{"id":455881,"date":"2026-02-08T06:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455881\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T06:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:35:08","slug":"bob-dylans-favorite-movie-is-martin-scorseses-controversial-80s-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455881\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Dylan&#8217;s Favorite Movie Is Martin Scorsese&#8217;s Controversial &#8217;80s Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/intro-1770310381.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2094013\/bob-dylan-favorite-movie-martin-scorsese-the-last-temptation-of-christ\/\" data-post-id=\"2094013\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-slide-title=\"Bob Dylan's Favorite Movie Is Martin Scorsese's Controversial '80s Masterpiece: \" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"Jack Fate in a hat in Masked and Anonymous\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Sony Pictures Classics<\/p>\n<p>Musician Bob Dylan, the trailblazing singer\/songwriter, was last seen on the big screen \u2014 at least in a wholly scripted, non-documentary capacity \u2014 in Larry Charles&#8217; 2003 dystopian drama &#8220;Masked and Anonymous.&#8221; In the film, Dylan plays a very Dylan-like music legend named Jack Fate who, after a stint in prison, is enlisted to perform in a benefit concert. Despite an impressive cast, &#8220;Masked&#8221; is a pretty crummy movie with unclear politics, amateurish production, and a lazy, freewheeling quality that makes the entire movie feel made up on the spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But then, Dylan&#8217;s acting choices have always been a little off-center. In 1999, he played a chauffeur in a neo-noir called &#8220;Paradise Cove.&#8221; Before that, he appeared in the 1990 thriller &#8220;Catchfire,&#8221; directed by Alan Smithee (really Dennis Hopper). In 1987, he had a rare starring role in Richard Marquand&#8217;s drama &#8220;Hearts of Fire.&#8221; You probably haven&#8217;t seen these movies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good thing that Dylan is better known for his music, which has earned him a few awards. He has an Oscar for penning &#8220;Things Have Changed&#8221; for the 2001 movie &#8220;Wonder Boys,&#8221; which also netted him a Golden Globe. He&#8217;s also won 10 Grammys, as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Oh yes, and he&#8217;s also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oh yes, and he also has a Pulitzer Prize, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honorary doctorate from Princeton, and a Nobel Prize in Literature. And more.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, he also has interesting taste in movies. At the Beacon Theater in 2019, Dylan was caught on tape <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/harryhew\/status\/1716909047675589024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">(with the recording posted on X\/Twitter)<\/a> declaring that he was a big fan of Martin Scorsese&#8217;s controversial 1988 religious epic &#8220;The Last Temptation of Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                Bob Dylan likes The Last Temptation of Christ<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bob-dylan-likes-the-last-temptation-of-christ-1770310382.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2094013\/bob-dylan-favorite-movie-martin-scorsese-the-last-temptation-of-christ\/\" data-post-id=\"2094013\" data-slide-num=\"1\" data-slide-title=\"Bob Dylan's Favorite Movie Is Martin Scorsese's Controversial '80s Masterpiece: Bob Dylan likes The Last Temptation of Christ\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"Christ with his disciples in The Last Temptation of Christ\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<p>In the audio recording, Dylan, speaking off the cuff, said:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Martin Scorsese, he&#8217;s out there. He&#8217;s one of probably the best directors ever. My favorite movie, I told him before, is &#8216;The Last Temptation of Christ.&#8217; I think he&#8217;s gonna make one for &#8216;The First Temptation&#8217; one of these days. Right, Marty? [&#8230;] You just got to, for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dylan was clearly making a little dad-level joke with his &#8220;First Temptation&#8221; crack; there was nothing about &#8220;The Last Temptation of Christ&#8221; that warranted or demanded a prequel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Last Temptation of Christ&#8221; is, of course, Scorsese&#8217;s highly contentious film adaptation of\u00a0Nikos Kazantzakis&#8217; 1955 book of the same title. It is a modernized biography of Jesus of Nazareth (Willem Dafoe) and details his life, with a special focus on the various human temptations that he faced, even as the Messiah. In Scorsese&#8217;s film, Christ was often fearful, more often doubtful, and even expressed lust. The &#8220;Last Temptation&#8221; of the title is the temptation of Jesus, while being crucified, to imagine a human life for himself. He can go back to his friends, marry Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey), and live to be a very old man. He is tempted to renounce being the Messiah. It&#8217;s a heady film about the nature of Christ and the humanity of a godly figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The film sported an impressive cast, with Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, Harry Dean Stanton as Paul, and David Bowie as Pontius Pilate.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/753575\/the-last-temptation-of-christ-controversy-explained-how-martin-scorseses-passion-project-became-a-nightmare\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The controversy surrounding &#8220;The Last Temptation of Christ&#8221;<\/a> has been well-documented here at \/Film. There were many protests from church groups who found the very concepts in &#8220;Temptation&#8221; to be blasphemous, but any film with such ire surrounding it is definitely worth seeing.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                The times Bob Dylan and Martin Scorsese worked together<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/the-times-bob-dylan-and-martin-scorsese-worked-together-1770310383.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2094013\/bob-dylan-favorite-movie-martin-scorsese-the-last-temptation-of-christ\/\" data-post-id=\"2094013\" data-slide-num=\"2\" data-slide-title=\"Bob Dylan's Favorite Movie Is Martin Scorsese's Controversial '80s Masterpiece: The times Bob Dylan and Martin Scorsese worked together\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"Bob Dylan being interviewed for Rolling Thunder Revuew: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Netflix<\/p>\n<p>Bob Dylan liked Martin Scorsese&#8217;s movie, and, perhaps naturally, Scorsese loved Bob Dylan&#8217;s music. Indeed, Dylan and Scorsese have crossed paths several times in their respective careers, going all the way back to the 1974 concert film &#8220;The Last Waltz, which<a href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/650453\/the-best-music-documentaries-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a0\/Film called one of the best music documentaries of all time<\/a>. That film focused on the farewell tour of The Band, but featured scads of special performances, including a short set from Bob Dylan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2005, Scorsese and Dylan teamed up again, this time with Dylan as the star. The pair made the 208-minute &#8220;No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,&#8221; which may be as complete a filmed biography as we may ever have of the musical legend. (\/Film also called &#8220;No Direction Home&#8221; one of the best music documentaries of all time.) It&#8217;s almost like Scorsese and Dylan fit well together. Both, after all, are usually considered among the most important of all American artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Scorsese and Dylan weren&#8217;t finished working together. In 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/566819\/rolling-thunder-revue-trailer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Scorsese made &#8220;Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.&#8221;<\/a> That film is a curious collaboration, as Dylan and Scorsese ostensibly covered the real-life events following Dylan&#8217;s 1975 &#8220;Rolling Thunder Revue&#8221; tour, but they also impishly mixed in interviews with fictional characters, and included some false anecdotes. Only a Dylan scholar might be able to spot immediately which segments are documentary footage, and which ones are fictional. Sharon Stone plays herself, but makes up a wholly false story about her interactions with Dylan on the &#8220;Thunder&#8221; tour. Dylan himself claims, on camera, that he doesn&#8217;t remember the 1975 tour, but Scorsese&#8217;s movie is clearly intended to muddy the waters, not clear things up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Sony Pictures Classics Musician Bob Dylan, the trailblazing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-455881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}