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There exists a laundry list of great performers who have worked with Martin Scorsese as he emerged from New Hollywood. But none more frequently, effectively, or memorably than Robert De Niro. While Scorsese has built a strong relationship with several actors, specifically Leonardo Di Caprio in recent years, De Niro is still most closely tied to the American filmmaker, with ten collaborations together.

Among Scorsese’s other frequent collaborators is Catherine Scorsese (7 films), the director’s mother, who often appeared in small roles and famously cooked for cast and crew. Leonardo DiCaprio (6 films) has been Scorsese’s go-to lead since 2002, starring in films like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Departed. Harvey Keitel has also been a mainstay (6 films) and played key roles in the filmmaker’s early works like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, later returning for The Irishman.

Martin Scorsese (M), Robert De Niro (L), and Harvey...

One of Goodfellas lightest and funniest scenes is a big contrast with what Henry (Ray Liotta), Tommy (Joe Pesci), and Jimmy (Robert De Niro) are going through at that moment, but one detail gives a whole new meaning to it. Although Martin Scorsese has made various gangster movies, all of them praised by critics, Goodfellas is the one widely regarded as his best in that genre. Based on Nicholas Pileggis 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy, Goodfellas chronicles the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill, from his teenage days running errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew, to becoming part of it.

While working for Pauls family, Henry met many big names in the mob and became close to some of them, such as Tommy DeVito and Jimmy The Gent Conway. Together, Henry, Tommy, and Jimmy committed various crimes, including the infamous Lufthansa heist. Henry and Jimmy even helped...

Filmmaking was the domain of Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese before Joe and Anthony Russo turned it into a family affair. How? The director of Taxi Driver, 81, has worked on almost every movie in which his family was involved. Catherine Scorsese, his late mother, was one of his closest collaborators and made appearances in several of her son’s films.

Her most famous role, however, is that of Mrs. DeVito (Tommy’s mother) in the Robert De Niro starrer film Goodfellas. And Scorsese once shared a cute little fact about this cameo. Having said that, even though it is unquestionably a superbly made film, one of its most memorable scenes was still largely improvised.

Martin Scorsese at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival | image: Wikimedia Commons/Siebb

Indeed, the dinner scene with Catherine Scorsese is unquestionably hilarious in this biographical crime drama film, and to make the scene even better, she improvised most part of it.

Goodfellas is regarded as one of the best gangster films ever made, and it has a bunch of iconic quotes. Martin Scorsese has explored various genres throughout his career as a filmmaker – from black comedy with After Hours to historical drama with Silence – but he’s still best known for his crime and gangster movies. The movie considered not only his best from this genre but his best, in general, is Goodfellas, based on the nonfiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. Goodfellas chronicles the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), who was part of the Lucchese crime family and ended up becoming an FBI informant.

During his time with the mob, Henry became close to some big mafia names, as were Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino), Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), with whom he got involved in different crimes. Although Goodfellas is narrated by Henry,...

The New York Dolls’ wildly original debut album got Martin Scorsese through the making of “Mean Streets” in 1973.

Years later, Dolls frontman David Johansen enlivened the soundtrack of Scorsese’s HBO series productions “Boardwalk Empire” and “Vinyl.” Scorsese is also a regular listener of Johansen’s Sirius Xm series “Mansion of Fun.”

Finally, after Scorsese caught Johansen’s career-spanning cabaret set at the Café Carlyle, the director-producer – a storied teller of New York stories – decided that the time was ripe for a documentary on the proto-punk scion of Staten Island. “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” which debuted April 14 on Showtime, chronicles Johansen’s evolution from the Dolls to the lounge-y pop of his Buster Poindexter period through his present day life as a husband, stepfather and eminence grise of New York’s music scene.

Scorsese, Johansen, “Personality” co-director and editor David Tedeschi and executive producer Margaret Bodde gathered April 25 at...

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is based on a true story and on real-life gangsters, but it made some big changes to the stories of these characters, among them Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), whose real name was Tommy DeSimone. In Goodfellas, Tommy is constantly asked when he will get married, but the story of the real Tommy DeVito was very different. Based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Goodfellas chronicles the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his days as a teenager running errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew to becoming one of them and later becoming an FBI informant.

During his time in the mob, Henry worked closely with some of the biggest names in the mob back then, but he was especially close to two of them: Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito. Henry and Tommy...

Aside from themes like redemption, nihilism, and the Italian-American lifestyle, what many of Martin Scorsese’s works have in common are cameo appearances by his parents, Catherine and Charles Scorsese – and here’s every one of them. Martin Scorsese’s career as a filmmaker began in 1967 with the independent drama movie Who’s That Knocking On My Door, which was also the acting debut of Harvey Keitel (who would go on to appear in other Scorsese projects) and of Catherine Scorsese after appearing in her son’s short-film It’s Not You, Murray! in 1964.

Who’s That Knocking On My Door gave the audience a taste of Scorsese’s style and the themes he liked to address in his films, and marked a couple of trends in his movies, including the appearance of some of his most frequent collaborators: his parents. Catherine and Charles Scorsese weren’t actors before their son started making movies,...

Joe Pesci's career has been filled with gems throughout the years. He's constantly shown off his range from his comedic turn in "My Cousin Vinny," to his fiery roles in Martin Scorsese's Casino." He even combined his comedic chops and intensity in a strange way in his role as one of the Wet Bandits in the family-friendly "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York." But Pesci was never content with the evolution of his craft, and in his latest collaboration with Scorsese in "The Irishman," he plays a far more subdued crime boss than he has portrayed in the past. But it was his role in "Goodfellas" that gave Pesci is one (and only) Academy Award win.

The creative process to mold Pesci's performance as Tommy DeVito in "Goodfellas" was unique, to say the least. Casting Pesci clearly paid off as his performance not only...

Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic “Goodfellas” is often cited as one of the most violent movies ever made, but it could have been a whole lot bloodier had it not been for test screenings. Ahead of “The Irishman” release next month, Scorsese spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the challenges of test screening “Goodfellas.” The director remembered the film’s unflinching violence prompting walkouts, creating tension between him and studio Warner Bros.

“It was an angry reaction,” Scorsese said. “It became very difficult. It was a constant battle until a few weeks before release…[the film] terrified Warner Bros. executives at the time.”

One scene Scorsese cut back on because of the test screenings was the brutal murder of gangster Billy Batts (Frank Vincent). Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito savagely kills Billy by stabbing him repeatedly with a large kitchen knife. The test screening called into question just how many stabs Scorsese and...

The entertainment industry knows how to celebrate mom, taking her to red carpets, casting her in movies and writing songs with her in mind. In honor of Mother's Day, here are five big gestures Hollywood has made in honor of their mothers. 1. Martin Scorsese puts his mom in Goodfellas Catherine Scorsese was at the center of among the most memorable scenes in Martin Scorsese's crime drama. She played the mother of Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito, who comes to her house with his friends with a body in the trunk of their car. "She doesn't care what her son has done,

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Catherine Scorsese claims she's living proof ... even if you're a child of one of the biggest moguls in Hollywood -- you can still get screwed.Catherine -- the daughter of "Goodfellas" director Martin Scorsese -- claims in a new lawsuit ... producers of "Campus Life" cut a deal with her to direct and produce an online movie with supernatural themes and gothic characters -- kind of like "Twilight."Catherine says she used her juice to get...

So it’s Martin Scorsese’s birthday today. Sixty-eight years old. The director of such masterpieces as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver is a filmmaking legend, but since today is his day, let’s instead focus on his work in front of the camera. He’s not exactly Hitchcock, but I always get a thrill when I catch Scorsese in one of his pictures. In Gangs of New York, he’s the wealthy uptown family man whose mansion is attacked by the rioting mob. In Taxi Driver, he’s the sketchy guy spying on his wife from Robert De Niro’s cab.