Martin Scorsese was born in Queens, New York in 1942, far from the glittering lights of Hollywood. The Italian-American grew up in Little Italy, his beloved hometown. At first he wanted to be a priest, but eventually he decided to study film — a lucky choice for film lovers around the world.

After his 1967 debut, Scorsese made his breakthrough with the 1973 thriller "Mean Streets." The gritty drama introduced the milieu that would make him famous: the Mafia, petty criminals and the New York underworld. The film was an unsparing look at the reality inspired by his childhood experiences. Shot in a furious, tumultuous style, it starred a young Robert De Niro (right) and Harvey Keitel.

Despite many later masterpieces, this 1976 film remains a favorite. The disturbing meditation on love and violence stars De Niro as a frustrated Vietnam veteran working as a nighttime taxi driver driven to save a 12-year-old prostitute (a young Jodie Foster). With De Niro acting, Michael Chapman behind the camera and Bernard Herrmann scoring the music, Scorsese created a classic.

For some critics, the excessive violence in "Taxi Driver" was a step too far. "New York, New York," released a year later, aimed to be more crowd-pleasing: a post-World War II love story that was heavy on the music. De Niro was back in the role of a self-centered saxophonist, joined by Liza Minnelli (right) as a young singer. However, the film did not do well at the box office.

Scorsese's boxing biopic is considered to be one the best films of all time. Released in 1980, the film follows the career of American boxer Jake LaMotta, charting his rise and fall. De Niro's performance is legendary: to realistically portray the different phases of the boxing star's life, he went through extensive training and gained nearly 60 pounds (27 kilograms).

After shining the spotlight on gangsters, music and sports, Scorsese showed off another facet of his skills in 1982. "The King of Comedy" is a brilliant satire on the cult of stardom and media hype. Unsuccessful at the box office, today the film is considered one of Scorsese's best works. De Niro returned to star with famed comedian Jerry Lewis — a winning team.

Scorsese is not only an outstanding director but also a major connoisseur of film history. This has been shown by his various documentaries on individual film epochs — and his billiard drama "The Color of Money," starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. The film builds on Robert Rossen's 1961 classic "The Hustler," in which Newman portrayed a young pool player.

When he was a young man, Scorsese wanted to become a priest. Nothing came of it, but as a director he has returned to the topic of religion again and again. It came up in numerous subplots of his gangster movies and was also central to his 1988 film "The Last Temptation of Christ." A convincing Willem Dafoe took on the lead role.

In 1990, Scorsese returned to one of his favorite themes with a film that was more elaborate and more brutal than anything he'd done before. "Goodfellas" takes an in-depth look at the Sicilian Mafia world in New York. In the leading roles: Ray Liotta (left), Joe Pesci (center) — and, of course, Robert De Niro (right). Shooting his fourth feature for Scorsese was Germany's Michael Ballhaus.

In a seemingly conscious effort to break free from the Mafia theme, Scorsese went in a completely different direction in 1993. The historical romance "The Age of Innocence," based on the well-known book by New York writer Edith Wharton, was an artistic success. Scorsese mastered the genre almost effortlessly, with the help of actors Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder.

Scorsese linked crime and history in his 2002 feature "Gangs of New York." The ambitious production cost upwards of €100 million (around $120 million). The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio (right), Daniel Day-Lewis (left) and Cameron Diaz, received mixed reviews, in part because now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of having overstepped his role to influence the movie.

Much like De Niro in the first half of his career, Leonardo DiCaprio has become one of Scorsese's favorite actors. In 2004, DiCaprio starred alongside Cate Blanchett in the ambitious "The Aviator" as legendary billionaire Howard Hughes. The film was a brilliant portrait of the eccentric aviation pioneer, film producer and seducer of Hollywood starlets.

In 2011, Scorsese made a love letter to cinema with his family film "Hugo." Set in the early 1930s, it tells the story of 12-year-old orphan Hugo Cabret who lives in the walls of a Parisian train station. The mystery was the director's homage to the birth of cinema and early French filmmaker Georges Melies, and it gave Scorsese the chance to experiment with 3D technology.

Two years later in 2013, the director turned his attention to the world of finance with "The Wolf of Wall Street." DiCaprio was back in this behind-the-scenes look at the true story of a corrupt stockbroker in the early 1990s. The film skewers the Wall Street mentality and is classic Scorsese, inventively filmed and full of whimsical, even humorous scenes.