Martin Scorsese in the context of "Primetime Emmy Awards"

Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows the story of an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".

The historical background and characters in the story are taken from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (written ca. 27–25 BC). In addition, the script of Cabiria was partially based on Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel Salammbô and Emilio Salgari's 1908 novel Cartagine in fiamme (Carthage in Flames). It was the first film shown at the White House, having been viewed on the South Lawn, by the President, First Lady, Vice President, his wife, members of the Cabinet and their wives, due to the summer heat in June 1914.

Cinecittà Studios (pronounced [ˌtʃinetʃitˈta]; Italian for Cinema City) is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios were constructed during the Fascist era as part of a plan to revive the Italian film industry and to compete with Hollywood.

Filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Mel Gibson and Luca Guadagnino have worked at Cinecittà. More than 3,000 movies have been filmed there, of which 90 received an Academy Award nomination and 47 of these won it. In the 1950s, the number of international productions being made there led to Rome being dubbed "Hollywood on the Tiber."

Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. He described himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped to evolve stylistically.

Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1968. He has written 15 operas, numerous chamber operas and musical theatre works, 14 symphonies, 12 concertos, nine string quartets, various other chamber music pieces, and many film scores. He has received nominations for four Grammy Awards, including two for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Satyagraha (1987) and String Quartet No. 2 (1988). He has received three Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Martin Scorsese's Kundun (1997), Stephen Daldry's The Hours (2002), and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal (2006). He also composed the scores for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Hamburger Hill (1987), The Thin Blue Line (1988), Candyman (1992), The Truman Show (1998), and The Illusionist (2006).

Hugo is a 2011 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese, and adapted for the screen by John Logan. Based on Brian Selznick's 2007 book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it tells the story of a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s, only to become embroiled in a mystery surrounding his late father's automaton and the pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès.

Hugo is Scorsese's first film shot in 3D, about which the filmmaker remarked, "I found 3D to be really interesting, because the actors were more upfront emotionally. Their slightest move, their slightest intention is picked up much more precisely." The film was released in the United States on November 23, 2011.

Gaston Velle (1868–1953) was a French silent film director and pioneer of special effects, who was prominent in early French and Italian cinema during the first two decades of the 20th century. Like his father, the Hungarian entertainer Joseph "Professor" Velle, Gaston began his career as a travelling magician, before putting his illusionist skills to work in cinema and ultimately creating more than fifty films between 1903 and 1911. He worked under Auguste and Louis Lumière, before serving as the head of production for the Italian film studio Cines. But he is best remembered for his work at Pathé, where he was hired to produce trick films that might rival those of his contemporary, Georges Méliès, including classic shorts like Burglars at Work (1904). Some films pioneered lasting techniques, such as his Les Invisibles (1906) – the first known invisible man film.

Velle also created some of the first féerie films, such as tit-for-tat (1906). Additionally, Velle collaborated with other directors such as Segundo de Chomon and Ferdinand Zecca to create such silent film classics as the Moon Lover (1905), the Raja's Casket (1906), and the Hen that Laid the Golden Egg (1905), the latter of which was featured in the 1997 Martin Scorsese film, Kundun.

Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a series of classic British films, notably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Stairway to Heaven in the U.S.), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).

His controversial Peeping Tom (1960), which was so vilified on first release that it seriously damaged his career, is now considered a classic, and possibly the earliest "slasher movie". Many renowned filmmakers, such as Francis Ford Coppola, George A. Romero, Brian De Palma, Bertrand Tavernier and Martin Scorsese have cited Powell as an influence.

Gangs of New York is a 2002 epic historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, based on Herbert Asbury's 1928 book The Gangs of New York. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz, along with Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas and Brendan Gleeson in supporting roles. The film also marks the start of a collaboration between DiCaprio and Scorsese.

The film is set from 1862 to 1863, when a long-running Catholic–Protestant feud erupts into violence, just as an Irish immigrant group is protesting the threat of conscription during the Civil War. Scorsese spent 20 years developing the project until Miramax Films acquired it in 1999. Principal photography took place in Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and Long Island City, New York City.

The Aviator is a 2004 epic biographical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by John Logan. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner. The supporting cast features Ian Holm, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Gwen Stefani, Kelli Garner, Matt Ross, Willem Dafoe, Alan Alda, and Edward Herrmann.

Based on the 1993 non-fiction book Howard Hughes: The Secret Life by Charles Higham, the film depicts the life of Howard Hughes, an aviation pioneer and director of the film Hell's Angels. The film portrays his life from 1927 to 1947 during which time Hughes became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (Italian: Leone d'oro alla carriera, lit. 'Career Golden Lion') is an award given at the Venice Film Festival. It is awarded to directors, actors and other personalities from the world of cinema who have distinguished themselves in the art. It joins the Golden Lion, the festival's highest prize, which is instead awarded to a film in competition.

Among the winners include filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, Hayao Miyazaki, and Pedro Almodovar and actors which include Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Al Pacino, Julie Andrews, and Tilda Swinton as well many other figures of international film.