Film

Italianamerican

Name: Italianamerican
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1974
Cast: Catherine Scorsese, Charles Scorsese, Martin Scorsese

Slow-burning

Scorsese sits down with his parents in their kitchen, camera rolling, asking them about their childhood in Sicily, their immigration, their marriage, their faith, their children. It's intimate and unglamorous—nothing like his films. Forty-nine minutes of two people remembering, arguing gently, laughing. Essential if you care how Scorsese thinks.

TMDb rating

3.4

If you liked this

The Godfather1972

The definitive American-Italian story, operatic and violent where Italianamerican is quiet and domestic. But both probe the same question: what does family mean when you carry the old country inside you?

But Nearly three and a half hours, and if you've already seen it, there's no surprise. The mythos can overshadow the specifics.

Grey Gardens1976

Like Italianamerican, it's a documentary portrait of a household—two women, their debris, their fierce love. The Maysles make you feel what it's like to be inside someone else's life.

But Bleak and claustrophobic. The Beales are tragic figures, and the film doesn't look away. Some find it exploitative; it takes patience.

Raging Bull1980

Scorsese's masterpiece, and it's unmistakably the work of a man shaped by his mother's piety and his father's silences. Watch this after Italianamerican and feel how deeply family gets into the work.

But Black and white, brutal, repetitive. Not a feel-good story. The boxing exists to show masculine rage and failure.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Italianamerican

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

La Strada1954

Both films are about people bound to each other by history and geography and love, unable to escape, unable to leave. Neither sentimentalizes the mess.

Fellini's film about a poor girl sold to a circus strongman—European, brutal, completely unAmerican. But it shares Italianamerican's obsession with family as a kind of trap and salvation, and its tragic humanism.

But Visually operatic where Scorsese's film is deliberately plain. Deeply sad. Made seventy years earlier, it feels from another world.

Once Upon a Time in America1984

Sergio Leone's epic about Jewish immigrants, structured around memory and regret. Like Italianamerican, it asks what it means to belong to a place and a past that shaped you.

But Nearly four hours and deliberately paced. The chronology is deliberately fractured, which some find frustrating rather than poetic.

A Serious Man2009

Coen Brothers film about a Jewish family in the Midwest, caught between the old world and the new, between faith and American self-invention. The domestic comedy and spiritual unease echo throughout.

But Aggressively pessimistic. The Coens give nothing away—no catharsis, no redemption. Some people find that infuriating.

The Immigrant2013

James Gray's film about Polish immigration to America in the 1920s. Beautifully shot, morally complex portrait of family, labor, and the immigrant bargain. Feels like it could have influenced Scorsese.

But Slow-burn and tragic. Gray is more interested in texture than plot, and the ending offers no comfort.

Killer of Sheep1978

Charles Burnett's portrait of a Black family in Watts, LA. A work of quiet documentary realism—no plot, just moments. Burnett's camera sees dignity in ordinary life the way Scorsese's does with his parents.

But Structurally challenging and fragmentary. It can feel slow if you're expecting narrative momentum. The black-and-white photography is intentionally unglamorous.

Boyhood2014

Linklater's 12-year time-lapse of a boy growing up gives you the texture of lived time. Like Italianamerican, it trusts the small moments—the conversations, the changes—over plot mechanics.

But Three hours of people talking and aging. If you don't connect with the family in the first hour, the length will feel punitive rather than meditative.

The Florida Project2017

Sean Baker's film about a mother and daughter living in a motel, shot in bright, chaotic intimacy. It captures the specificity of a particular American life the way Scorsese captures his family's.

But No conventional plot. The camera observes without judgment, which some read as passivity. Ending is ambiguous and unsettling.

Sans Soleil1983

Both trust that the weight of a life is in the small things—a gesture, a room, a way of speaking—and that these things matter more than dramatic arc.

Chris Marker's essay-film collages images and memory across decades and continents. It's about how we carry the past, how places haunt us, how a face matters. Structurally nothing like Italianamerican, but spiritually close.

But Difficult, abstract, anti-narrative. Demands active attention. No plot, no answers. Some find it pretentious; others find it moves them to tears.

The Sopranos1999

Where Italianamerican shows you a kitchen in New Jersey and lets you see the whole world in it, The Sopranos takes that world and asks what happens when it collides with American individualism and psychoanalysis.

Often called Scorsese's TV show (and he directed the pilot), it's really the fullest exploration of the world Scorsese glimpsed in his parents' kitchen: Italian-American identity, therapy culture, modernity eroding tradition. Six seasons, completely worth it.

But Long commitment. Violent and sexually explicit. Tony Soprano is not likable, and if you need to like a protagonist, you'll resent the show for making you complicit in his life.