Break out your cranberry juice, your microprocessors, and your Nokia flip phones, because we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of Martin Scorsese's The Departed with special guest Ryan Casselman!

One caveat, though: the film was released theatrically on October 6, 2006, so upon release, we're still six days away from the actual anniversary. But we do have an amazing retrospective planned for next week, so consider this killing two rats with one bullet. 

Anyway, The Departed is Scorsese's 20th narrative feature and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin. The film was written by William Monahan, who adapted it from Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs.

The Departed grossed approximately $291 million worldwide, making it Scorsese's highest-grossing film at the time, until it was eclipsed by The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013. For our conversation on The Awards Tape, we'll also breakdown how it became an unexpected awards contender. Associate producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff recalled that Scorsese initially assumed the film had little chance with the Academy, saying, “Here's the good news: we're not going to be traveling the world and hitting the pavement on the awards circuit because there is no way — this movie is so vile and violent.”

Obviously, he was wrong.

At the 79th Academy Awards, The Departed won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, Best Adapted Screenplay for Monahan, and Best Film Editing for Thelma Schoonmaker. More importantly, it earned Scorsese his first Best Director Oscar after five previous nominations.

So, do we love The Departed as much as the Academy did? Maybe, maybe not. Stay tuned to find out how The Departed became Warner Bros.' unexpected awards contender.

Our guest:
Ryan Casselman