That’s not even the first reference in the movie. As the journalist Patrick Z. McGavin (a friend of mine) noted last week in an interview with Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, the opening shot of “The Irishman” is lifted from Samuel Fuller’s “Shock Corridor,” the story of a reporter (Peter Breck) who goes undercover at a mental institution to investigate a murder and ultimately loses his grip. The parallel first shots — the frame opens on the corridor of a mental hospital in Fuller’s film, on a nursing-home hallway in Scorsese’s — suggest affinities: like “Shock Corridor,” the new movie approaches a sensational mystery (Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance) through the eyes of an unreliable narrator (Robert De Niro’s Frank Sheeran).

To watch: “The Irishman” is streaming on Netflix. “Shock Corridor” is available to buy or rent on iTunes and Amazon, and to stream on IndieFlix and the Criterion Channel. “Vertigo” is available to rent or own on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, FandangoNow and Vudu.

‘Shutter Island’ (2010)