Top 10 Robert De Niro Performances

Hello, dear reader!

Iconic actor Robert De Niro turned 77 years old this week, and what better way to celebrate than with a ranking of his greatest role performances. Known best for playing either classy mobsters or unstable madmen (sometimes both at the same time), this winner of two Academy Awards has been one of Hollywood's brightest stars for several decades. Without further ado, here's my ranking of his greatest acting performances!

Here are my honorable mentions: Conrad Brean in Wag The Dog (1997), Jack Byrnes in the Fockers trilogy (2000-2010), James Conway in Goodfellas (1990), Louis Gara in Jackie Brown (1997), Murray Franklin in The Joker (2019).

...And a shout-out for his hysterical recurring performance as Robert Mueller on Saturday Night Live (1975-Present).

10. Sam "Ace" Rothstein in Casino (1995)

After giving a fine supporting performance in Martin Scorsese's mob epic Goodfellas (1990), Robert De Niro snatched the main role in the director's next mob epic. While Casino is overall vastly inferior to Goodfellas, De Niro's acting is one of the elements in which Casino beats its predecessor.

In his layered lead performance, De Niro plays it cool when compared to most of his performances in Scorsese pictures - there's less rage and more class than one is used to. His character Ace is so charming that the viewer can't help but to like him at certain points, before being reminded that he is indeed a violent mafioso. De Niro's onscreen chemistry with co-stars Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci is quite phenomenal, making for an all-in-all memorable and classy performance.

9. Rupert Pupkin in The King Of Comedy (1982)

To modern sensibilities, this role is best described as "Joaquin Phoenix's Joker meets the Eminem song Stan". It makes sense that last year's hit film Joker paid a lot of homage to The King Of Comedy, as this is essentially the same film - only if it really, really narrowed its focus down on the element of being a failed comedian and an over-obsessed fan of a more successful comedian. De Niro gives a complex performance as Rupert Pupkin, who is introduced as a likable but socially awkward comedian who wants to be mentored by his comedic idol Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis).

As you can expect from a Martin Scorsese flick, things get darker from there. The further the film progresses, the more you realize that Pupkin isn't just a fan but an obsessive stalker, and that his ambitious dreams are actually delusional fantasies. We're used to De Niro playing characters with clear and over-the-top mental health issues, but this is one of the rare occasions where he plays someone with more subdued and realistic problems. It's an unsettling but very successful performance, and one for which De Niro got to go "full circle" when he played the successful talk show host that someone else is obsessed with in Joker.

8. Neil McCauley in Heat (1995)

How do you make the ultimate cops-and-robbers movie, you ask? The answer is simple: you cast Al Pacino as the main cop and Robert De Niro as the main robber.

While Pacino's performance in Heat is even better, De Niro's gravitas as heist mastermind Neil McCauley cannot be understated. The film's biggest selling point always was seeing these two absolute giants onscreen together for the first time, and it is truly a phenomenon to behold. Both men give powerful performances large in scale, and both were robbed of Oscar nominations - a crime more severe than anything that McCauley's crew pulls off in the film, if you ask me. De Niro's nuanced skills allow him to play a cold, calculating and smart criminal without him falling into the cliché territory of the "Evil mastermind" archetype. And his tense diner conversation with Pacino's character is a scene for the ages.

7. Michael in Deer Hunter (1978)

De Niro really excels at playing criminals, assholes and other kinds of bad guys - therefore this is arguably the only performance in this top 10 where he plays a good person. It's nice to see that he's also capable of doing that with aplomb, even when it's not traditionally his strong suit - a great actor has to have range.

In Deer Hunter, De Niro plays one of three men who leave their hometown to fight in the Vietnam war. The first hour of this three-hour film follows their lives before the war, the second hour takes place during their service, and the final hour follows their lives after the war. While De Niro's character Michael changes in the least drastic way out of the three (one of his two compatriots is paralyzed and the other comes down with severe PTSD), he still undergoes a significant transformation. He goes into Vietnam as an enthusiastic man who loves to hunt and spend time with his friends, and comes back as a shell of his former self who shuns from crowds and keeps to himself. His performance is a powerful statement on how war changes people.

6. Johnny Boy in Mean Streets (1973)

Mean Streets was the one of the last in the series of breakthrough films that transformed De Niro from an unknown actor to a household name in the early 1970's. It was also the first in the series of several films where he would collaborate with director Martin Scorsese - in this top 10, for example, a whopping six of the performances are from Scorsese pictures.

The De Niro in Mean Streets is very different from the De Niro known to us from the classy, larger-than-life presence that he has had in his later performances. In this film, he plays an erratic young mobster who keeps going rogue and making dumb and youthful mistakes. This plays off wonderfully against Harvey Keitel's protagonist Charlie, a very straight-forward and risk-avoiding mafioso whose ambition to advance in the ranks conflicts with his humane desire to help De Niro's Johnny Boy. This early performance is a true gem in De Niro's filmography, as the rising star absolutely steals the show in his wild card -role.

5. Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019)

In a way, this is the absolute opposite of De Niro's performance in Mean Streets: in 1973, he was a rising star ready to dazzle the world with his energy, whereas in 2019, he had become one of the most iconic actors in cinema history, gearing up with larger-than-life class for his possibly final role in a Scorsese film. The Irishman was the end of the era that Mean Streets had started, and De Niro truly gave everything in his role performance.

Due to the film's lengthy timeline, De Niro plays real-life mobster Frank Sheeran as a fairly young mob associate (thanks to visual de-aging), as the elderly right-hand man of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), and finally as a very old has-been mobster in a retirement home. It's the actor's subtlety and nuances that truly make this role fantastic: he's not as explosive as he is in most of his mafia roles, as his facial expressions don't change much and his character development isn't shown through fits of rage - yet you can still feel his development in the little things. The character's slow shift from Hoffa's close ally to a bitter former friend wanting revenge is done in a subtle yet noticeable fashion, proving that De Niro doesn't always have to yell in order to perform a critically acclaimed role.

4. Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987)

The most impressive aspect of this performance is the same as in Anthony Hopkins's Oscar-winning Silence Of The Lambs (1991) performance: he does so much with so little screentime. De Niro's time on screen is much shorter than the lead actors Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Andy Garcia (side note: someone should give a medal to the genius casting department of this film), yet his performance is just as impressive if not more so. Whenever he is on screen, De Niro absolutely steals the show as the infamous real-life gangster Al Capone. The sheer level of evil and corruption that Capone was known for, paired with a creepy charming smile, makes for an unsettling performance that you just can't look away from.

The role has also had a powerful impact in the world of mafia movies and television: when watching De Niro channel Al Capone, you cannot help but notice that this performance was undoubtedly one of James Gandolfini's big inspirations for his iconic role as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos (1999-2007), for which he won three Emmys and a Golden Globe. The groundwork for the character of Tony Soprano can clearly be seen in this film's depiction of Capone, accomplished by the one and only Robert De Niro.

3. Young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II (1974)

De Niro won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Performance for this role, and rightfully so. Marlon Brando's role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972) is one of the greatest, most unique and unparalleled performances in cinematic history, so playing the young version of the same character meant some serious shoes to fill. Robert De Niro was the man for the job, and he brought Young Vito to life with perfection.

He doesn't fall into the trap of simply mimicking Brando's performance, but he also avoids making the role too different to be believable, rather striking a perfect balance: an up-and-coming gangster who doesn't yet have the gravitas of Old Vito that would naturally come with age and experience, but who already has a strong foundation of class and charisma that feels very familiar. Every facial expression, the delivery of every line and all other nuances are pulled off in a calculating and flawless manner.

2. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)

De Niro has built a career out of playing unstable and angry characters, and his role in Taxi Driver is the most haunting example of just how gripping and unsettling he can be when he really throws himself into a role. What really gets me in this performance is how frighteningly realistic it is - there is nothing over-the-top, nothing Hollywood about the way De Niro plays war veteran Travis Bickle. He plays a type of person that exists in large quantities in the real world, which works as the film's way of criticizing the way society treats its members.

There are so many levels to De Niro's Taxi Driver performance. The character feels violent and dangerous, yet you feel sorry for him and want the best for him through the fleshed-out sympathetic side that the character has. He has lines that are amusing and make you smile, yet also make you worry in the back of your head. He invokes emotion without tears or emotional dialogue, by simply playing an earnest portrayal of a man left behind by society. This is De Niro at his most real and most raw, and it is a thing to behold.

1. Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980)

The performance that won De Niro his Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Performance truly deserves its #1 spot on this list. Playing real-life boxer Jake La Motta, the actor gets to play many of his greatest strengths in a role filled with anti-hero antics, traditional Italian-American dialogue and, appropriately to the film's title, rage. Whether it's directed at his wife, his brother or his opponents in the ring, La Motta is portrayed as more or less the angriest character in cinema history. This makes the film gripping and hard to watch, but it also makes the lead performance extremely challenging, yet De Niro does his job perfectly. Every time he raises his voice or loses his temper, he does so with frightening realism.

He also brings La Motta's character development to life quite astonishingly. The boxer changes so much during the film that it's hard to think of the Jake at the beginning of the film as the same person as the Jake at the end. And whether De Niro is playing him as a young and ambitious boxer full of energy, or as an old and overweight has-been cracking jokes while his life slips away from his control, he portrays every step of La Motta's journey with perfection.

Thank you for reading. If you're a fan of Broadway, be sure to tune in next week for my most ambitious list yet - a ranking of all 46 songs in the musical Hamilton.