Leonardo DiCaprio is working with filmmaker Martin Scorsese for the sixth time with Killers of the Flower Moon, but the actor still has a long way to go to beat a unique record De Niro has with the director. After working with the actor in 2002 on The Aviator, Scorsese had seemingly found his new De Niro, as DiCaprio disappeared into the role of real-life aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes. As a result, Scorsese cast the actor in five more movies; Gangs of New York, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, and now Killers of the Flower Moon, which has gotten the duo’s best reception yet.
This followed one of the most famous actor-director collaborations in cinema, as Robert De Niro and Scorsese worked together on ten movies. Most of those movies have become iconic, including Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, Cape Fear, and Goodfellas, and Scorsese directed De Niro to an Oscar win with Raging Bull too. The prolific actor also joins Killers of the Flower Moon cast along with DiCaprio, marking the first time they’ve been directed by Scorsese in the same movie. However, while DiCaprio has proved to be just as worthy of a collaborator of Scorsese’s as De Niro, the Titanic actor still hasn’t earned the same level of critical success.
Critics Have Collectively Favored De Niro’s Movies With Scorsese
De Niro’s work with Scorsese has an average of 87.5% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a whole 5% higher than DiCaprio’s 82.5%. What’s even more impressive is that with more movies, there’s more room for error, but De Niro has made ten films with Scorsese compared to DiCaprio’s six movies. There was a long period where De Niro didn’t work with Scorsese between 1995 and 2019, and that era coincidentally saw Scorsese’s weakest Rotten Tomatoes scores yet (though Scorsese impressively hasn’t directed a “rotten” movie since 1977). When De Niro reunited with Scorsese for 2019’s The Irishman, the movie earned Scorsese’s highest score since 1990.
The movies that Scorsese and De Niro worked on together in the ’70s, ’80s, and even ’90s have become some of the most important movies in cinema, such as 1976’s Taxi Driver, 1980’s Raging Bull, and 1990’s Goodfellas. None of DiCaprio’s Scorsese-directed movies have the same amount of cultural or historical significance as those films. It comes as no surprise that Killers of the Flower Moon, a movie with something truly important to say and is unapologetically harrowing, just like Scorsese’s older movies with De Niro, is DiCaprio’s highest-scoring film with the director on Rotten Tomatoes.
How DiCaprio Could Meet De Niro’s RT Average Working With Scorsese
To simply reach the same level as De Niro’s Rotten Tomatoes average with Scorsese, DiCaprio will need to star in three more movies directed by the celebrated filmmaker. Two of those movies will need to be rated 97% and one of the movies would have to earn 96%. That’s an extremely high bar, especially as it’d mark Scorsese’s best career hot streak yet. None of DiCaprio’s movies with Scorsese have come close to those numbers except for Killers of the Flower Moon either. Though Killers of the Flower Moon has 97%, DiCaprio’s highest-scoring movie with Scorsese is The Departed with 91%.
However, it’s maybe more possible than ever, as the score for Killers of the Flower Moon and 2019’s The Irishman’s 95% score are the highest scores Scorsese has gotten since the 1970s. With that in mind, DiCaprio could potentially beat DeNiro’s Rotten Tomatoes average with Scorsese. The biggest problem DiCaprio could face is if De Niro stars in those movies too, just as DiCaprio and De Niro share screen time in Killers of the Flower Moon. Nevertheless, it took six Scorsese movies for Leonardo DiCaprio and De Niro to feature on screen together in a Scorsese movie, so the chances of it happening again in the near future are slim.
