With their brutal language and unflinching violence Martin Scorsese's films have never shied from the unsettling underbelly of life - menace and mavericks in equal measure.
He is perhaps then the last man you would expect to be honoured for a children's film but his first 3D venture, Hugo, is this year's most nominated picture.
It is a period fantasy that follows a 12-year-old boy living in a train station in 1930s Paris.
For its British producer, Graham King - who won an Oscar for The Departed with Scorsese - the film's genesis felt like fate.
King told Sky News: "We talked about how good it would be to make a movie to show our kids one day, and six weeks later a script landed on my desk... If there was ever a book written for Martin Scorsese to direct then this was it."
Scorsese is apparently so thrilled with the 3D results he is reportedly contemplating making all of his movies in the medium.
It was a new challenge too for the woman who has edited every Scorsese film since Raging Bull in 1980.
Thelma Schoonmaker met the legendary director in New York in the late 1960s and she has been working with him ever since.
"I met Marty at New York University. It was an accident, really - it was pure luck," she said.
"We were idealistic young film-makers... We were determined to make movies, change the world and where we are now is a far step from that."
Schoonmaker is chasing her fourth Oscar this Sunday.
She explained to Sky News that no two Scorsese films are the same.
She said: "You know, every time he decides to make a film it's different. He goes over hurdles and we all get to go with him.
"Everyone always says, 'Well, could you just make the last 20 like the last mad day as a wise guy in Goodfellas...' well, the Dalai Lama is not on cocaine.
"People want us to make the movie over and over but he doesn't want to do that.
"He wants something new to do. He has new concept for the editing, camerawork and music with every film."
Scorsese is, of course, a Hollywood legend but his honours only include one Oscar for best director.
This could be the year that he gets another for the other end of the mantelpiece.
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