10 Directors Who Bounced Back With A Vengeance After Failed Movies

10) Martin Scorsese: From New York, New York To Raging Bull

The Failure

Looking at it now, New York, New York isn’t the unmitigated failure its reputation would suggest. But neither is it vintage Scorsese, and at the time, the film went down like a ton of bricks. It failed to make back its $14 million budget and was rounded upon by critics, while tales of Scorsese going way over budget and indulging in cocaine binges during the lengthening shoot was enough to leave Hollywood much cooler towards the Taxi Driver director.

The Comeback

After New York, New York, Scorsese made a couple of successful documentaries, but his first true-blue fiction feature didn’t come until Raging Bull three years after, in 1980. Now classed as one of the greatest of all-time, Raging Bull was immediately embraced as a film made at the peak of Marty’s creative powers. It won two Oscars, and was nominated for six more; now it ranks alongside Citizen Kane as an influential, epochal masterwork.