Scorsese has done it again. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is an immediate classic that ranks among his best works and will be discussed for years.

Based on the 2017 nonfiction book of the same name by journalist David Grann, “Killers of the “Killers of the Flower Moon” is about the dozens of brutal murders that terrorized the Osage Native American Tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s and the federal government’s investigation of the killings.

The film is a harrowing descent into the depths of human cruelty. Scorsese exposes and thoroughly examines the seething racism and greed that motivated a community to ethnically cleanse the Osage.

Many of the actual murders are recreated in the film with nothing left to the imagination, forcing the audience to bear witness to just a tiny fraction of the atrocities Native populations have been subject to since people first colonized their land.

Scorsese worked closely with Osage Tribe members throughout production and he shows the resilience and beauty of the tribe in the film. The final shot before the credits is a powerful example.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” has an incredible ensemble cast, but Lily Gladstone’s leading performance as Mollie Burkhart, the Osage wife of protagonist Ernest Burkhart, carries the emotional weight of the film.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Burkhart, a dimwitted WWI veteran who helped orchestrate the killings at the behest of his wealthy uncle, William King Hale.

Robert De Niro, in his tenth collaboration with Scorsese, is the insidious Hale, a local businessman and political mover at the center of the conspiracy. De Niro is a master at work, perfectly portraying the frothing racism hiding just beneath the surface of the white upper class in Hale.

There are truly too many to list, but other standout appearances include Jesse Plemons as Thomas Bruce White Sr., one of the FBI agents who solved the case, and musician Jason Isbell as Bill Smith, amateur investigator of the murders. John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser also both have brief, but memorable, roles in the film’s final act.

Scorsese also appears in a cameo, as he does in nearly all his movies, in a very metatextual and profound scene, one that feels like more than just the payoff of a three-and-a-half hour movie, but for the late-period of Scorsese’s career.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is not to be missed. It is disappointing that most of the discourse surrounding this heart-wrenching work of art is focused on how long it is. You would think people would know what they’re getting themselves into with a Scorsese film at this point. 

If the director wanted you to have a breather and digest everything you’ve seen halfway through, then he would have put an intermission in the movie.

The film is meant to be experienced without interruption, to view it any other way is to deprive yourself of a critical part of the experience. It is long, but not indulgent, and the story it tells cannot be forgotten again.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is now in theaters.