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If you hear someone mention the gangster genre, you’d be more than forgiven if your mind went straight to Robert De Niro, or one of the gangster-related roles he’s played throughout his acting career. He’s done so remarkably often, and he has also been in some of the very best gangster films of all time, so it’s understandable, or maybe even unavoidable. The same goes for Al Pacino, who gained recognition and broke out around the same time as De Niro.
Both went on to star in two films that’ll be mentioned below, but they only shared scenes in the 2019 one. And then both also starred in Heat, which is definitely a great crime movie, but not really a gangster film, since it’s more about bank robbers, even if they do form a gang of sorts. But “gangster films,” for present purposes, are those about the mob and organized crime more generally, with the ones below being some of the very best that Robert De Niro has starred in to date.
8
‘A Bronx Tale’ (1993)
On top of having a role in A Bronx Tale in front of the camera, Robert De Niro also directed this one, and didn’t do a bad job behind the camera either, it turned out. The main character, though, is a teenage boy who has a non-gangster father (De Niro) and a father figure in the form of someone associated with organized crime (played by Chazz Palminteri), and most of the conflict of the film involves him being torn between the two.
It’s all pretty low-key, and De Niro certainly seems to be drawing a ton of inspiration from Martin Scorsese as far as the directing goes, but that’s okay. If you have to borrow from someone, you may as well take from a director as great as Scorsese… and, as quite a few soon-to-be-mentioned movies will show, Scorsese has directed De Niro pretty darn often over the years.
7
‘Casino’ (1995)
On the topic of Scorsese and De Niro movies, Casino was, for a while, their most recent collaboration, as far as feature films went. There was a movie from 2019 that thankfully broke that drought, and that’s a pretty great gangster movie, so it’ll be mentioned shortly. And then 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon was another epic, and a crime film, but it had a different focus and wasn’t really definable as a gangster movie in the process.
Anyway, Casino. Casino is long, exhausting, and unapologetically bleak, being one of the most violent and cynical gangster movies of all time. It does feel intentional, even if it’s also a bit of a difficult watch because of just how despairing and lacking in humanity it can feel. Still, for what it is, and what it wants to do, it does pack quite a punch, and is one of many worthy collaborations between Scorsese and De Niro.
6
‘Mean Streets’ (1973)
Right back to the start of things, Mean Streets was the first great movie Martin Scorsese directed, and it gave Robert De Niro one of the best roles of his early career. It doesn’t really have much of a plot, admittedly, being kind of a hang-out movie, and also, it feels subversive as a gangster movie in the sense that the main characters aren’t proper made guys, and they spend the movie aspiring to be proper (and genuinely connected) gangsters.
That makes it very appropriate as the first big Scorsese and/or De Niro gangster movie, even if, as just mentioned, it does feel subversive compared to their slightly more “conventional” gangster-related collaborations later on. Also, sorry in advance if you’re sick of hearing about Scorsese, because two more of his movies are going to show up shortly. After all, of the six gangster movies he’s directed, all range in quality from good to great, and only two didn’t have De Niro starring in some kind of role (those two being Gangs of New York and The Departed).
5
‘The Untouchables’ (1987)
Coming to The Untouchables hoping for historical accuracy is unwise, but if you’re open to something that’s basically historical fiction, taking a few people that existed in real life but doing inaccurate things with them, then the ride here can definitely be enjoyed. And the cast is amazing, since De Niro gets to chew scenery as Al Capone, Kevin Costner reliably plays an unambiguously good hero, and then Sean Connery is a ton of fun as Costner’s right-hand man (and it was the movie that did indeed win Connery a perhaps overdue Oscar).
The Untouchables is also bombastic, yet that’s pretty much to be expected when Brian De Palma is behind the camera, since he’s always been good at going big, as a filmmaker. De Niro also chews a lot of scenery, and it’s worth highlighting how he and De Palma both go back quite a while, with some of De Palma’s first movies also having De Niro in some of his earliest roles (see 1968’s Greetings, 1969’s The Wedding Party, and 1970’s Hi, Mom!).
4
‘The Irishman’ (2019)
The Irishman could well be the last great gangster movie Robert De Niro ever stars in, and the same goes for its placement as the possible final Martin Scorsese-directed gangster movie, too. It’s got that swan-song sort of feel, very intentionally, being a quieter, sadder, and more mature gangster film than most, gradually revealing itself to be a look at getting old and dealing with loss, all the while reckoning with how it feels to be responsible for quite a bit of that death and loss around you.
With a runtime of about three and a half hours and a narrative that ultimately spans decades, The Irishman also certainly qualifies as an epic crime film, but what it has to offer as a character study and a drama is perhaps even more memorable. If it’s not perfect, then it’s pretty close to masterful in any event, and so much of such a long movie being so great certainly counts for something.
3
‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984)
Easily one of the biggest and most ambitious gangster movies of all time, Once Upon a Time in America does quite a lot that The Irishman also did, but was ever so slightly better. If you had seven to eight hours to kill, they would make for a great (albeit depressing) double feature, since Robert De Niro, only about 40 when Once Upon a Time in America was made, gets to play his character at an older age as well.
Decades are spanned, and the toll of involving oneself in a life of crime is explored.
And then The Irishman, of course, has De Niro and some other actors in their 70s getting to play younger versions of their characters. Either way, decades are spanned, and the toll of involving oneself in a life of crime is explored, relating to how one might feel about the whole thing should they not be cut down in what could be considered their “prime,” which is something that seems to happen to the majority of movie gangsters.
2
‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974)
To keep things going with lengthy and hugely ambitious gangster movies that also happen to star Robert De Niro, here’s The Godfather Part II, with De Niro appearing in this but not the first because he plays a younger version of Vito Corleone who appears in flashbacks throughout The Godfather Part II. Vito was in the film’s present, in effect, in The Godfather (1972), and (very) memorably played by Marlon Brando there.
So, for De Niro to do new and interesting things with the character, all the while still making that character feel like he eventually grew into the one depicted by Brando? That takes some impressive acting chops, to say the least, but De Niro does well and truly pull it off. And the non-flashback parts of The Godfather Part II are also incredible, with Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, and Diane Keaton all acting up a storm, even if they don’t get to interact directly with De Niro (for obvious reasons).
1
‘Goodfellas’ (1990)
It’s hard to look over Goodfellas if you’re talking iconic gangster movies, with or without Robert De Niro. But he is in this, and he’s great in this, so here it is… but even with De Niro getting top billing and being central on the poster, Goodfellas does belong to Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, who’s well and truly the main character and narrator of the whole thing. And then arguably, Joe Pesci is more of a scene-stealer than De Niro; helps that he gets to play a true wild card and all.
Broadly, Goodfellas is a unique sort of gangster movie, aiming to be a ground-level look at the mafia and in turn de-romanticizing the whole lifestyle to a pretty brutal extent. It does this without being depressing, though, and Goodfellas strikes a great balance between feeling energetic/stylish and quite realistic. It does everything right, in other words, and has well and truly earned its reputation as one of the best movies ever made.
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Jeremy Urquhart
Almontather Rassoul
