The Departed received a standing ovation at The Rome Film Festival

Both films were released in the same week and the fashion-themed film went straight into the number one slot.

However, box office returns of �1.9m last weekend left The Devil Wears Prada lagging behind Scorsese's all-star gangster thriller which took �2m.

New animated feature Open Season entered in third place taking �1.7m.

Quitting Hollywood

Click, starring Adam Sandler is down one place to number four. The History Boys and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were both new releases and in fifth and sixth positions.

Hoodwinked, another animated feature, dropped from number four to seven.

The Departed, which stars Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, has also done well in the US.

The film gave Scorsese his best takings for an opening weekend in North American cinemas when it went straight to number one over its opening weekend.

But despite this recent success Scorsese said this week he was finding it more and more difficult to work in Hollywood and had decided to take a break to make low-budget films.

The director said his next project would be a "small-scale" adaptation of Japanese novel The Silence.