Actors don’t get much more acclaimed than Robert De Niro. The Oscar-winning star of The Godfather Part II, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver has been consistently headlining exciting motion pictures since the late 1960s, and although his new comedy The Intern seems like it isn’t going to be one of his all-time classics, it does remind us that he sure has made a lot of great films.
But if you’re looking for Robert De Niro movies on your instant streaming service of choice, you may find the pickings slim. The films currently available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crackle, HBO Go, and so on typically mix the many misfires in with his finest work, and determining which of the less familiar films are worth watching – and even locating some of his best work, at all – can be a real chore, especially if you’re not willing to pay extra rental fees.
Fortunately, you’ve got Now Streaming. This week, Crave is highlighting the best Robert De Niro movies currently available at the click of a button. Some you’ve probably heard of. Some you may have completely forgotten about. All of them deserve your time, so take a look and start clicking.
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Analyze This (Netflix)
Warner Bros.
Although Robert De Niro had starred in a handful of comedies before 1999, it was Analyze This that officially revitalized his career. Now he was a professional funny man, and the stage was set for the blockbuster Meet the Parents franchise, which began the following year. But Analyze This may actually be the better movie, satirizing the actor’s many serious gangster roles by sending mob boss Paul Vitti (De Niro) into therapy with a hapless shrink (Billy Crystal) who can barely control his urge to run away from his client in terror.
Robert De Niro is remarkably game in Analyze This, playing the character straight but eking humor out of his own confused, manly tears. The mixture of two completely disparate worlds makes great comedy (Vitti takes his aggression out on a pillow… by shooting it), and pokes gentle fun at the many mafia clichés that the actor helped solidify for decades. In a weird coincidence, Analyze This has the exact same premise as the decidedly more serious HBO series The Sopranos, and they debuted only two months apart from each other.
Cop Land (Netflix)
Miramax Films
It was supposed to be Sylvester Stallone’s comeback, a serious role to reclaim all the dramatic credibility he’d lost after years of lame action movies (see: The Specialist, Judge Dredd, Assassins, or rather, don’t see them actually). Instead, James Mangold’s Cop Land came and went at the box office, and even Stallone’s heavily promoted weight gain – to better play a cop in over his head, incapable of solving problems by kicking ass – didn’t earn him any awards consideration.
And that’s a pity, because Cop Land is a solid thriller. Robert De Niro co-stars as an Internal Affairs investigator who tries to enlist a small-town sheriff Freddy Heflin (Stallone) in his hunt for corrupt cops. But since Garrison, NJ is full of cops whose corruption spans years and generations, Heflin initially neglects his responsibilities to the law in favor of his responsibility to his fellow officers. It’s a decision that bites him on the ass, hard.
Cop Land plays like the 1970s thriller more than the 1990s variety, with a greater emphasis on the characters than their violence. It’s a smart, well-acted film that shouldn’t get lost in Mangold’s, Stallone’s or De Niro’s otherwise higher profile careers. Stop in for a while and check it out.
The Family (Netflix)
EuropaCorp
Another great comedy that plays off of Robert De Niro’s mobster movie credentials. The Family stars De Niro as Giovanni Manzoni, a.k.a. “Fred Blake,” who moves to France with his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), son (John D’Leo) and daughter (Dianna Agron) after going into witness protection. Naturally, their tendency to resort to homicidal violence whenever suburban life doesn’t go their way becomes a little bit of a problem, resulting in grocery store fires, brutalized high school bullies, et cetera, et cetera.
It’s a joke that has been done before, and also very well, in the 1990 Steve Martin comedy My Blue Heaven (which was, funnily enough, based on the same true story as Goodfellas). But director Luc Besson has a distinctly vicious sense of humor, and practically dares his audience to laugh at the Manzoni family’s acts of criminality. Some audiences were turned off by The Family‘s mean streak, but if you have an affection for mobster movies you will probably get a kick out of it. De Niro sells the thuggery and the paternal compassion of his character so well that it’s hard not to love him, even when he’s beating the hell out of the plumber with a baseball bat.
Silver Linings Playbook (Netflix)
The Weinstein Company
David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook got so much awards season attention that many seem to have forgotten that, at its heart, it’s a very straightforward romantic comedy. Bradley Cooper plays a guy struggling to get over his failed marriage, Jennifer Lawrence plays the eccentric girl who sees his inner potential, and together they enter a dance competition and take lessons from the film’s only black character, played by Chris Tucker. It’s borderline offensive how simplistic Silver Linings Playbook really is, and the film’s whitewashed portrayal of mental illness turned off a lot of audiences as well.
But although it may have been built up too much, if you go in knowing exactly what Russell’s film is going to give you, you will probably enjoy it a lot. Much of the credit belongs to Robert De Niro, playing a football-obsessed retiree who despairs at his own inability to relate to his son (Cooper). De Niro is charming as hell in the role, funny when necessary and absolutely heartbreaking when the time finally comes to reveal what’s going on in his heart. He makes an otherwise merely good movie seem damn near great.
Taxi Driver (Amazon Prime / Crackle)
Columbia Pictures
As you might have surmised from the previous four films on our five-film list, most of Robert De Niro’s classic roles aren’t currently available on instant streaming (without paying that pesky additional fee, at least). No Raging Bull, no Heat, no Goodfellas. Fortunately, there’s at least one timeless film that can be found on not one but two services: Taxi Driver, one of the darkest character studies ever captured on film, and still one of the most deliriously alive motion pictures you’re likely to find.
Taxi Driver stars Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam veteran prowling the streets of New York City in his cab, encountering all the scum that the city has to offer and inching ever closer to the precipice of madness. Opportunities for redemption abound, in a decent political volunteer (Cybil Shepard) who doesn’t care for Travis’s choice of a date movie – Swedish porn – and in the potential to rescue a pre-teen prostitute (Jodie Foster) who may already be past the point of rescue. All the while, Travis starts buying guns, possibly plotting, possibly something horrible.
The conclusion of Taxi Driver remains one of the most hotly debated finales, and may ultimately be nothing more than a litmus test for the viewer. Cynics may find themselves gravitating one way, optimists the other, but whichever camp you fall into, nobody watches Taxi Driver without forming an opinion, and nobody comes away from the experience unchanged.
Not Streaming: A Bronx Tale
Savoy Pictures
Again, many of Robert De Niro’s best and most famous films are available on instant streaming… if you’re willing to pay extra to watch them. But some of his most interesting and remarkable smaller films are completely unavailable except on DVD. For example: if you want to see the pornographic voyeurism drama Hi, Mom!, directed by a young Brian De Palma, you’ll have to track down a physical copy of that film. (And trust me, you do want to see that.)
But the best Robert De Niro movie that isn’t currently available on digital streaming services, at all, is also the first film that De Niro directed. A Bronx Tale stars De Niro as the blue collar father of a teenaged boy (Lillo Brancato) who starts falling into orbit around Sonny, a local gangster Chazz Palminteri wrote the stage play A Bronx Tale is based on, personally adapted the screenplay, stars as Sonny, and based the film on his own childhood experiences.
Between Palminteri and De Niro’s contributions, this film bears an unmistakable air of honesty, with naturalistic acting and period detail making A Bronx Tale feel more realistic than the typical gangster picture. De Niro is heartbreaking as a father scared of losing his son, in more ways than one, and Palminteri is convincing as both a slimy criminal and a potential replacement patriarch for our young, torn hero.
A Bronx Tale isn’t one of the most talked about roles in Robert De Niro’s career, but it is one of his best. Track it down however you can.
Top Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
