How Martin Scorsese became the unlikely king of TikTok

It's early November, there's a brisk chill in the air, and Martin Scorsese is going viral again on TikTok. This has become like a regular occurrence for the Killers of the Flower Moon director, as he enjoys his own later-life deification at the hands of cinephiles, held up as the last, great hope for the art of American cinema in the streaming-and-superheroes age. In 2023, Scorsese is the extremely online, extremely beloved elder statesman of the film business.

It began with his takedowns of the abject state of the modern film industry, but recently his TikTok videos, shot by director-daughter Francesca, have seen him take on a new kind of digital fame. These clips have seen him cast his miniature schnauzer, Oscar, in a movie, or try to guess the meaning of modern lingo. Like “GOAT,” the Greatest of All Time. Of course, many would argue Scorsese is the GOAT, as muse Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly reminds him in texts, according to Francesca in a recent New York Times interview. “The people that he surrounds himself with keep him pretty young,” she said. “DiCaprio texts him and calls him the GOAT, calls him bro, you know they're buddies.”

The father-daughter duo most recently flew online when Marty shot a TikTok video with Kylie Jenner on the red carpet at the Wall Street Journal Innovator Awards. The clip, posted by Francesca, is scored by Doja Cat and shows off Scorsese's cinematographic credentials with a smartphone, catching his big New York grin in the selfie camera.

Six days ago, Francesca posted a video of she and her dad pose cooly and embrace lovingly to Coi Leray's poppy viral hit “Twinnem,” titled “My literal best friend.” It has been watched 3.6 million times. As one of the commenters wrote: “Martin Scorsese having a Gen-Z daughter is the best thing to ever happen to the internet.”

So why is everyone falling head over heels for MartyTok? For one, there's something heartwarming about a cultural titan openly embracing the technology of the day, rather than being stuck in his ways like a dad who refuses to get rid of that old box TV from the '90s. This is not an old man shouting at clouds. It elicits the same kind of giddy feeling as when we witness, say, a similarly wisened Daniel Day-Lewis in streetwear drip that shaves off a good quarter-century.

Scorsese isn't the only Hollywood legend who has come to wield social media as a cross-generational bullhorn. Francis Ford Coppola, the immortal director of epic film standards like Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy, has recently taken to Instagram to answer questions direct from fans, and to reflect on cinema of time gone by, his own and others'. He even got involved with the “How often do men think of the Roman Empire?” trend that was the biggest meme of September. His answer: “Quite a lot, as the Roman Republic served as the example for my country America and its institutions, and was the inspiration for my upcoming film Megapolis.” Now we need to hear from Ridley Scott.

But the real O.G. was Taxi Driver scribe, First Reformed director and famed Scorsese best friend Paul Schrader, who film-heads have had a direct line with for years on Facebook, where he still posts grouchy — and, some might say, occasionally problematic — reviews of the latest movies. He describes himself on the platform as “Works at Self-employed.”

Meanwhile, if MartyTok isn't enough of the big man on the handheld screen for you, Scorsese is expanding his digital offering. You can also find him at the cinephile app Letterboxd, where he already has 275k followers in less than a month. Oscar Scorsese's account is yet to be found.