Robert De Niro's 10 greatest performances of all time
When Robert De Niro starred in successive movies Mean Streets, The Godfather Part II and Taxi Driver in the mid 70s, he announced himself as the leading actor of his generation.
Following a string of incredible films over the 20 years that followed and frequent collaborations with visionary director Martin Scorsese, he became one of the all-time greats of the industry and the natural successor to the leading men of Hollywood’s golden age.
It's true, however, that recent years haven’t seen such great returns for the actor. While in 2012 his performance in Silver Linings Playbook suggested a return to form after a string of unsuccessful movies, some of the very worst films of his career have come thick and fast over recent times – not least the appalling sex comedy Dirty Grandpa in 2016. It wasn't worse than his turn in Rocky and Bullwinkle, but very probably nothing is worse than that.
A performer as masterful as De Niro can never be discounted though and there’s still hope amongst fans that the great actor will star in great movies once again, especially following a return to form in Scorsese's 2019 epic The Irishman.
There’s an incredible back catalogue of movies to pore over while we wait to see where De Niro's career goes next. From starring roles in sprawling crime epics to off-beat dramas and unforgettable thrillers, these are his greatest ever performances.
10. Men Of Honor
This 2000 drama doesn’t belong to either of its leads, De Niro or Cuba Gooding Jr, but to the extraordinary story of Carl Brashear, the first black master diver for the US Navy, who made rank despite some hard walls – little education, little money and institutional racism. Later, he lost a leg but fought to hold on to his position; his life was a remarkable thing. The film might be a by numbers biopic, but something in it always manages to stir. De Niro plays the fictional Master Chief Leslie Sunday; it’s by no means a screen-stealing performance, but about halfway through he comes into his own, shifting gears from the one-dimensional, angry military type to someone struggling with their place in the world, embittered as his past glories fade and end forgotten. There is pain in his take, with De Niro drawing out power from his increasing irrelevance; he’s an old-timer with a few plays left and not much time to play them. The film is moving for all sorts of reasons, most of them simply because of Brashear, but this little look at the way a life can slump into nothing is an extra twist of the gut.
9. Cape Fear
De Niro gave one of his most visceral performances of his career in 1991 thriller Cape Fear, bringing vengeful criminal Max Cady to life on screen with real venom. The insidious piece of filmmaking follows Cady, a convicted rapist, returning from prison to wreak havoc upon his former defence lawyer, whom he blames for his imprisonment. Everything from the skin-crawling interactions with the lawyer’s 16-year-old daughter (Juliette Lewis) to the shocking finale is grimly gripping, making for one of the most memorable movies in De Niro’s mid-career period. He confirmed his status as one of the best physical actors in the game with the role too, hitting the weights to help him produce one of his more imposing and threatening performances at the age of nearly 50.
8. Heat
The bad thing about Heat is that it has, over the years, prompted Tom Hiddleston to do impressions of Al Pacino and De Niro in their final showdown. This aside the movie showed that, about 20 years after Godfather II, Taxi Driver and the Deer Hunter, De Niro still did menace better than anyone but could keep things stylish too. De Niro plays career criminal Neil McCauley, at one moment driven by anger, at other times, quiet, introspective, almost sweet. When he strides toward Charlene Shiherlis (Ashley Judd), berating her for cheating on her husband Chris (Val Kilmer), the screen practically shakes as he shouts. Then there is the famous restaurant scene, when Pacino’s detective takes De Niro’s crook for coffee; sometimes De Niro is slated for overacting but here he is quiet, almost delicate. Of course, he does the lip thing, the half closed eyes, but it works – it’s authentic, rather than parody, because there is an unblinking confidence to it all.
7. Godfather II
De Niro had the unenviable task of following Marlon Brando in the role of Vito Corleone in the Godfather Part II. De Niro played a younger version of the mob boss gaining influence in New York and no one could have channelled the Don’s equally charisma and ruthlessness quite like him. While he was faithful to Brando’s portrayal in the first movie, he also had the conviction to bring his own interpretation of the character — an impressive feat. The film saw De Niro win the Oscar for best supporting actor, which announced him on the world stage as one of the most talented stars of his generation. He would later win the best actor gong for Raging Bull, but this early gem is one of his most memorable performances.
6. Raging Bull
Much is made of De Niro’s dramatic transformation during production on Raging Bull – he famously gained 60lb to shoot the film’s later scenes – but the actor’s performance as legendary boxer Jake LaMotta transcends the physical change. After first working with Martin Scorsese on 1973’s excellent Mean Streets, De Niro worked again with the director on Taxi Driver, New York, New York and on this project, together painting the picture of a champion sportsman with a deeply flawed personal life, raging with inner demons. The scene where De Niro beats the wall of a police cell towards the end of the movie, having lost everything, is one of the most profound sequences the actor ever put to tape.
5. Goodfellas
De Niro was part of an incredible ensemble cast in 1995 classic Goodfellas but while Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta’s performances are louder and brasher, his performance as James "Jimmy the Gent" Conway quietly steals the show. His presence is incredible through throughout the film and despite the horrific crimes we see Jimmy commit, his performance is profoundly, darkly charismatic. He finds subtle ways of drawing focus in group scenes and deploys his full range of acting chops when overcome with emotion following the death of Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito. For all the big set pieces that take place throughout the movie it’s actually one of De Niro’s simplest scenes, where he smokes a cigarette, looking impossibly cool and menacing as Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love plays on the soundtrack, that becomes one of the most impactful of the whole film.
4. Once Upon A Time In America
Sprawling epic Once Upon A Time In America follows two New York gangsters over three decades, tracing their rise from inseparable childhood friends to mob kingpins and eventually to sworn enemies. De Niro’s portrayal of protagonist Noodles is staggeringly good, capturing nuance and shade where others might paint the Jewish gang leader as one-dimensional or clichéd. The final scene in the opium den is unforgettable, with De Niro cracking a deranged smile and staring into oblivion before Ennio Morricone’s sweeping score plays out the movie. A masterful movie and undeniably one of De Niro’s greatest ever works.
3. The King of Comedy
In the King of Comedy, there’s no eye squinting, no tough guy sneers, no blood washed scenes. It has none of the hallmarks that most successful De Niro films do, which is all the odder as Scorsese directed (he also puts out one of his finest soundtracks). Perhaps this is why it has lasted so well — there’s no hamming it up. The film follows De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin, a hack of a stand-up whose failure has led a loosening grip on reality; it is a wounded picture, an uncomfortable remark on unchecked ego and unrealistic dreams. De Niro is excruciating as Pupkin, all puffed up with self importance and oblivious to reality. It’s a subtle turn, more than collection of ticks in a suit. Pupkin’s inability to accept his failures is not only quietly devastating but after a while frustrating, too. That we end up with something like begrudging respect for him is a testament to De Niro’s way with an audience. The film would later became a touchstone for Joker, which featured a knowing cameo from De Niro himself.
2. Taxi Driver
Do teenagers still put posters on their walls? Who knows, but when they did, Taxi Driver was the go-to, right next to the brooding shots of James Dean. Despite it coming after the second Godfather, for which he won an Oscar, this is the part that really made De Niro De Niro. Scorsese’s film drips with sleaze. It is violent and dirty; De Niro is fuelled by disgust, by disdain, by his depression. An ex-Marine and an insomniac, De Niro’s Travis Bickle is isolated and alone, obsessed with porn, handguns and whatever he sees as corruption. This anger is self-righteous and fragile; long before he shaves his head, he feels brittle, like one little rustle will make him snap – early on, he stares at Harvey Keitel’s pimp as Keitel jokes with him and it seems as though we see his eyes tighten with rage, like he’s staring right through us too. Somehow, he does it wearing sunglasses. The ‘you-lookin’-at-me’ monologue, which was famously improvised, was inspired by a gig De Niro had seen a little while before shooting; he’d been watching Bruce Springsteen playing around with the audience and decided to flip the whole thing entirely.
1. The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter is a strange film; it is long, awkwardly long, and draining. Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep co-star, both brilliantly, but De Niro as steel worker Mike Vronsky is extraordinary. His eyes are always everything but never more so than in this film: there are no squinting, lemon-sucking De Niro faces here. Instead, we watch him as he watches on, whether that’s at his best friend’s girlfriend, down the barrel of his hunting rifle, or at the Vietnamese he mercilessly exterminates with a flamethrower. He does everything with red-rimmed glances. The talking point, famously, is the Russian roulette when De Niro and Walken are POWs. They play this scene like maniacs. Later, back in the US, the pair play again, though by now Walken’s character is gone and lost, sunk by his memory. Now we get the heartbreaking side of it: Walken is as paper thin and white as a ghost and De Niro is desperately trying to reach through to him. For a flicker, it seems like he has, and then Walken shoots himself. De Niro screams, but there is far more suffering moments before, when he tells his friend he loves him. Ugly tragedy after a moment of beauty.
