Who designed the production sets for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York?

Dante Ferretti designed the production sets for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.

The 2002 historical epic recreates New York City’s Five Points district during the mid-19th century. Ferretti’s production design created a large-scale set at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, including streets, buildings, docks, and interiors designed to evoke the crowded immigrant neighborhoods of the period.

Ferretti was a frequent Scorsese collaborator. His work on Gangs of New York earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction, shared with set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo. The film received ten Oscar nominations in total.

The story is loosely inspired by Herbert Asbury’s 1928 nonfiction book The Gangs of New York. Its historical characters and conflicts are dramatized, but the production’s visual reconstruction was intended to show the city’s violence, political divisions, and rapid growth. Ferretti’s work is sometimes confused with the film’s cinematography, which was handled by Michael Ballhaus.