Jodie Foster Calls Out Scorsese’s Portrayal of Male Toxicity in Acclaimed Release: “If You Really Needed to Explore All the Male Toxic Masculinity, You Could Have Done That”
Jodie Foster recently shared her thoughts on Martin Scorsese’s 2023 film Killers of the Flower Moon, saying the story might have worked better as a long streaming series instead of a three-and-a-half-hour movie.
The comments came during a conversation on stage at the Marrakech Film Festival, where Foster received a tribute award. All information comes from what was said at the festival event.
Foster spoke about how she sees the future of storytelling and said she believes streaming has become the place where deep and complex narratives can really grow. She explained that big superhero movies dominate movie theaters now, while long-form stories have moved to platforms that allow more time and space.
She said, “Streaming is able to do things that we’re not able to do in traditional mainstream movies anymore… the real, real narrative is on streaming.”
She used Killers of the Flower Moon as an example of a film that, in her view, could have expanded its story with more time. She said that Scorsese wanted to show the world of Native Americans in the 1920s, but the movie ended up focusing heavily on the two male leads played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. Foster commented, “What we had was a very interesting movie about two guys who go back and forth and talk to each other.”
Foster said many people were excited to finally see the story of the Osage people told on screen, but the movie didn’t spend as much time with Native characters as they had hoped. She said, “Everybody was sort of excited that the native story was going to be told and what they found was like, ‘Wow, all the native women are dead’.”
She mentioned that the team behind the film said they didn’t have time to show more, but she disagreed. She said there could have been an eight-hour limited series that offered more viewpoints. She added, “If you really needed to explore all the male toxic masculinity, you could have done that, but you could have had episode two actually centered on the native story.”
Jodie Foster suggests Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ should have been an 8-hour streaming series as she reflects on future of film @Marrakech_Fest pic.twitter.com/DHcHFrMjVP
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) November 30, 2025
Even though her comments surprised some people, they were not meant in a negative way. Foster and Scorsese have had a close bond ever since she starred in Taxi Driver as a young teenager, and Scorsese even sent her a special video message during her tribute the day before she spoke.
Foster also praised Scorsese’s past work in television, mentioning his 2016 series Vinyl. She said she hopes he explores long-form storytelling again, saying, “I can’t wait until he embraces that even more, because he has so much to bring to the table.”
She also talked about how many filmmakers still want to make long features instead of using streaming for bigger stories. She wondered why so many directors feel the need to make what she called five-hour features and then expect them to fit into a theater experience.
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