Totally disregarding commercial considerations, Kundun, Martin Scorsese's haunting meditation on the early life Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, is one from the heart, a majestic spectacle of images and sounds, bogged down by a routine screenplay that fails to provide a fresh perspective or new insight on Tibet's non-violent culture. Scorsese's filmmaking achieves brilliance, utilizing an innovative style that deviates substantially from mainstream narrative cinema in general and the Hollywood biopic genre in particular.

In a radical departure from Kundun, an historical epic that was basically an arthouse film, Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead reteams him for the fourth time with writer Paul Schrader in a film that recalls in many significant ways Taxi Driver, their first collaboration. Based on Joe Connelly's pulp novel, it's a quintessentially New York nocturnal tale of the occupational hazards, joys, and sorrows of a paramedic, splendidly played by Nicolas Cage, as he “routinely” goes about his job of saving people's lives.