AARP Hearing Center
VIDEO: Robert De Niro on Martin Scorsese and a New Baby at 80
Robert De Niro’s 10 Best Movies (So Far), Ranked!
From ‘Cape Fear’ to ‘Taxi Driver,’ he’s starred in many of the greatest films of our generation. Here’s how they stack up
Over more than 50 years, Robert De Niro has created some of film's most memorable characters, including roles in "The Godfather Part II," "Meet the Parents," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "The King of Comedy."
Courtesy Everett Collection (5)
For more than 50 years, Robert De Niro has set the standard for American screen acting. Since emerging in the late 1960s, AARP The Magazine's cover star has combined Method intensity, meticulous preparation and an uncanny ability to disappear inside characters both frightening and funny. From Mean Streets and Taxi Driver to Raging Bull and beyond, the two-time Oscar winner has created some of cinema’s most indelible — and iconic — characters. At 83, De Niro shows no sign of slowing: He stars in the upcoming Netflix kidnap thriller The Whisper Man and November’s Meet the Parents sequel Focker-In-Law. Rewatch (or discover for the first time) his most memorable roles, ranked below from 10 to 1. Where did your favorites rank? Are you talkin’ to us?
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
10. Meet the Parents (2000, PG-13)
De Niro plays: Jack Byrnes
Why it’s great: In this very funny in-law comedy, Ben Stiller’s hapless Greg Focker spends a disastrous weekend trying to impress his girlfriend’s intimidating father, a retired CIA operative played by a stone-faced De Niro. The biggest punch line is De Niro himself: all that Taxi Driver–era menace repurposed for a suburban farce full of withering looks and slapstick. De Niro plays Jack utterly straight, turning paternal disapproval into psychological warfare.
Iconic line: “I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?”
Watch it: Meet the Parents
9. Cape Fear (1991, R)
De Niro plays: Max Cady
Why it’s great: In Martin Scorsese’s remake of Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum’s 1962 cat-and-mouse classic, De Niro plays a convicted rapist who emerges from prison determined to torment the lawyer he blames for his incarceration (Nick Nolte). De Niro becomes a tattooed nightmare of payback, but the performance is more than physical intimidation. His Cady is frighteningly intelligent, perversely charming and almost biblical in his appetite for vengeance. De Niro turns menace into a kind of grotesque showmanship, most memorably in his creepy seduction of the lawyer’s young daughter (Juliette Lewis).
Iconic line: “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Watch it: Cape Fear
8. Heat (1995, R)
De Niro plays: Neil McCauley
Why it’s great: As a disciplined master thief whose crew becomes the obsession of Al Pacino’s equally driven LAPD detective, De Niro shows how sometimes you can add by subtraction. McCauley lives by a code of emotional detachment, and De Niro strips away every unnecessary gesture, playing him with icy control and watchful intelligence. Yet his romance with Amy Brenneman’s Eady reveals the loneliness behind the stoic facade. Opposite Pacino’s fireworks, De Niro finds power in his character’s cool stillness.
Iconic line: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”
Watch it: Heat
7. Midnight Run (1988, R)
De Niro plays: Jack Walsh
Why it’s great: In this odd-couple action comedy, De Niro plays a burned-out bounty hunter tasked with hauling Charles Grodin’s mob accountant across the country while dodging the FBI, gangsters and rival bounty hunters. De Niro’s secret weapon here is his stealthy comic chops. Playing a gruff, no-nonsense ex-cop, the actor never begs for laughs. His irritation, exhaustion and slow-burning affection for Grodin do all the work. It’s beautifully understated comic acting, and proof that De Niro’s intimidating intensity could also be surprisingly warm and funny.
Iconic line: “Now here come two words for you: Shut the f--- up!”
Watch it: Midnight Run
6. The King of Comedy (1982, PG)
De Niro plays: Rupert Pupkin
Why it’s great: In yet another Scorsese collaboration, De Niro’s delusional aspiring comedian becomes obsessed with talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) and eventually kidnaps him for a shot at fame. Turning his usual intensity inward, De Niro makes Rupert needy, awkward, oblivious and painfully unfunny. The genius is that he never winks at the joke. It’s a fearless performance whose portrait of celebrity obsession has grown only more unsettling — and prophetic — with time.
Iconic line: “The more scribbled the name, the bigger the fame.”
Watch it: The King of Comedy
5. Casino (1995, R)
De Niro plays: Sam “Ace” Rothstein
Why it’s great: Yes, another Scorsese film. And not to be contrarian, but I’m choosing this one over Goodfellas since they feel like mobster bookends and De Niro’s character is more complex here. Ace is a meticulous oddsmaker installed by the mob to run a Las Vegas casino, but his empire unravels because of greed, violence and his disastrous marriage to Sharon Stone’s Ginger. Surrounded by operatic excess, though, Ace remains cool and precise — a masterfully controlled performance by De Niro.
Iconic line: “The word was out. The bosses had enough of Nicky.”
Watch it: Casino
4. Mean Streets (1973, R)
De Niro plays: John “Johnny Boy” Civello
Why it’s great: De Niro had been in nearly a dozen movies before Mean Streets, but this was his star-is-born moment thanks to a young director who would become his closest collaborator, Martin Scorsese. As a reckless small-time hood in Little Italy whose debts endanger Harvey Keitel’s conflicted Charlie, De Niro explodes like a lit firecracker — cocky, funny and incapable of imagining consequences. His loose, unpredictable rhythms make the character feel genuinely dangerous. It’s the performance where all of the actor’s raw gifts suddenly come into focus.
Iconic line: “I wanted to kill this kid. Meanwhile, I gotta get back in the game, bing bing bing, I lose 400 dollars!”
Watch it: Mean Streets
3. The Godfather Part II (1974, R)
De Niro plays: Vito Corleone
Why it’s great: His first Oscar nomination and his first win. De Niro plays the young Vito Corleone, whose rise from Sicilian immigrant to New York crime boss parallels the moral decay of his son Michael’s. De Niro faces the impossible task of playing the younger version of Marlon Brando’s iconic character, but he makes Vito entirely his own. Speaking largely in Italian (after studying Sicilian specifically), he conveys intelligence, patience and quiet menace with astonishing economy. It’s a performance built on observation rather than imitation.
Iconic line: “I make him an offer he don’t refuse.”
Watch it: The Godfather Part II
2. Raging Bull (1980, R)
De Niro plays: Jake LaMotta
Why it’s great: The actor earned his second Oscar statuette by famously packing on about 60 pounds for his role as the middleweight champion whose ferocity in the ring is matched by his jealousy and self-destructiveness outside it. But the greatness goes deeper than the mythmaking. In the hands of director Martin Scorsese, De Niro makes LaMotta brutal, paranoid, pathetic and heartbreakingly human without asking us to forgive him. It’s a punishing portrait of a man who defeats everyone, including himself.
Iconic line: “You didn’t get me down, Ray!”
Watch it: Raging Bull
1. Taxi Driver (1976, R)
De Niro plays: Travis Bickle
Why it’s great: De Niro actually got his hack license and picked up fares to play Travis Bickle, a lonely Vietnam veteran prowling nighttime New York City as a cabbie whose isolation curdles into violent obsession. De Niro makes Travis terrifying because he never reduces him to a monster. He’s wounded, watchful and increasingly unhinged. From his hollow stare to the famously improvised scene in front of a mirror, De Niro creates a portrait of alienation so intimate and unsettling that Travis became, for better or worse, an American archetype.
Iconic line: “You talkin’ to me?”
Watch it: Taxi Driver
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
More From AARP
Our Critic Picks Brendan Fraser’s 10 Best Films
Catch up on everything from ‘The Mummy’ to ‘The Whale’ and beyond
Morgan Freeman's 10 Best Movies, Ranked
He's appeared in more than 100 films, and we've named his finest roles25 Gen X Stars Redefining Midlife
From Clooney-era nostalgia to new career peaks, these actors keep surprising us