3 Italian American directors who have succeeded in Hollywood

3 Italian American directors who have succeeded in Hollywood.
The Italian legacy in Worldwide Cinema.

If there is an ethnic group who has influenced American lifestyle and culture for more than a century, it is the Italians. Beginning with waves of immigrants in the late nineteenth century, Italians have settled in different parts of America, taking with them their unique style of dealing with life and, of course, their art. Since then, the ethnic roots of those with a drive to succeed have found a fertile ground in Hollywood. Here are three Italian-American directors who have changed the history of American and worldwide cinema.

Francis Ford Coppola

Director of The Godfather trilogy, Francis Ford Coppola is the first of a generation of Italian descendants in American cinema including Nicolas Cage and Sofia Coppola. He was born in Detroit to American parents, but his grandfather arrived to the United States from Bernalda, in southern Italy.

Among his blockbusters are The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and The Godfather films. Coppola has won Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, and is a two-time Palme d'Or winner.

Martin Scorsese

Widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinema history, Martin Scorsese is an Italian-American director born in New York and raised in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. Although his parents were also American, his grandparents, Teresa and Francesco Scorsese, were Sicilian immigrants from Polizzi Generosa, a small town near Palermo.

Among his landmark films are Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990). Scorsese has received the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won an Academy Award, a Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, a Silver Lion, a Grammy Award, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.

Brian de Palma

With Italian blood running through his veins, Brian de Palma is another of the greatest Italian-American filmmakers in history. Just like Coppola and Scorsese, he is the grandson of immigrants. The De Palma family comes from the Alberona province of Foggia.

Brian de Palma directed successful and popular films such as Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and Mission: Impossible.

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