Every Scorsese movie ranked

Even the least of Martin Scorsese's works is still better than most other people's best. So before you explode in outrage at the low placement of your favourite, look at what we had to work with here in ranking Marty's masterpieces: an unprecedented catalogue of bravura performances, compelling narratives and stylistic works of art, gathering up awards nods faster than bullets through a New York back street. Here are Marty's masterpieces, ranked.

Made straight after Taxi Driver, this musical homage to classic-era Hollywood - starring Robert De Nero and Liza Minelli as a singer and a musician in a doomed relationship - is basically a gloomy La La Land only not as good.

Scorsese's second movie is grim gangster exploitationer starring Barbara Hershey about a young woman driven to crime during the depression. It's a Roger Corman film – rough and ready.

Scorsese's feature debut introduces Harvey Keitel as a young Catholic unable to come to terms with his girlfriend's rape. A bold calling card that won the top award at the Chicago Film Festival.

Underrated Scorsese starring Nicolas Cage doing one of his good performances as a stressed ambulance paramedic haunted by the things he sees.

A change of palette for Scorsese in this true-life epic following the life of the Dalai Lama. A visual triumph, a box-office flop.

This striking period gangster movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for 11 Oscars but sadly won none of them. It's stylish, sprawling, but a little bit messy.

Daniel Day-Lewis again in this restrained period drama about an unconsummated affair. Tugs on the heart string but not the blistering Scorsese fare we love best.

At the time, a controversial off-Biblical epic with Willem Dafoe as a Christ who experiences human desires and temptations. Vivid and challenging.

Scorsese's sequel to 1961's The Hustler visits pool shark 'Fast' Eddie Felson after he's all but retired from the game, until he runs into Cruise's promising newcomer Vincent. It's cool as all hell and won Paul Newman a best actor Oscar – but isn't quite as good as The Hustler.

Scorsese's fourth film, and his first real taste of award success – it won the BAFTA for Best Film and nabbed Ellen Burstyn the Academy Award for Best Actress. Alice is a moving comedy-drama about a widow who hits the road with her young son in search of a better life.

Starry biopic of Hollywood legend Howard Hughes with DiCaprio in the lead, which was nominated for 11 Oscars. Charts the rise and fall of Hughes, packed with period detail and pathos.

Epic, gorgeous, really really long, Scorsese's latest - about two 17th-century priests who travel to Japan to locate their missing mentor - is impressive but, um, a bit of an ordeal.

About far more than its twist, Scorsese's gothic chiller with DiCaprio investigating a disappearance at a psychiatric facility stands up to repeat viewings for atmosphere and performances alone.

Scorsese's eighth collaboration with De Niro, which harks back to the superb, superior Goodfellas and delves into the violent, glamorous criminal underworld. Nabbed Sharon Stone an Oscar nod but not the critical acclaim for some of Marty's masterworks.

The movie that finally won Scorsese his best director Oscar (some years too late) is a gritty, twisty remake of Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. Boasting an all-star cast, it follows the parallel journeys of an undercover criminal infiltrating the police and an undercover cop who penetrates a gang. Maybe not quite as good as the original though.

Crime thriller with its bones in horror, and a remake of the '62 Robert Mitchum movie. De Niro is charming and chilling as the rapist convict out for revenge on Nick Nolte and his family. Horribly tense.

Criminally underrated, After Hours is a manically-paced comedy about the worst night of Paul Hackett's (Griffin Dunne) life – after a date goes disastrously wrong, Hackett is thrust into the surreal nightmare world that is '80s New York after dark, having to battle an increasingly weird selection of characters in order to survive. Almost certainly the funniest movie Scorsese ever made, while simultaneously being one of the bleakest.

Scorsese's first mob movie, charting a young man's rise up the ranks of Little Italy's gangland. Set the tone for some of his later films, put him squarely on the map, and holds up beautifully today.

Magnificent true-life tale of money and morally bankrupt men. It's problematic perhaps in the camera's lingering love of the amoral protagonists, but it's never less than electric to watch.

Too high on the list for this children's tale of a boy who lives in the walls of a Paris station, we hear you cry. We say no – it's a perfectly crafted love letter to the birth of cinema, and the perfectly crafted 3D movie. Screw you Avatar, this is what 3D is for.

Prescient satire about a deluded and obsessed comedian relentlessly pursing his dream of fame by taking a talk-show host hostage, it's funny and excruciating with exceptional performances by De Niro and Sandra Bernhard. Original and unforgettable.

For many Scorsese's finest, the story of self-destructive boxer Jake LaMotta required De Niro to put on 60 pounds and deliver the performance of his career. Vicious and fascinating, it made a name for Joe Pesci, too, and would come to be regarded as possibly the greatest sports movie ever made.