The Godfather Part II
1974 epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, loosely based on the 1969 novel "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. It is both a sequel and a prequel to the 1972 film "The Godfather", presenting parallel dramas: one picks up the 1958 story of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone family, protecting the family business in the aftermath of an attempt on his life; the other covers the journey of his father, Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), from his Sicilian childhood to the founding of his family enterprise in New York City. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Morgana King, John Cazale, Marianna Hill and Lee Strasberg.
Following the first film's success, Paramount Pictures began developing a follow-up, with many of the cast and crew returning. Coppola, who was given more creative control, had wanted to make both a sequel and a prequel to "The Godfather" that would tell the story of Vito's rise and Michael's fall. Principal photography began in October 1973 and wrapped up in June 1974. "The Godfather Part II" premiered in New York City on December 12, 1974, and was released in the United States on December 20, 1974. It grossed $48 million in the United States and Canada and up to $93 million worldwide on a $13 million budget. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and became the first sequel to win Best Picture. Its six Oscar wins also included Best Director for Coppola, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro and Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola and Puzo. Pacino won Best Actor at the BAFTAs and was nominated at the Oscars.
"The Godfather Part II" is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, as well as a rare example of a sequel that rivals its predecessor. Like its predecessor, "Part II" remains a highly influential film, especially in the gangster genre. In 1997, the American Film Institute ranked it as the 32nd-greatest film in American film history and it retained this position 10 years later. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1993, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Pauline Kael wrote: ""The Godfather" was the greatest gangster picture ever made, and had metaphorical overtones that took it far beyond the gangster genre. In Part II, the wider themes are no longer merely implied. The second film shows the consequences of the actions in the first; it’s all one movie, in two great big pieces, and it comes together in your head while you watch."
"The Godfather Part III", the final installment in the trilogy, was released 16 years later in 1990.
Plot.
The film interweaves events some time after "The Godfather" and the early life of Vito Corleone.
Vito.
In 1901, nine-year-old Vito Andolini escapes from Corleone, Sicily in the Kingdom of Italy to New York City after mafia chieftain Don Ciccio kills the rest of his family. An immigration officer registers him as Vito Corleone. By 1917 Vito is married in Little Italy and has an infant son, Sonny. Black Hand extortionist Don Fanucci preys on the neighborhood, costing Vito his grocery store job. He begins stealing for a living with his neighbor Peter Clemenza and has two more children: Fredo and Michael.
Vito, Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio sell stolen dresses door-to-door. Fanucci demands payoffs of $200 from Vito and his partners. Vito doubts Fanucci's muscle and decides to offer less. He meets Fanucci and offers $100, which Fanucci grudgingly accepts. Emboldened, Vito tracks Fanucci back to his apartment and kills him. Vito's reputation spreads, and neighbors ask him to defend them from other predatory figures.
In 1922, Vito and his family travel to Sicily to start an olive oil importing business. He and business partner Don Tommasino visit an elderly Don Ciccio. He obtains Ciccio's blessing for their business, then reveals his identity and slices Ciccio's stomach, avenging the Andolini family.
Michael.
In 1958, Don Michael Corleone has several meetings at his Lake Tahoe compound during the First Communion of his son Anthony. Johnny Ola, representing Jewish Mob boss Hyman Roth, promises support in taking over a Las Vegas casino. Corleone "capo" Frank Pentangeli asks for help defending Bronx territory from Roth affiliates, the Rosato brothers. Michael refuses, frustrating Pentangeli. Senator Pat Geary demands a bribe to secure the casino license and insults Michael's Italian heritage. That night, Michael narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. Suspecting a traitor in the family, he leaves "consigliere" Tom Hagen in charge and leaves the compound.
Michael separately tells Pentangeli and Roth that he suspects the other of planning the hit, and arranges a peace meeting between Pentangeli and the Rosatos. At the meeting the brothers attempt to strangle Pentangeli. A police officer drops in, forcing the brothers to flee. Hagen blackmails Geary into cooperating with the Corleones by having him framed for the death of a prostitute.
Roth invites Michael to Havana to invest in his activities under the Batista government. Michael expresses reservations, given the growing Cuban Revolution. Later Roth becomes angry when Michael asks who ordered the Rosatos to kill Pentangeli. Michael and Ola attend a New Year's Eve party where Fredo pretends not to know Ola but later slips. Michael realizes that Fredo is a traitor and orders both Roth and Ola killed. Batista resigns and flees amid rebel advances, and Michael, Fredo and Roth separately escape Cuba. Ola is murdered by hitman Bussetta, who is himself killed by a soldier while attempting to murder Roth at a Havana hospital after Roth was taken there after falling ill. Back home, Hagen tells Michael that his wife Kay miscarried.
A Senate committee on organized crime investigates the Corleone family. Pentangeli agrees to testify against Michael and is placed under witness protection. On returning to Nevada, Fredo tells Michael that he did not realize that Roth was planning an assassination. Michael disowns Fredo but orders that he should not be harmed while their mother Carmela is alive. Michael attends the committee hearing with Hagen and Pentangeli's brother Vincenzo. Pentangeli, upon seeing Vincenzo, retracts his statement implicating Michael in organized crime, and the hearing dissolves in an uproar. Kay tells Michael that she had an abortion and intends to leave him and take their children. Michael strikes her in rage and banishes her alone.
At Carmela's funeral, Fredo hugs a reluctant Michael and befriends Anthony over fishing. Roth returns to the United States after being refused entry to Israel. Corleone "capo" Rocco Lampone assassinates him at the airport and is shot dead trying to escape. Hagen visits Pentangeli at the army barracks where he is held and they discuss how failed conspirators against a Roman emperor could commit suicide to save their families. Pentangeli is later found dead in his bathtub, having slit his wrists. Enforcer Al Neri takes Fredo fishing and shoots him as Michael watches from the compound.
Michael recalls Vito's 50th birthday party on December 7, 1941. While the family waits for Vito, Michael announces that he has dropped out of college and joined the Marines, angering Sonny and surprising Hagen. Only Fredo supports his decision. When Vito is heard arriving, Michael sits alone at the table while the others welcome him in surprise. After Fredo's death, Michael sits pensively, alone, by the lake.
Cast.
<templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>* Al Pacino as Michael Corleone
Production.
Development.
Mario Puzo started writing a script for a sequel in December 1971, before "The Godfather" was even released; its initial title was "The Death of Michael Corleone". Francis Ford Coppola's idea for the sequel would be to "juxtapose the ascension of the family under Vito Corleone with the decline of the family under his son Michael... I had always wanted to write a screenplay that told the story of a father and a son at the same age. They were both in their thirties and I would integrate the two stories... In order not to merely make "Godfather I" over again, I gave "Godfather II" this double structure by extending the story in both the past and in the present". Coppola met with Martin Scorsese about directing the film, but Paramount refused. Coppola also, in his director's commentary on "The Godfather Part II", mentioned that the scenes depicting the Senate committee interrogation of Michael Corleone and Frank Pentangeli are based on the Joseph Valachi federal hearings and that Pentangeli is a Valachi-like figure.
Production, however, nearly ended before it began when Pacino's lawyers told Coppola that he had grave misgivings with the script and was not coming. Coppola spent an entire night rewriting it before giving it to Pacino for his review. Pacino approved it and the production went forward.
The film's original budget was $6 million but costs increased to over $11 million, with "Variety"'s review claiming it was over $15 million.
Casting.
Several actors from the first film did not return for the sequel. Marlon Brando initially agreed to return for the birthday flashback sequence, but the actor, feeling mistreated by the board at Paramount, failed to show up for the single day's shooting. Coppola then rewrote the scene that same day. Richard S. Castellano, who portrayed Peter Clemenza in the first film, also declined to return, as he and the producers could not reach an agreement on his demands that he be allowed to write the character's dialogue in the film, though this claim was disputed by Castellano's widow in a 1991 letter to "People" magazine. The part in the plot originally intended for the latter-day Clemenza was then filled by the character of Frank Pentangeli, played by Michael V. Gazzo.
Coppola offered James Cagney a part in the film, but he refused. James Caan agreed to reprise the role of Sonny in the birthday flashback sequence, demanding he be paid the same amount he received for the entire previous film for the single scene in "Part II", which he received. Among the actors depicting Senators in the hearing committee are film producer/director Roger Corman, writer/producer William Bowers, producer Phil Feldman, and actor Peter Donat.
Filming.
"The Godfather Part II" was shot between October 1, 1973, and June 19, 1974. The scenes that took place in Cuba were shot in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Charles Bluhdorn, whose Gulf+Western conglomerate owned Paramount, felt strongly about developing the Dominican Republic as a movie-making site. Forza d'Agrò was the Sicilian town featured in the film.
Unlike with the first film, Coppola was given near-complete control over production. In his commentary, he said this resulted in a shoot that ran very smoothly despite multiple locations and two narratives running parallel within one film. Coppola discusses his decision to make this the first major U.S. motion picture to use "Part II" in its title in the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film released in 2002. Paramount was initially opposed because they believed the audience would not be interested in an addition to a story they had already seen. But the director prevailed, and the film's success began the common practice of numbered sequels.
Only three weeks prior to the release, film critics and journalists pronounced "Part II" a disaster. The cross-cutting between Vito and Michael's parallel stories were judged too frequent, not allowing enough time to leave a lasting impression on the audience. Coppola and the editors returned to the cutting room to change the film's narrative structure, but could not complete the work in time, leaving the final scenes poorly timed at the opening.
It was the last major American motion picture to have release prints made with Technicolor's dye imbibition process until the late 1990s.
Music.
The score is by Nino Rota with additions by Carmine Coppola. It won the 1974 Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Release.
Theatrical.
"The Godfather Part II" premiered in New York City on December 12, 1974, and was released in the United States on December 20, 1974.
Home media.
Coppola created "The Godfather Saga" expressly for American television in a 1975 release that combined "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" with unused footage from those two films in a chronological telling that toned down the violent, sexual, and profane material for its NBC debut on November 18, 1977. In 1981, Paramount released the "Godfather Epic" VHS box set, which also told the story of the first two films in chronological order, again with additional scenes, but not redacted for broadcast sensibilities. Coppola returned to the film again in 1992 when he updated that release with footage from "The Godfather Part III" and more unreleased material. This home viewing release, under the title "The Godfather Trilogy 1901–1980", had a total run time of 583 minutes (9 hours, 43 minutes), not including the set's bonus documentary by Jeff Werner on the making of the films, "The Godfather Family: A Look Inside".
"The Godfather DVD Collection" was released on October 9, 2001, in a package that contained all three films—each with a commentary track by Coppola—and a bonus disc that featured a 73-minute documentary from 1991 entitled "The Godfather Family: A Look Inside" and other miscellany about the film: the additional scenes originally contained in "The Godfather Saga"; "Francis Coppola's Notebook" (a look inside a notebook the director kept with him at all times during the production of the film); rehearsal footage; a promotional featurette from 1971; and video segments on Gordon Willis's cinematography, Nino Rota's and Carmine Coppola's music, the director, the locations and Mario Puzo's screenplays. The DVD also held a Corleone family tree, a "Godfather" timeline, and footage of the Academy Award acceptance speeches.
The restoration was confirmed by Francis Ford Coppola during a question-and-answer session for "The Godfather Part III", when he said that he had just seen the new transfer and it was "terrific".
Restoration.
After a careful restoration by Robert A. Harris of Film Preserve, the first two "Godfather" films were released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 23, 2008, under the title "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration". The Blu-ray Disc box set (four discs) includes high-definition extra features on the restoration and film. They are included on Disc 5 of the DVD box set (five discs).
Other extras are ported over from Paramount's 2001 DVD release. There are slight differences between the repurposed extras on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc sets, with the HD box having more content.
Paramount Pictures restored and remastered "The Godfather", "The Godfather Part II", and "" (a re-edited cut of the third film) for a limited theatrical run and home media release on Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the premiere of "The Godfather". The disc editions were released on March 22, 2022.
Video game.
A video game based on the film was released for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in April 2009 by Electronic Arts. It received mixed or average reviews and sold poorly, leading Electronic Arts to cancel plans for a game based on "The Godfather Part III."
Reception.
Box office.
Although "The Godfather Part II" did not surpass the original film commercially, it grossed $47.5 million in the United States and Canada. and was Paramount Pictures' highest-grossing film of 1974, and the seventh-highest-grossing picture in the United States. According to its international distributor, the film had grossed $45.3 million internationally by 1994, for a worldwide total of $93 million.
Critical response.
Pauline Kael in "The New Yorker" was an early champion of the film, writing that it was visually "far more complexly beautiful than the first, just as it's thematically richer, more shadowed, more full." She writes: "Twice I almost cried out at the acts of violence that De Niro's Vito committed. I didn't look away from the images, as I sometimes do in routine action pictures. I wanted to see the worst; there is a powerful need to see it. You need these moments as you need the terrible climaxes in a Tolstoy novel. A great novelist does not spare our feelings (as the historical romancer does); he intensifies them, and so does Coppola." However, while the film's cinematography and acting were immediately acclaimed, many criticized it as overly slow-paced and convoluted. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" viewed the film unfavorably, describing it as "stitched together from leftover parts. It talks. It moves in fits and starts but it has no mind of its own... The plot defies any rational synopsis." "Variety" noted that Canby had been downbeat on the original too and claimed that he was in a minority of one and reported that the film had drawn mostly strongly admiring reviews. In A.D. Murphy's review in "Variety" he described it as a "masterful sequel" and "outstanding in all respects".
William Pechter of "Commentary", while admiring the movie, regretted what he saw as its archness and self-importance, calling it an "overly deliberate and self-conscious attempt to make a film that's unmistakably a serious work of art," and professing to "know of no one except movie critics who likes "Part II" as much as part one." Stanley Kauffmann of "The New Republic" cited what he called "gaps and distentions" in the story.
Roger Ebert awarded three out of four and wrote that the flashbacks "give Coppola the greatest difficulty in maintaining his pace and narrative force. The story of Michael, told chronologically and without the other material, would have had really substantial impact, but Coppola prevents our complete involvement by breaking the tension." Though praising Pacino's performance and lauding Coppola as "a master of mood, atmosphere, and period", Ebert considered the chronological shifts of its narrative "a structural weakness from which the film never recovers". Gene Siskel gave the film three-and-a-half out of four, writing that it was at times "as beautiful, as harrowing, and as exciting as the original. In fact, "The Godfather, Part II" may be the "second" best gangster movie ever made. But it's not the same. Sequels can never be the same. It's like being forced to go to a funeral the second time—the tears just don't flow as easily."
Critical re-assessment.
The film quickly became the subject of a critical re-evaluation. Whether considered separately or with its predecessor as one work, "The Godfather Part II" is now widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema. Many critics compare it favorably with the original – although it is rarely ranked higher on lists of "greatest" films. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 96% approval rating based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 9.7/10. The consensus reads, "Drawing on strong performances by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola's continuation of Mario Puzo's Mafia saga set new standards for sequels that have yet to be matched or broken." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Michael Sragow's conclusion in his 2002 essay, selected for the National Film Registry website, is that "[a]lthough "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" depict an American family's moral defeat, as a mammoth, pioneering work of art it remains a national creative triumph." In his 2014 review of the film, Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote "Francis Coppola's breathtakingly ambitious prequel-sequel to his first "Godfather" movie is as gripping as ever. It is even better than the first film, and has the greatest single final scene in Hollywood history, a real coup de cinéma."
"The Godfather Part II" was featured on "Sight & Sound"'s Director's list of the ten greatest films of all time in 1992 (ranked at No. 9) and 2002 (where it was ranked at No. 2. The critics ranked it at No. 4) On the 2012 list by the same magazine the film was ranked at No. 31 by critics and at No. 30 by directors. In 2006, Writers Guild of America ranked the film's screenplay (Written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola) the 10th greatest ever. It ranked No. 7 on "Entertainment Weekly"'s list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time", and #1 on "TV Guide"'s 1999 list of the "50 Greatest Movies of All Time on TV and Video". "The Village Voice" ranked "The Godfather Part II" at No. 31 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. In January 2002, the film (along with "The Godfather") made the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics. In 2017, it ranked No. 12 on Empire magazine's reader's poll of "The 100 Greatest Movies". In an earlier poll held by the same magazine in 2008, it was voted 19th on the list of 'The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time'. In 2015, it was tenth in the BBC's list of the 100 greatest American films.
Many believe Pacino's performance in "The Godfather Part II" is his finest acting work. It is now regarded as one of the greatest performances in film history. In 2006, "Premiere" issued its list of "The 100 Greatest Performances of all Time", putting Pacino's performance at #20. Later in 2009, "Total Film" issued "The 150 Greatest Performances of All Time", ranking Pacino's performance fourth place.
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited it as one of his 100 favorite films.
Ebert added the film to his Great Movies canon, noting he "would not change a word" of his original review but praising the work as "grippingly written, directed with confidence and artistry, photographed by Gordon Willis... in rich, warm tones." He praises the score: "More than ever, I am convinced it is instrumental to the power and emotional effect of the films. I cannot imagine them without their Nino Rota scores. Against all our objective reason, they instruct us how to feel about the films. Now listen very carefully to the first notes as the big car drives into Miami. You will hear an evocative echo of Bernard Hermann’s score for "Citizen Kane", another film about a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it."
Accolades.
This film is the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" remain the only original/sequel combination both to win Best Picture. Along with "The Lord of the Rings", "The Godfather Trilogy" shares the distinction that all of its installments were nominated for Best Picture; additionally, "The Godfather Part II" and "" are so far the only sequels to win Best Picture. Al Pacino became the third actor to be Oscar-nominated twice for playing the same character.
Notes.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Robert De Niro
American actor (born 1943)
Robert Anthony De Niro ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor and film producer. He is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for eight BAFTA Awards and four Emmy Awards. He was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2011, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2019. De Niro was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. president Barack Obama in 2016.
De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first credited screen role was in Brian de Palma's "Greetings" (1968). De Niro's first collaboration with Martin Scorsese was with the crime drama film "Mean Streets" (1973). De Niro has earned two Academy Awards: one for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Part II" (1974) and the other for Best Actor portraying Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's drama "Raging Bull" (1980). De Niro was also Oscar-nominated for "Taxi Driver" (1976), "The Deer Hunter" (1978), "Awakenings" (1990), "Cape Fear" (1991), "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012), and "Killers of the Flower Moon" (2023).
He is also known for his film roles in "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973), "1900" (1976), "The King of Comedy" (1982), "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), "Brazil" (1985), "The Mission" (1986), "Angel Heart" (1987), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Goodfellas" (1990), "This Boy's Life" (1993), "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994), "Heat" (1995), "Casino" (1995), "Jackie Brown" (1997), "Joker" (2019), and "The Irishman" (2019). He directed and acted in both "A Bronx Tale" (1993) and "The Good Shepherd" (2006). His comedic roles include "Hi, Mom!" (1970), "Midnight Run" (1988), "Wag the Dog" (1997), "Analyze This" (1999) and its sequel, "Analyze That" (2002), the "Meet the Parents" films (2000–2010), and "The Intern" (2015).
Also known for his television roles, De Niro portrayed Bernie Madoff in the HBO film "The Wizard of Lies" (2017), earning a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He received further Emmy Award nominations for producing the Netflix limited series "When They See Us" (2019), and for portraying Robert Mueller on "Saturday Night Live".
De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the film and television production company TriBeCa Productions in 1989, which has produced several films alongside his own. Also with Rosenthal, he founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Many of De Niro's films are considered classics of American cinema. Six of De Niro's films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" as of 2023. Five films are featured on the American Film Institute's (AFI) list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. "Timeout" magazine's list of 100 best movies included seven of De Niro's films, as chosen by actors in the industry.
Early life and education.
Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Manhattan borough of New York City on August 17, 1943, the only child of painters Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. His father was of Irish and Italian descent, while his mother had Dutch, English, French, and German ancestry. His parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, separated when he was two years old after his father announced that he was gay. De Niro was raised by his mother in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy neighborhoods of Manhattan. His father lived nearby, and remained close with De Niro during his childhood. Nicknamed "Bobby Milk" because of his pale complexion, De Niro befriended many street kids in Little Italy, much to the disapproval of his father. Some, however, have remained his lifelong friends. His mother was raised Presbyterian but became an atheist as an adult, while his father had been a lapsed Catholic since the age of 12. Against his parents' wishes, his grandparents had De Niro secretly baptized into the Catholic Church while he was staying with them during his parents' divorce.
De Niro attended PS 41, a public elementary school in Manhattan, through the sixth grade. He began acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop and made his stage debut in school at age 10, playing the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz". He later went to Elisabeth Irwin High School, the upper school of the Little Red School House, for the seventh and eighth grades. He was then accepted into the High School of Music & Art for the ninth grade, but attended for only a short time before transferring to a public junior high school: IS 71, Charles Evans Hughes Junior High School. De Niro attended high school at McBurney School and later, Rhodes Preparatory School. He found performing as a way to relieve his shyness, and became fascinated by cinema, so he dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue acting. He later said, "When I was around 18, I was looking at a TV show and I said, 'If these actors are making a living at it, and they're not really that good, I can't do any worse than them.'" He studied acting at HB Studio and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. De Niro also studied with Stella Adler, of the Stella Adler Conservatory, where he was exposed to the techniques of the Stanislavski system. As a young actor, De Niro was inspired by the work of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Greta Garbo, Geraldine Page, and Kim Stanley.
Career.
1963–1973: Early roles and breakthrough.
De Niro had minor film roles in "Encounter, Three Rooms in Manhattan" (both released in 1965) and "Les Jeunes Loups" (1968). Shortly afterwards, De Niro landed a major role in "Greetings" (1968), a satirical film about men avoiding the Vietnam War draft. The film marked the first of a series of early collaborations between De Niro and director Brian De Palma. A year later, De Niro appeared in the drama "Sam's Song" in which he portrays a New York City filmmaker. Also in 1969, he appeared in De Palma's comedy "The Wedding Party"; although it was filmed in 1963, it was kept unreleased for six years. De Niro, who was still unknown at the time, gained a favorable review from "The New York Times"' Howard Thompson: "This farcical comedy, modestly produced by a trio of young people and utilizing some unfamiliar faces, is great fun".
He then appeared in Roger Corman's low-budget crime drama "Bloody Mama" (1970), a loose adaptation of Ma Barker's life, who was the mother of four American criminals, of which De Niro portrayed one: Lloyd Barker. Thompson praised the film and thought the cast gave "fine performances". Next, De Niro starred in De Palma's comedy "Hi, Mom!" (1970), a sequel to "Greetings." Writing for "The New Yorker", Richard Brody opined that De Niro "brings unhinged spontaneity" to his character. He also had a small role in "Jennifer on My Mind" (1971) and in Ivan Passer's "Born to Win" (1971). His last film appearance of 1971 was in "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight", a crime-comedy based on the 1969 novel by Jimmy Breslin.
In 1972, De Niro starred in two performances at The American Place Theatre, directed by Charles Maryan. He then returned to the big screen with "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973), in which he played the lead role as Bruce Pearson, a Major League Baseball player with Hodgkin disease. His co-stars were Michael Moriarty and Vincent Gardenia. Adapted from the 1956 novel of the same name by Mark Harris, the film received critical acclaim and helped De Niro gain further recognition. "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "De Niro proves himself to be one of the best and most likable young character actors in movies with this performance". "Variety" magazine's Alex Belth also took note of De Niro's "touching" portrayal, while Gardenia was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Harris later wrote about De Niro, "He learned only as much baseball as he needed for his role [...] I doubt that he ever cared to touch a baseball again".
In 1973, De Niro began collaborating with Martin Scorsese when he appeared in the crime film "Mean Streets" (1973), co-starring Harvey Keitel. Although De Niro was offered a choice of roles, Scorsese wanted De Niro to play "Johnny Boy" Civello, a small time criminal working his way up into a local mob. While De Niro and Keitel were given freedom to improvise certain scenes, assistant director Ron Satlof recalls De Niro was "extremely serious, extremely involved in his role and preparation", and became isolated from the rest of the cast and crew. "Mean Streets" debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by the New York Film Festival five months later, to a generally warm response. Film critic Roger Ebert thought De Niro gave a "marvelous performance, filled with urgency and restless desperation". Pauline Kael of "The New York Times" was equally impressed by De Niro, writing he is "a bravura actor, and those who have registered him only as the grinning, tobacco-chewing dolt of that hunk of inept whimsey "Bang the Drum Slowly" will be unprepared for his volatile performance. De Niro does something like what Dustin Hoffman was doing in "Midnight Cowboy", but wilder; this kid doesn't just act – he takes off into the vapors". In 1997, "Mean Streets" was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
1974–1980: Scorsese collaboration and acclaim.
De Niro had a pivotal role in Francis Ford Coppola's crime epic "The Godfather Part II" (1974), playing the young Vito Corleone. De Niro had previously auditioned for the first installment, "The Godfather" (1972), but quit the project in favor of doing "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight". Coppola, having remembered him, gave De Niro a role in "Part II" instead. To portray his character, De Niro spoke mainly in several Sicilian dialects, although he delivered a few lines in English. The film was a commercial success and grossed $48 million at the worldwide box office. "The Godfather Part II" received eleven nominations at the 47th Academy Awards, winning six, including one for De Niro as Best Supporting Actor. It was De Niro's first Academy win; Coppola accepted the award on his behalf as he did not attend the ceremony. De Niro and Marlon Brando, who played the older Vito Corleone in the first film, were the first pair of actors to win Academy Awards for portraying the same fictional character.
After working with Scorsese in "Mean Streets", De Niro collaborated with him again for the psychological drama "Taxi Driver" (1976). Set in gritty and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film tells the story of Travis Bickle, a lonely taxi driver who descends into insanity. In preparation for the role, De Niro spent time with members of a U.S. army base to learn their Midwestern accent and mannerisms. He also lost 30 pounds (13 kg) in weight, took firearm training and studied the behavior of taxi drivers. The film was critically acclaimed, in particular for De Niro's performance; "The Washington Post" critic hailed it as his "landmark performance", and the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote "De Niro is dazzling in one of his signature roles". The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor for De Niro. His "You talkin' to me?" quote, which he improvised, was selected as the 10th most memorable quote in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute. In 2005, the film was chosen by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 best films of all time.
De Niro had two other film releases in 1976. He starred in "1900", a historical drama directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Starring an ensemble cast, the film is set in the Emilia region of Italy, and tells the story of two men, the landowner Alfredo Berlinghieri (De Niro) and the peasant Olmo Dalcò (Gérard Depardieu), as they witness and participate in the political conflicts between fascism and communism in the first half of the twentieth century. Next, he played a CEO in "The Last Tycoon", based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name, as adapted by British screenwriter Harold Pinter. De Niro lost 42 pounds (19 kg) for the role, and director Elia Kazan observed that De Niro would rehearse on Sundays, adding "Bobby and I would go over the scenes to be shot. Bobby is more meticulous... he's very imaginative. He's very precise. He figures everything out both inside and outside. He has good emotion. He's a character actor: everything he does he calculates. In a good way, but he calculates". The film received mixed reviews; "Variety" magazine's critic opined that the film was "unfocused" and called De Niro's performance "mildly intriguing". Film critic Marie Brenner wrote, "it is a role that surpasses even his brilliant and daring portrayal of Vito Corleone in "The Godfather Part II"... his performance deserves to be compared with the very finest".
For De Niro's sole project of 1977, he starred in Scorsese's musical drama "New York, New York" opposite Liza Minnelli. De Niro learned to play the saxophone from musician Georgie Auld, to portray saxophonist Jimmy, who falls in love with a pop singer (Minnelli). The film received generally mixed reception, although critics were kinder to De Niro. The film was nominated for four Golden Globe awards including Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for De Niro. In 1978, De Niro starred in Michael Cimino's epic war film "The Deer Hunter," in which he played a steelworker whose life was changed after serving in the Vietnam War. He co-starred with Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a working-class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and in Vietnam. Producer Michael Deeley pursued De Niro for the role, because the fame of his previous films would help make a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director" marketable. De Niro, impressed by the script and director's preparation, was among the first to sign on to the film. Reviews for "The Deer Hunter" were generally positive, and the cast attracted strong praise for their performances. The film received nominations at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), and earned De Niro a nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it as the 53rd-greatest American film of all time in their 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.
The fourth collaboration between De Niro and Scorsese was in 1980, with the biographical drama "Raging Bull." Adapted from Jake LaMotta's memoir "," De Niro portrays LaMotta, the Italian-American middleweight boxer whose violent behavior and temper destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Co-starring Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty, De Niro later said it was one of the toughest roles to prepare for because he had to gain 60 pounds (27 kg), and had to learn to box. "The book's not great literature, but it's got a lot of heart", De Niro told Scorsese at the time. Although the film received critical acclaim, some reviewers were divided and criticized its "exceedingly violent" content; however, De Niro garnered praise for his realistic portrayal. The critic from "The Hollywood Reporter" declared that "De Niro is incredible and makes the actor almost unrecognizable as himself; he looks amazingly like La Motta. De Niro's appearance is also astonishing in the final scenes". Michael Thomson of the BBC observed "the power of Scorsese is matched by the intensity of De Niro who delves deep into the soul of the boxer". At the 53rd Academy Awards, the film received eight nominations, including Best Actor for De Niro for which he won. "Raging Bull" has since been regarded as one of the greatest films of the 1980s by American critics. De Niro was strongly considered for the role of Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", but it ended up going to Jack Nicholson, the director's first choice for the role.
1981–1991: Dramas, comedies and awards success.
De Niro returned to the crime genre with "True Confessions" (1981), adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne. Less challenging than his previous film, De Niro played a priest who clashes with his brother (Robert Duvall), a detective investigating the murder of a prostitute. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" thought the plot was hard to follow at times but praised the actors who "work so beautifully together it sometimes seems like a single performance". To expand his range of acting roles and to prove his acting abilities, De Niro sought out films with a comedic tone throughout the 1980s. He found it in "The King of Comedy" (1982), in which he played the struggling stand-up comedian Rupert Pupkin. De Niro was first to bring the script to the attention of Scorsese, who then gave it a New York setting and darker tone. The film failed to find an audience, and was a box office disappointment, grossing only $2.5 million from a budget of $19 million. However, most critics praised De Niro's performance. His next film credit was in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), in which he plays David "Noodles" Aaronson, a New York City Jewish gangster. The theatrical cut, with a runtime of 229 minutes, premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation. The film was shortened for theaters in the U.S. (139 minutes), but this proved to be highly unpopular with critics. After seeing the full cut, Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film "excessive as well as tightly controlled" with the actors showing "impressive restraint and power".
"Falling in Love", a romantic comedy starring opposite Meryl Streep, was his last release of 1984. One year later, De Niro starred in a science fiction for the first time, "Brazil," about a daydreaming man living in a dystopian society. Although the film was unsuccessful at the box office, "Brazil" was included in The Criterion Collection. In May 1986, De Niro returned to the stage at Longacre Theatre, playing the lead role in the production "Cuba and His Teddy Bear." For his next feature film, he co-starred in "The Mission" (1986) with Jeremy Irons, a period drama about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in eighteenth century South America. Vincent Canby reviewed the film negatively, and was critical of De Niro's casting: "De Niro, who was very fine as the street-wise priest in "True Confessions", is all right here until he opens his mouth". However, the film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, three BAFTAs, including Best Editing, and two Golden Globes for Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.
In 1987, De Niro had two minor film roles. In the first, he was cast as Louis Cyphre in Alan Parker's horror "Angel Heart", an adaptation of William Hjortsberg's 1978 novel "Falling Angel." In the second, he portrayed Al Capone in De Palma's crime drama, "The Untouchables." While Pauline Kael opined that De Niro was "lazy" for undertaking small roles, De Palma defended him by saying he was "experimenting with those characters". In July 1987, he traveled to Russia to serve as president of the jury at the 15th Moscow International Film Festival. Finally that year, he provided a voice-over for the documentary "." The buddy cop film, "Midnight Run", was his next effort in 1988. Starring opposite Charles Grodin, De Niro played bounty hunter Jack Walsh. The film received amicable reception and was a commercial success, grossing $81 million worldwide. In his mixed review, Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" wrote of De Niro:
De Niro has reduced himself in scale here, too, and it's a relief to see him drop the great-actor mantle, and the theatricality. As a result, he hasn't seemed as fresh since "Mean Streets" or "New York, New York." Walsh is more of a character role than the ones he played in those films; there's less specificity in the conception – he's more of a type – but the actor fits into him snugly, effortlessly, and the chance to play comedy, particularly opposite a comic foil as ideal as Grodin, appears to have revitalized him.
He turned down an opportunity to play Jesus Christ in Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), although he told the director that he would do it as a favor if needed. Scorsese cast Willem Dafoe instead. In 1989, De Niro starred in several films that were not widely seen. He starred alongside Ed Harris and Kathy Baker in the drama "Jacknife." The film revolves around the complex relationship between a Vietnam veteran, his sister and fellow army buddy. Next, he starred in the crime comedy "We're No Angels" (1989) with Sean Penn and Demi Moore, a remake of the 1955 film of the same name. The pair play escaped convicts who go on the run towards Canada. A year later, he starred in the romantic drama "Stanley & Iris" opposite Jane Fonda. Film critics did not receive "We're No Angels" or "Stanley & Iris" positively; modern review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives them approval ratings of 47% and 33%, respectively.De Niro and Scorsese soon reunited for their sixth collaboration in 1990, with the crime film "Goodfellas." It is an adaptation of the 1985 non-fiction book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi. The film narrates the life of mob associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980. De Niro played James Conway, an Irish truck carjacker and gangster. "Goodfellas" premiered at the 47th Venice International Film Festival to an "enthusiastic" response from Italian critics, although it grossed a moderate $46 million upon its wider release. Writing for "Rolling Stone" magazine, Peter Travers, praised the cast performances, and called De Niro's character "a smooth killer acted with riveting restraint". "Chicago Tribune"'s Gene Siskel was equally impressed by their improvised performances and concluded "easily one of the year's best films". In the awards season, the film was nominated for six Academy Awards, and De Niro was nominated for Best Actor at the BAFTAs. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it as the 92nd-greatest American film of all time in their 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. Also in 1990, De Niro appeared in the lead role for "Awakenings", directed by Penny Marshall. The drama, based on Oliver Sacks' 1973 book of the same title, tells the story of Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams), who discovers benefits of the drug L-Dopa in 1969 and administers it to catatonic patients. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for De Niro. Sacks later remarked of the film: "I was pleased with a great deal of it. I think in an uncanny way, De Niro did somehow feel his way into being Parkinsonian. [...] At other levels I think things were sort of sentimentalized and simplified somewhat".
De Niro's next film project was the drama "Guilty by Suspicion" (1991) in which he plays David Merrill, a fictitious film director, returning to the U.S. during the McCarthy era and Hollywood blacklist. The film received generally favorable reviews. He then had a minor role in the mystery drama "Backdraft" (1991), playing a veteran fire inspector. De Niro's biggest success of 1991 was "Cape Fear", his seventh film with Scorsese and a remake of the 1962 film of the same name. De Niro portrays convicted rapist Max Cady, who seeks revenge against a former public defender who originally defended him. De Niro's performance was widely lauded. David Ansen of "Newsweek" remarked that De Niro "dominates the film with his lip-smacking, blackly comic and terrifying portrayal of psychopathic self-righteousness". The film grossed a successful $182 million and earned De Niro a Best Actor nomination at the 64th Academy Awards.
1992–1997: Directorial debut and crime dramas.
In 1992, De Niro appeared in two films. The first, "Mistress," is a comedy-drama in which he played ruthless businessman Evan Wright. Of his performance, the critic from "The Independent" called De Niro "more urbane and coherent than we've seen him for a while". Irwin Winkler's "Night and the City" was his second release, a crime drama remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name. He was cast as New York lawyer Harry Fabian. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a rating of "B−" and was critical of De Niro: "The actor who once got so far inside his roles that he just about detonated the screen – now plays characters who don't seem to have any inner life at all". Next, he served as a producer for the mystery thriller "Thunderheart" (1992)"." In 1993, he played crime scene photographer Wayne Dobie in the comedy drama "Mad Dog and Glory" with co-stars Uma Thurman and Bill Murray. The feature received reasonable reviews and was lauded for the chemistry between De Niro and Murray; "The Washington Post" critic noted that their "real-life friendship spills over into this jittery, very funny look at the male bonding experience". Next, De Niro starred in the coming-of-age film "This Boy's Life" (1993), based on the memoir of the same name by Tobias Wolff. It features Ellen Barkin and Leonardo DiCaprio. Playing stepfather Dwight Hansen of Wolff (DiCaprio), the film was mostly well received, although "Timeout" magazine believed that "DiCaprio steals the show".
De Niro starred in his directorial debut, "A Bronx Tale" (1993), a coming-of-age story about an Italian-American boy who is torn between the temptations of organized crime, racism in his community, and the values of his decent father. The film also stars Chazz Palminteri, who wrote the play of the same name, and is based on his childhood. "A Bronx Tale" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to a positive response; Marjorie Baumgarten of "The Austin Chronicle" wrote "De Niro's choices as a director all seem prudent and un-showy, designed to draw attention to the characters and the story rather than its technical assemblage and much-lauded star". "Variety" magazine's Todd McCarthy took issue with the film's slow start but complimented De Niro's "impressive sensitivity to the irrational roots of racism and violence". A year later, De Niro was cast in the lead role of "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", an adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein." Although the film was commercially successful, earning $112 million worldwide, the general consensus of reviews were largely negative. Film critic James Berardinelli opined that it was entertaining and De Niro gave a strong performance, despite the film's "frantic" pace.
"Casino" (1995) marked De Niro's return to the crime genre with Scorsese in their eighth collaboration. Co-starring Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci, the film is based on the book ' by Nicholas Pileggi. De Niro portrays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a mob-connected casino operator in Las Vegas. The film's themes revolve around greed, betrayal, wealth, status, and murder that occur between two mobsters, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro) and Nicky Santoro (Pesci), and a trophy wife (Stone) over a gambling empire. "Casino" was released to mostly positive critical reception, and was a success at the worldwide box office. Roger Ebert was impressed with the lead performers' abilities to "inhabit their roles with unconscious assurance", and "The Globe and Mails critic thought "De Niro does an extraordinarily subtle job of capturing the paradox [...] that lie at the heart of this picture". Shortly afterwards, he starred in 1995's crime thriller "Heat", about a group of professional bank robbers. Art Linson, who had previously produced films starring De Niro, sent him the script first. "It was very good, very strong, had a particular feel to it, a reality and authenticity," De Niro said. Co-starring Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, and Jon Voight among others, the film was released to wide acclaim; Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" wrote: De Niro and Pacino redeem everything. In "Heat", they represent a high postwar tradition for movie actors – the ones inspired by Marlon Brando, John Cassavetes and James Dean – who aren't afraid of emotion, who run right into the jaws of a scene to grab it. Like others from their generation – Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Harvey Keitel – they have a keener slant on machismo. They easily explore its darker strata. "Heat" marked the first time that Pacino and De Niro appeared on-screen together; they were both in "The Godfather Part II" but were never in any scenes together because the film takes place in two separate timelines. De Niro as Vito Corleone was in the past and Pacino as his son Michael was in the present.
In 1995, De Niro had minor roles in the French comedy "One Hundred and One Nights" and in the drama "Panther." In 1996, De Niro starred in the sports thriller "The Fan", based on the novel of the same name by Peter Abrahams. De Niro plays Gil Renard, a baseball fanatic who loses his sanity. His fiftieth film credit was in the crime drama "Sleepers" (1996), about four boys who become involved with crime, and are sentenced to a detention center where they are abused by guards, and seek vengeance upon release. De Niro plays priest Bobby Carillo, a father figure to the four boys. Afterwards, he appeared in "Marvin's Room" (1996) as Dr. Wallace Carter, who treats a woman (Diane Keaton) with leukemia. Writing for the British "Empire" magazine, Bob McCabe opined that "Performances are all eminently watchable [...] but the truncated feel robs the film of anything more than perfunctory pleasures". Also in 1996, De Niro co-produced the crime-comedy "Faithful".
In 1996 a video game produced by De Niro called was released. A surreal point and click puzzle game about a hotel filled with strange characters. De Niro met the game's director Buzz Hayes when Hayes worked at Lucasfilm. The game did not do well at launch and Hayes is quoted as saying "I wouldn’t call it a failure. it was just kind of a quiet landing".
The following year, he appeared in James Mangold's "Cop Land" (1997), a crime-drama co-starring Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel and Ray Liotta. De Niro plays Internal Affairs investigator Lt. Moe Tilden, who explores police corruption in a New Jersey town. The film opened to a generally warm response, although Barbara Shulgasser of "San Francisco Examiner" criticized De Niro's acting in certain scenes, suggesting Mangold put De Niro in a "manufactured situation", preventing him from realizing his full potential. De Niro co-starred and co-produced "Wag the Dog" (1997). The film is a political satire about a biased publicist (De Niro) and a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) who fabricate a war in Albania to cover up a U.S. president's sex scandal. In January 1998, a month after its release, the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal dominated the headlines, which helped the film generate publicity. As a result, "Wag the Dog" was well-received and made the list of Roger Ebert's ten best films of 1997. De Niro also had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" in that same year.
1998–2006: Comic roles, thrillers, and slump.
De Niro began 1998 with an appearance in "Great Expectations", a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1861 novel of the same name, in which he played Arthur Lustig. Later that year, his next major role came in "Ronin" (1998), about a team of former special operatives that are hired to steal a mysterious briefcase while navigating a maze of shifting loyalties. De Niro plays Sam, an American mercenary formerly associated with the CIA. "Ronin" premiered at the 1998 Venice Film Festival to favorable response; Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" praised De Niro's confident portrayal as an action hero. In 1999, De Niro ventured back into crime-comedy; he was cast as an insecure mob boss opposite Billy Crystal and Lisa Kudrow in Harold Ramis' "Analyze This." The film was a box office hit, earning $176 million worldwide, and De Niro was nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes. In "Flawless" (1999), De Niro appeared as a homophobic police officer, who suffers a stroke, and is assigned to a rehabilitative program with a gay singer. The critic from the BBC gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and thought De Niro gave a "refreshingly low-key" performance, in comparison to his previous work.
In 2000, De Niro produced and starred in his first live-action animation comedy, "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle." He voiced the character Fearless Leader, who is a dictator and employer of two mobsters. The film was critically panned, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a 43% approval rating. De Niro played Master Chief 'Billy' Sunday in the biographical drama "Men of Honor" (2000), based on the life of Carl Brashear, the first African-American to become a U.S. Navy Master Diver. Although the film garnered mixed reviews, Bob Thomas of the "Associated Press" wrote "De Niro infuses the role with all his dynamism. It is his best performance in years". That same year, he starred in the comedy "Meet the Parents" opposite Ben Stiller as Jack Byrnes, a former CIA operative who takes a dislike to Stiller's character. De Niro, who had been seeking comic roles at the time, was encouraged by his producing partner Jane Rosenthal, to take on the role. The film was a high earner at the box office, with $330 million in receipts. Film critics welcomed De Niro's transition as a comic actor and ability to make audiences laugh.
After several comedies, De Niro landed a lead role in the crime thriller "15 Minutes" (2001), a story about a homicide detective (De Niro) and a fire marshal (Edward Burns) who join forces to apprehend a pair of Eastern European murderers. The film's reception was generally unfavorable; William Arnold of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" took issue with the "in-your-face exaggeration", but he thought De Niro delivered "his usual edgy flair, [...] on the mean streets of his native Manhattan". De Niro followed up with a heist, in Frank Oz's "The Score" (2001), starring Edward Norton, Angela Bassett and Marlon Brando. He plays a retiring thief when a young man (Norton) persuades him into doing one last heist together. Upon release, "The Score" fared well with critics, although Peter Rainer of "New York" magazine did not think the film challenged De Niro or fully utilize his talents. The next year, he played an LAPD detective opposite Eddie Murphy in the action-comedy "Showtime". The reviewer from "LA Weekly" remarked "De Niro isn't actually playing a part but riffing on his own legend", and thought the references to "Taxi Driver" were "cheap".Also in 2002, he collaborated with Michael Caton-Jones in "City by the Sea", who had previously directed De Niro in "This Boy's Life". Starring opposite Frances McDormand and James Franco, he portrayed another police detective in the drama. The film received mixed reviews and under-performed at the theaters. He appeared in "Analyze That" (2002)"," a sequel to 1999's "Analyze This." Filming began in New York City, seven months after the September 11 attacks. De Niro insisted on filming there, stating "It's a New York story, a New York movie. We always intended to keep it there and I'm glad we were able to do it". Upon release, most critics thought the sequel was weak; CNN's Paul Clinton remarked "Unfortunately the result is just a bunch of one-liners strung together, of which some work and some don't. The actual story never gets off the ground". Despite these failures, De Niro served as a producer for the critically acclaimed romantic-comedy "About a Boy" (2002), and appeared in "9/11" (2002), a CBS documentary about the September 11 attacks, told from the New York City fire department's point of view.
Several critics consider De Niro's career as having begun to slump in the early 2000s, with De Niro starring in roles that were less dramatic than those in the previous decade. He returned to the screen in 2004, playing a doctor in the fantasy drama "Godsend". As of 2020, the film is De Niro's poorest-performing work; Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 4% based on 139 critic reviews. He voiced a character in DreamWorks' animation of "Shark Tale" (2004). Most critics were also unimpressed, but it was a high earner at the box office. After co-producing "Stage Beauty" (2004), De Niro reprised his role of Jack Byrnes in 2004's "Meet the Fockers," the sequel to "Meet the Parents". In a scathing review of De Niro, the critic from "Slant Magazine" wrote "In self-parody mode for the umpteenth time, De Niro mugs for the camera with a series of overblown grimaces and faux-menacing glares". "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", was De Niro's last release of 2004, based on Thornton Wilder's novel of the same name. It was also critically panned.
In 2005, De Niro starred in the horror "Hide and Seek" opposite Dakota Fanning, playing Dr. David Callaway who leaves the city with his traumatized daughter after the mother's suicide. Although the film was a financial success, some critics thought De Niro had been miscast, and queried his decision to star in a mediocre feature. In 2006, De Niro turned down a role in "The Departed" to direct his second film, the spy thriller "The Good Shepherd", a fictional account about the growth of the CIA during its formative years"." The film reunited him onscreen with Joe Pesci, co-star from "Raging Bull", "Goodfellas", "A Bronx Tale", "Casino", among others"." Based on the screenplay by Eric Roth, the project was personal for De Niro, who was raised during the Cold War and fascinated by it. Despite starring some of Hollywood's leading actors; Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Alec Baldwin, the film garnered a mixed reception. Writing for "The Sydney Morning Herald", Sandra Hall noted its slow pace, stating "There's a potentially fascinating slice of American history here, but De Niro has carved it up with an excruciatingly dull knife". The critic from "USA Today" found the plot initially hard to follow, but praises De Niro for "creating a stirring personal tale". "The Good Shepherd" was nominated for Best Art Direction at the 79th Academy Awards. Finally in 2006, he voiced the character Emperor Sifrat XVI in "Arthur and the Invisibles."
2007–2016: Further film roles.
His sole project in 2007 was Matthew Vaughn's "Stardust", a fantasy adventure, based on Neil Gaiman's 1999 novel of the same name. He plays Captain Shakespeare, the leader of a ship. The film was generally well received, although one critic from "New York" magazine thought De Niro's performance was "god-awful – yet his gung-ho spirit wins him Brownie points". The following year, he starred in the police procedural thriller "Righteous Kill" opposite Al Pacino, both playing New York City detectives who investigate serial executions of criminals who escaped justice. The film's response was mainly disappointing; Peter Hartlaub of "San Francisco Chronicle" thought the story was unoriginal and De Niro lacked energy. The film grossed $78 million from a budget of $60 million. Next, he starred in "What Just Happened" (2008), a satirical comedy based on Art Linson's experiences as a producer in Hollywood. The film was screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival as an out-of-competition entry. "The Sydney Morning Herald" opined that most reviewers gave the film a lukewarm reception because of the character he plays, which is "sympathetic" and quieter than his earlier roles. In 2009, he was cast as Frank Goode in the drama "Everybody's Fine", a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Italian film of the same name. Although the film's response was equally mixed, "The Guardian"'s critic praised De Niro for a "his first decent, watchable performance in quite a while".
In 2010, he had a minor part as Senator John McLaughlin in the action film "Machete". That same year, he starred in "Stone" opposite Milla Jovovich and Edward Norton, co-star from "The Score". It is a crime drama where De Niro plays a manipulated parole officer. The film was met with a divided reception; "Toronto Star"'s critic thought De Niro delivered a respectable performance due to Jovovich's support. Another critic, Jesse Cataldo from "Slant Magazine" noted the film's restraint and thought De Niro is repeating himself by playing the same basic characters. Next he starred in "Little Fockers" (2010), the second sequel to "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers". Despite universally negative reviews from critics, the film was a box office success, grossing over $310 million worldwide. In one review, "The Daily Telegraph" wrote "Despite the farcical script, De Niro in particular has his paterfamilias character sensitively tuned". That year, De Niro was cast in "Edge of Darkness", but he left the project citing creative differences. He was replaced by Ray Winstone.
In 2011, De Niro starred in the Italian comedy "Manuale d'amore 3". He also appeared in three other films: "Killer Elite", "Limitless", and "New Year's Eve". Except for "Limitless", which received an approval rating of 69% from Rotten Tomatoes, the other two films were met with mixed-to-negative reviews. De Niro was also appointed president of the jury for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, making it the second time he has served. Continuing into 2012, he starred in the drama "Being Flynn," based on "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City," a memoir by Nick Flynn. It was met with a mixed response; critic A. O. Scott complimented De Niro's ability for playing an estranged father (opposite Paul Dano), calling him "unpredictable and subtle", despite an uncertain plot. De Niro also appeared in the thrillers "Red Lights" and "Freelancers" (both 2012).
De Niro made his first appearance in a David O. Russell film, in the romantic comedy "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012), as the father of Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper), who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves back in with his parents to rebuild his life. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actor for De Niro. The film grossed $236 million worldwide. Critics lauded the entire cast; "Variety" magazine's Justin Chang noted De Niro's calm performance, writing "it's hard to remember the last time De N