m a huge film buff, and books like this, with their attention to detail and evident fascination with their subject, are a particular pleasure. It’s no small task to distil a career of such longevity, depth, and variety into a single, digestible volume, but Bousquet, Devillard, and Schaller manage it with impressive assurance.
This deserves a place on the shelves of anyone interested in the history and context of modern filmmaking.
Alongside a chronological account of every film, documentary, and television project, the book explores Scorsese’s recurring themes, his use of music, his casting choices, and even the films that never made it to the screen. Side panels and breakout sections highlight points of interest for each movie, and the volume is sumptuously illustrated with hundreds of photographs, mixing stills with behind-the-scenes images.
Translated from the French — with the occasional transliteration eccentricity that only adds to its charm — the book is absorbing and impressively well researched, offering a rounded sense of Scorsese both as filmmaker and as man.
After a concise biography of his early years and influences, we move into decade-by-decade studies of the films themselves. These sections — concise, considered, and revealing — are interspersed with Motif, Focus, and Portrait interludes, which provide brief but persuasive appraisals of his themes, techniques, and collaborators.
I’m a huge film buff, and books like this, with their attention to detail and evident fascination with their subject, are a particular pleasure. It’s no small task to distil a career of such longevity, depth, and variety into a single, digestible volume, but Bousquet, Devillard, and Schaller manage it with impressive assurance.
This deserves a place on the shelves of anyone interested in the history and context of modern filmmaking.
May 5, 2026
A great coffee table size book - covering all of Martin Scorsese's films, television series, and some commercials he made. Before reading this book, I thought I knew of or had seen a lot of it -- I was wrong -- there is a lot more he has done in his career. I really like how this book is laid out - it has an overview page with cast and crew details and then goes into plot and "behind-the-scenes" including Scorsese's struggle with drugs earlier in his career during some of the most iconic films. We also learn about the discovery and careers of many of his actors - Robert De Niro, Leonardo Di Caprio and Joe Pesci to name a few. We also learn a lot about Paul Schrader, a great director and writer in his own right Like Hitchcock, Scorese has cameos in his films and now I know to look intentionally for them. Reading this incredibly well-researched and detailed book makes me want to see the work I have not yet seen as well as gave me renewed and enhanced appreciation for the films of his I have seen. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.
Thank you to Netgalley and Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.
March 19, 2026
If you have never read a thing about Martin Scorsese, here is the place to start. Since there are tons of books out there about Scorsese, readers with experience on the subject will feel like getting this for the sake of completism. This is a better volume than the recent compilation on Steven Spielberg's career, since it does include some criticism of Scorsese's work... plenty from the director himself.
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