Best Robert De Niro Movies | Top 10
The movie industry gave us over the years some stars who made a difference and who are very good at what they do, even if this means acting, directing or producing movies, so for the moment please leave everything down because we are going to see the best Robert De Niro movies.
The 71 year old actor played in numerous movies as a leading role or supporting roles, but not all were so famous or so well written and acted like the one we are going to see.
Stay tuned if you are a fan of the actor and the movies he started in, because these are the best rated movies by fans and also the movies with the most nominations and awards received.
So if you missed out on some Robert De Niro movies, or if you were born after the movie were made, you should watch the following list because most of his greatest work came before the 1990’s.
So the list with the best Robert De Niro movies is like your personal guide to the great acting experience of one of the most influential people from Hollywood.
So if you are not convinced yet this list of best Robert De Niro movies, is your way of learning what great means, making it look like the top 10 Robert De Niro movies where his performance can be considered or compared with a luxury experience.
We would like to offer a unique experience where Robert De Niro is the main subject and his movies are unique interpretations of unique characters.
This top 10 is based on the actors best performances, making the list a luxury guide to acting by Robert De Niro, a million dollar interpretations being revealed in every single movie on the list.
So we wanted to share the best Robert De Niro Movies as a birthday gift for the septuagenarian and a thank you for making our lives better with his movies.
Let’s see who made it to number 10
10. Analyze This – 1999
Beginning the list of the most memorable and unique movies that Robert De Niro played in, we would like to start with the comedy “Analyze This”, a film where action and comedy mix together very well.
The movie tells the story of a mob boss interpreted by De Niro, who faces anxiety problems and need a psychiatrist to help him deal with his troubles.
Billy Crystal play’s the humble and normal psychiatrist who is called to deal with his panic attacks and anxiety issues.
After dealing with so many gangster movies, the iconic mob boss or mobster Robert De Niro offers the public a different view on the mafia life and delivers a flawless interpretation, mixing the comedy with the typical drama/thriller mob movies characteristics.
Making our first entry we tried to bring a soft version of the gangster movie where De Niro takes on all the action and stripes down the character to a ruthless mobster who is used to do everything the hard way.
The softness is given by De Niro’s take on the problems which occurs with a man his age and tries to double the comedy with a modern twist, the laughing being given by his lines, his acting and his hilarious impersonation of a sad, problematic mobster with psychological issues.
Being rated by IMDB with 6.7 score, the movie grossed 177 million dollars and was continued with a sequel who started the same characters but with different problems and in different stages of their life’s.
In the next movie De Niro tries to shoot his character in Russian roulette->
9.
The Deer Hunter – 1978
From the famous Vietnam war we have De Niro in a situation where his life evolves from steel working with the guns and the chaos of the war theater scene.
Surrounding a trio of American and Russian steel workers the film tells the cruel story of three workers from a city south of Pittsburgh.
Never telling the story behind their departure in Vietnam we see the guys captured and tortured during the war but who manage to escape with some injuries.
The hard after war life is a cruel joke on the three friends, Mike played by De Niro, Nick by Christopher Walken, and Steven played by John Savage have different paths after their escape.
An epic war movie where the main characters explain through emotions the fact that every war has its casualties and every person suffers in one way or another.
Physically challenged, psychically altered or mentally changed you always have to suffer after a war.
The character played by De Niro has probably the hardest role in the movie, Mike struggles with the fact that he was forced to play Russian roulette, then he saved his companion, lost Nick in the middle of another dangerous Russian roulette game and in the end managing to cope with the fact that Steve is crippled and Nick is mentally damaged and dead in the end.
After the movie Robert stated that this was the most physically exhausting film, with both emotional and hard parts, being a first for him and eventually making the movie an epic war movie who made the big screen in 1978.
So if you would like to see De Niro play the Russian roulette or fight for his life with Vietnamese soldiers then struggle with a hard after war life, you should go to the rental shop or download this movie because the score for the movie of 8.2 points from IMDB puts it over some new and costlier films.
Next movie puts De Niro in the bad guy shoes->
8.
The Untouchables – 1987
The movies where Robert De Niro is the bad guy always impressed the public and our number 8 place the star plays the role of famous gangster Al Capone who is chased by a gang of ruthless men of the law.
With positive reviews, a financial success and four Academy Awards nominations the movie made it to our top because this is another view on the gangster life by Robert De Niro, this time the star taking some drastic measures to ensure that he can render the correct version of Al Capone.
With a gross 76 million dollars made in the States, the film had a great impact on the public, more on the weak gender, being encountered a 50% female audience.
The fact the movie mixed the scenes with excess violence with some emotional parts resulted in an exceptional film which the public rated it with 8.0 score on IMDB.
De Niro takes another gangster role and enriches his gangster interpretation with with a different take, modifying his body for this role.
Another classic movie to see and a perfect interpretation of the gangster life of the American prohibition period, “The Untouchables” is one of the best Robert De Niro movies, where the vulgarity was mixed with violence, funny parts and breathtaking moments.
Next movie is full of violence and drama->
7.
Casino- 1995
The film marks the end of the collaborations between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro and take us on another journey in the mob world, painting with the help of Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro who give us some details about the involvement of the mafia in the gambling world.
Robert plays another hard role but in the same family where he was used to be, the mafia, but this time he has to be in charge of a fictional casino to oversee the action in the establishment of the mob.
Again in the crime and drama division, De Niro starred in a box-office success, who gathered 116 million dollars worldwide and received a 8.2 score on IMDB.
With a general positive response from the public the movie had several nominations for Sharon Stone who was nominated for the Academy Award but who won Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture/Drama.
Robert is the mob’s right hand in the casino life and stars a glittering and glamorous life, where brutality and violence are like spices to a recipe.
This is another film for De Niro where he has to frown, swear and beat people, trying for the first time a Jewish approach of the gangster type dude.
Supported by Pesci and Sharon Stone, he completes the trio of moral corruption, being the third wheel in a circle where cheating, robbing and hustling is the perfect way of life during the 1970’s and early 1980’s in Las Vegas.
Number 6 is another film directed by Martin Scorsese->
6.
Raging Bull- 1980
One of the Best Robert De Niro movies who is directed by Martin Scorsese shows us another challenging role for the 37 years old actor.
Raging Bull tells the story of a boxer who struggles with many problems who can and who are destroying his life.
Changing the role from Italian mobster to Italian American middleweight boxer, De Niro takes part in a unique biographical sports drama film centered on the life of Jake LaMotta.
Now Pesci has a supporting role, LaMotta’s brother and manager and makes another duo with De Niro where the two star violent roles.
Learning how to box, Robert De Niro made it clear that this is another step in his career, listening to every note that Scorsese had for him, so that the role will be perfect.
So besides dealing with a violent role where rage and anger where his main points of view on life, De Niro had to gain almost 27 kilograms to LaMotta after retiring the boxing world.
Another controversy was that the movie was full of sexual jealousy and animalistic appetite, making the main character, a boxer who had no grip on his inner demons, being on the edge of losing everything outside the ring.
Both emotional and violent, full of anger and lust for love, the movie portraits Robert De Niro as the perfect fighting machine with family problems and gives him the opportunity to take another challenge which helps him perfect his acting style.
This was a success for him because he won the Academy Award for best actor and the Golden Globe also for best actor and by the end of the year the movie was named a modern classic due to Scorsese take on the struggle of Jake LaMotta’s need of support from his family.
Next De Niro movie was presented at the Cannes Film Festival->
5.
Once Upon a Time in America – 1984
The epic crime movies where a specialty for Robert De Niro in his career, that’s why “Once Upon a Time in America” is another place where the actor could perfect his mafia character, this time changing the scene and the influences.
This is another guide to crime movies because now De Niro, playing beside other actors like James Woods and Joe Pesci, is featured like the young Jewish kid who makes a pact with his friends to become powerful by all means.
Pictured on three levels the most important one is the one where De Niro, who plays Noodles, is active in crime hits with his partners from childhood.
If the film debuted with a total of 229 minutes of violent scenes, due to other considerations it was cut in several places to be distributed in the United States to cinemas in the 139 minute format.
The film received a 8.4 score on IMDB and after almost 30 years it was restored in its almost original form that director Sergio Leone made in 1984.
With an original length of 269 minutes, the movie had restored 251 minutes and was taken off the market in 2012 to be completed.
This movie is by far one of the best Robert De Niro movies due to another mobster interpretation of the Hollywood giant who again managed to be the leading role in one of the best crime and mafia movies.
Number 4 is a black comedy movie->
4.
The King of Comedy – 1983
Changing a little bit the genre we come to a different type of movie, the black comedy, where De Niro plays the role of a psychopath who stalks a famous comedian in the pursue of his dream to be the greatest.
Now Robert De Niro is on a different level, he is the sympathetic, lonely, uncool and a little bit disturbed comedian who wants to achieve success no matter what.
He meets his idol and makes him a proposition but when refused the plot thickens and the only solution seems to be that he has to kidnap his idol in order to become someone.
No matter what everybody say’s this must be one of the first strange movies that De Niro played, making the 1982 movie a success with a score of 7.8 on IMDB even if the critics were both good and bad and even if the movie was misinterpreted at the begging.
So want a glance on one of the best Robert De Niro Movies?
Watch The King of Comedy and see if your opinion resembles some of the well known critic’s views over the strange movie where everything evolves around the the character Rupert Pupkin who strangely never makes the difference between the reality he is in and the reality that he wants to be in.
Number three tells another mafia story->
3.
Goodfellas – 1990
Continuing the list of best Robert De Niro movies is a classic crime thriller centered around the story of a book, here you are a witness to the rise and fall of a crime family.
So guys picture Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro in a mob trio who do everything to get higher in the mafia hierarchy.
But something goes wrong and in the end every must do their best to survive.
This movie is based on a real life story and depicts the life of New York mobsters who do the ruthless jobs to work their way up to be the best and live the high collar life.
So here we have the best score until now by fans and viewers on IMDB, a score of 8.7, proving that mob movies have a huge success which also depends on the cast.
So another gangster role for De Niro where he is permitted to do some improvisation as well as his fellow movie co-stars do.
He is the the creation of former experience and more, because now De Niro and the crew have their hands on the research material left from the book that Nicholas Pileggi wrote.
With several nominations and winning the Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Joe Pesci and Best Film and Best Director in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the movie was an epic view on the crime life of several important mob pins.
The film who had his world premiere at the 1990 Venice Film Festival started De Niro in the role of James Conway, a performer who had great reviews and a memorable energy with a great set of wonderful, original lines.
Considered a slick criminal who is capable of any job, James Conway, is in fact the man who makes the trip possible.
So guys did you see it or not, because you still have time to watch one of the best Robert De Niro movies.
Next movie is a sequel->
2.
The Godfather Part II – 1974
The 200 minute epic crime movie tells the story of the crime boss Vito Corleone played by De Niro and his son Michael Corleone played by Al Pacino.
This movie was the first who described the mob life with all its aspects and was considered a better movie than the first part.
Robert De Niro has a supporting role for which he receives the Academy Award and the surprising fact is that the sequel, part II received more awards than the first film, making it the first sequel who was widely more appreciated than the original.
De Niro has an important role and is the main character of the second storyline that goes on almost 50 years earlier than the one in which Al Pacino plays Michael Corleone.
Considered one of the cinema’s greatest achievements it stands alone as one of Robert De Niro Best films where the actor, present during the movie in the numerous flashbacks, lays the base for understanding the actions that his son does in the present days.
For the role the 30 years old Robert De Niro lived in Sicily for a period to understand and act as according to any customs and language specifics he didn’t have the possibility to learn in New York.
On of the best representations for De Niro and also for Pacino the movie received a 9.1 score on IMDB and is one of the famous crime movies where you have a glance on the life and customs of mob lords and their crews.
Number one best Robert De Niro movies->
1.
Taxi Driver – 1976
So last but the most important movie on the list of best Robert De Niro movies is the Taxi Driver a movie who was considered one of the best movies of all time, a must see for all the movie lovers and De Niro fans.
A long way from mob movies, this particular film gives Robert the chance to try something else and be more loose when it comes to actual research for the character.
Taking only two weeks of cab driving through New York as homework for his new role, De Niro plays a deranged former Vietnam soldier who came back with insomnia and a weird sense of justice.
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards the film has a modest score on IMDB, a 8.4 score and was made on the smallest budget from this actual list, a budget 15 times smaller than other movies that were considered to be the best Robert De Niro movies.
So it doesn’t matter the budget, the cast is the main money making machine, and here De Niro is a one man show who proves that acting can be reduced only to monologues, or that madness is a form of genius.
So for all the fans out there I bow before this performance and leave out any details regarding the movie because if you didn’t see it I’ll be a spoiler and if you did for sure it impressed you so hard that my comments or opinions aren’t so valuable.
So guys do you want a to see one of the best Robert De Niro movies where the star has the biggest interpretation of his life, a raging struggle to cope with reality and the downfall of humanity after the Vietnam War.
He is the guy who goes from mad to hero and in one second could go back to insanity, making his character the most unstable until now and making his performance a challenging take on the postwar life, on the street life of New York and of course, a way of showing that no one can do it better than him.
So Happy Birthday again Robert De Niro and we thank you for the unique experiences you showed us through your movies and guys remember to say something about the list, if you liked it or not.
