Despite the fact that his career has recently devolved into a string of dreadful comedies like Little Fockers and Dirty Grandpa, Robert De Niro still has enough legendary work on his filmography to be rightly considered one of the greatest actors who ever lived. De Niro has played more than a few unforgettable roles in cinematic masterpieces that rank among the most revered movies ever made.
Arguably De Niro’s finest performance is his turn as middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese’s black-and-white biopic Raging Bull, but there are also a handful of alternatives — mostly from other collaborations with Scorsese.
Jake LaMotta Is The Best: There’s A Raw Honesty Rarely Captured On Film
What makes Robert De Niro’s performance in Raging Bull truly special is that it conveys anger with a raw honesty and visceral intensity rarely captured on film.
In Raging Bull’s boxing scenes, Scorsese pulls out all the tricks from the cinematic playbook. He contrasts this with a minimalist shooting style in the domestic scenes. When LaMotta is in a marital dispute or bickering with his brother, Scorsese simply points the camera at his actors and takes in the reality and humanity of the scene.
Alternative: Frank Sheeran (The Irishman)
Just like he’d done with Jake LaMotta decades earlier, Robert De Niro brought the story of Frank Sheeran to Martin Scorsese’s attention and begged him to make a movie about the hitman who claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. The resulting effort, The Irishman, is one of the duo’s finest collaborations.
After waiting for CGI technology to catch up to his vision, Scorsese shot a poignant crime epic about the inevitable sadness and isolation that the mafia lifestyle eventually brings. De Niro’s portrayal of Sheeran is one of his most nuanced performances.
Jake LaMotta Is The Best: He’s Completely Unsympathetic
When an actor is hired to play a character who’s sympathetic, like a foster parent or a world-saving superhero, that likability will aid them in portraying a compelling lead that audiences want to root for.
But Jake LaMotta is abusive, aggressive, and entirely unsympathetic. De Niro doesn’t try to make the audience like LaMotta; he just plays the part, warts and all, and it’s often painful to watch — in a good way.
Alternative: Michael Vronsky (The Deer Hunter)
Michael Cimino created one of the most powerful cinematic portraits of the horrors of the Vietnam War with his three-hour epic The Deer Hunter. Robert De Niro stars alongside Christopher Walken and John Cazale as a trio of small-town blue-collar guys who get drafted to fight.
Only a small section in the middle of the film takes place in the actual war. The movie’s real focus is on its characters and the devastating effects that fighting in Vietnam has on each of them.
Jake LaMotta Is The Best: De Niro Plays Every Stage Of His Life Convincingly
Although the dodgy CGI certainly didn’t help, part of what prevented The Irishman from standing head and shoulders next to Raging Bull is that De Niro’s portrayal of Frank Sheeran at various stages of his life didn’t quite fully immerse the audience like his performance as Jake LaMotta did.
In Raging Bull, viewers are taken from Jake LaMotta’s early career to the height of his fame to his ultimate downfall to the tragic end of his life. At every turn, De Niro fully immerses the audience in LaMotta’s emotions, behavior, and state of mind at that point in his life — not the mention the record-breaking weight gain.
Alternative: Rupert Pupkin (The King of Comedy)
Scorsese and De Niro’s criminally underrated satire of fame, The King of Comedy, finally started getting some recognition last year when Todd Phillips’ Joker hit theaters and was identified as almost a carbon copy of the pitch-black comedy.
De Niro had himself become disillusioned with his own fame when he took on the role of aspiring comedian Rupert Pupkin, who gets lost in his own delusions as he imagines his dreams coming true.
Jake LaMotta Is The Best: There’s A Real Brotherhood Between De Niro And Joe Pesci
Robert De Niro has shared terrific on-screen chemistry with many of his co-stars: Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets, Al Pacino in Heat and The Irishman, even Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. But no co-star has ever shared better chemistry with De Niro than Joe Pesci.
Before they began filming Raging Bull, De Niro and Pesci lived together, so that when they played the LaMotta brothers, there was an authentic camaraderie between them akin to a sibling relationship.
Alternative: Vito Corleone (The Godfather Part II)
Francis Ford Coppola did the impossible and managed to top the greatness of his masterpiece The Godfather with its sequel, The Godfather Part II, which tells the parallel narratives of Michael Corleone taking on his father’s position as the don and his father rising through the ranks of organized crime at the turn of the century.
Robert De Niro played a younger, hungrier version of Vito Corleone in the prequel segments. He didn’t emulate Marlon Brando’s performance from the first movie; instead, he offered his own interpretation of the same character.
Jake LaMotta Is The Best: De Niro Was Passionate About Telling LaMotta’s Story
Robert De Niro has been passionate about a lot of his projects, but none more than Raging Bull. The actor brought Jake LaMotta to Martin Scorsese’s attention and insisted on making a movie about his life. Scorsese initially wasn’t interested because it was a sports movie, but De Niro eventually persuaded him that it wasn’t a sports movie, but rather a portrait of a broken man.
The passion that De Niro had for bringing LaMotta’s troubling story to the screen went a long way toward making his performance in Raging Bull his very best.
Alternative: Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver)
Paul Schrader wrote the definitive study of loneliness with his script for Taxi Driver. Robert De Niro took the role of Travis Bickle, a soldier who returns from Vietnam with PTSD and insomnia and fills his nights by working as a cabbie.
Whether Travis is going on a painfully awkward date, exacting vigilante justice, or simply talking to himself in the mirror, De Niro nails every scene.
