Ranking Robert De Niro’s 10 best characters
A legend in his industry and a recipient of numerous accolades, Robert De Niro is one of the finest to grace the acting craft. The 79-year-old American actor began his career in 1968 when he appeared in the Brian De Palma film Greetings before gaining worldwide recognition in Bang the Drum Slowly, released in 1973 and directed by John D. Hancock. From this, De Niro appeared in some of the greatest works, starring alongside other now-iconic actors and acclaimed directors.
De Niro is trademarked by his versatility and method acting approach, beginning his career in gritty and intense crime films playing gangsters or other criminals before swiftly transitioning to acting. The actor is most known for his collaborations with director Martin Scorsese, a union in which most of their acclaimed crime movies blossomed.
The star once shared his outlook on acting, having been trained by the pioneering acting coach Stelle Adler, explaining a tactful and patient approach. “Each problem is individual. I know that it really doesn’t matter whether you spend a lot of time trying to prepare – unless it’s worked for you,” De Niro once told director Kenneth Branagh. “My way is to not worry about things until I know what I have to do, and I’m there.”
This interpretation and style of method acting, meaning the total emotional investment and identification in a role, have created some of cinema’s most iconic and treasured performances. From intense psychological character studies to hilarious onscreen antics, here are the ten best Robert De Niro roles.
The 10 best Robert De Niro characters:
10. Jack Brynes from Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000 / 2004)
De Niro plays every boyfriend’s nightmare in these classic comedies about a man, played by Ben Stiller, who struggles to make things work with his girlfriend’s father. Over the two films, De Niro’s Brynes, an ex-CIA agent, interrogates and berates Stiller every opportunity he gets.
De Niro’s switch to comedy is successful in Jay Roach’s movies, as the role harmonises his signature tough-guy persona against a comedic backdrop. Brynes exercises intensity, sternness and coldness against Stiller’s more carefree and awkward antics, making for some great laughs.
9. Leonard Lowe from Awakenings (Penny Marshall, 1990)
This 1990s American drama follows the true story of a neurologist, played by the dearly missed Robin Williams, who awakens a patient suffering from sleep sickness. The patient, Leonard Lowe, struggles to deal with his new life.
The anchor of Penny Marshall’s film is the brilliant chemistry between and performances from De Niro and Williams. De Niro channelled his method approach to the role, as Oliver Sack, who wrote the memoir the film is based on, shared: “I think in an uncanny way, De Niro did somehow feel his way into being Parkinsonian. So much so that sometimes when we were having dinner afterwards, I would see his foot curl, or he would be leaning to one side, as if he couldn’t seem to get out of it.” Lowe is characterised by intense paranoia and physical distress yet juxtaposes this with immense perseverance.
8. Staff Sergeant Michael ‘Mike’ Vronsky from The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1974)
Director Michael Cimino examines the dark effects of the Vietnam war in this chilling drama. De Niro plays one of three soldiers captured by enemy forces and forced to separate to escape.
De Niro cites Staff Sergeant Michael ‘Mike’ Vronsky as his most physically exhausting role in an emotionally shattering feature. Vronsky exercises Nam veterans’ inability to reintegrate into civilisation and extreme psyche fractures following the war, such as triggering empty gun chambers into his friends’ heads.
7. Neil McCauley from Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Michael Mann made film buffs’ dreams come true when he brought De Niro and fellow acting legend Al Pacino together on the big screen. De Niro plays a career thief caught in a conflict with Pacino’s LAPD detective.
Heat is considered one of the greatest and most influential of its genre, one of the many examples from De Niro’s filmography. Neil McCauley exemplifies power, intelligence, masculinity and drive, basking in being the object of a cop’s desire. De Niro’s performance as a man exercising total zen against a backdrop of intensity and crime is electric, serving as a critical figure in a critically acclaimed classic.
6. Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein from Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)
De Niro dominates the screen as a low-level mobster in Martin Scorsese’s crime masterpiece. After being tricked into becoming the head of a Las Vegas casino, Sam Rothstein excels at the job until obstacles posed by con men and enforcers disrupt things.
Donned in colourful suits with a cigar every shot, De Niro’s Rothstein hides his weakness and vulnerability behind a consumerist and flamboyant image. His downward spiral is performed with the right amount of pain and intrigue, like a car crash from which you have to look at, and despite being involved in organised crime, he derives sympathy and connection.
5. Rupert Pupkin from The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
De Niro plays an aspiring comic who becomes obsessed with his dreams of success and his idol, a late-night show host. His obsession leads to stalking and eventually kidnapping his hero.
Rupert Pupkin reads as a critique of celebrity worship culture and American media culture, exercising the delusion and unethical manner many obsessed fans succumb to in their worship. The character’s fractured state, passion and actions create a whirlpool of sympathy and resentment from audiences, coming across as thoroughly complex and realistic, all elevated by De Niro’s magnificent performance.
4. Young Vito Corleone from The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
This epic crime sequel explores the story of mafia boss Vito Corleone, depicting his childhood in Sicily to building his enterprise in New York. There is also the shared narrative of his son Michael becoming the new head of the family business.
Taking on the role of Corleone from acting legend Marlon Brando, De Niro plays a younger and less experienced version of the character. As the focal point of a brilliant and in-depth character study, a young Corleone becomes immersed in a world of revenge, striving for power and a celebration of violence, as well as establishing loyalty to family that is later contrasted with loyalty to the business. De Niro’s role balances some heartwarming and respectful moments against the gritty landscape.
3. Jake LaMotta from Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1984)
De Niro plays a successful and driven yet obsessive and self-destructive boxer in this Scorsese biographical classic. Despite his career achievements, Jake LaMotta’s personal life is torn apart by his rage and animalistic nature.
De Niro is the face of one of America’s greatest films in this sports drama, exhibiting the bully persona the real-life LaMotta’s reputation became plagued by and earning his first Academy award. The character is aggressive, distressing and resentful, feeding into the film’s harsh tone. The contrast between LaMotta’s professional highs and personal lows, stemming from the same traits, demonstrates the complicated layers festering below each side and elevates the material with outstanding analytical merit.
2. James ‘Jimmy’ Conway from Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
This epic crime biographical film explores a crime mob’s highs and lows, showing the friends who fall with him or betray him to remain comfortable in luxury.
De Niro steals the show as James ‘Jimmy’ Conway in Scorsese’s crime masterpiece. Conway is a complicated character in that he is charming, humorous, intelligent, dangerous and sinister. He is the most level-headed of the mob, maintaining control of all situations no matter how extreme and diffusing conflicts when needed. Conway also does not shy away from violence, getting his hands bloody when it calls for it without hesitation, even against those he once considered family.
1. Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Scorsese explores a compromised psychological stance against a morally corrupt city in this intense and harrowing drama, presenting an insightful contrast between interior and exterior. A Vietnam veteran, played by De Niro, takes up a night job as a cabbie to help with his insomnia and becomes determined to save an exploited child from a pimp.
Taxi driver Travis Bickle is an icon in film and pop culture, evident in his iconic line “You talkin’ to me?” improvised by De Niro and his signature appearance. The character embodies a dire yet perceptive study of the human psyche in extreme conditions and its dedicated attempts to strive for some moral impartiality, as well as extreme masculinity and existentialism. Bickle will do anything to cleanse the filthy city of corruption through his subjective toolset of ethics.
