The Aviator · reception & legacy

2004 · Martin Scorsese

How The Aviator has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A prestige hit in 2004 — 11 Oscar nominations, five wins — but its Best Picture loss to Million Dollar Baby folded it into the 'Scorsese is overdue' narrative that only resolved with The Departed. Now it sits in the odd 'mid-tier Scorsese' zone: a film that would be a career peak for almost anyone else, routinely rediscovered and called underrated.

What's debated

The perennial fight: is this awards-season Scorsese on autopilot, or one of his most underrated films — and did DiCaprio deserve the Oscar more than the biopic-wary voters allowed?

Its footprint

'The way of the future,' repeated like an incantation, is the film's most-quoted (and memed) moment, and the eerily blue peas — a deliberate two-color Technicolor effect, not a mistake — are a favorite piece of cinephile trivia to spring on first-time viewers.

Where it stands

A canon climber within the Scorsese filmography: perpetually placed mid-table in the ranked-lists ritual, then defended in the replies as the most underrated thing he's made.

★ Did you know? Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson digitally mimicked the film stocks of Hughes's era: scenes set before 1935 emulate two-color Technicolor (which is why the peas and golf-course grass look blue), shifting to lush three-strip Technicolor as the story moves into the later 1930s and '40s.