Ray Winstone’s favourite Robert De Niro movies
In the long history of British cinema, there are a handful of stars who have achieved genuine iconic status, and it’s clear that Ray Winstone has more than accomplished such a goal. A true stalwart of British film, Winstone is one of the all-time greats, having given some of the most memorable on-screen performances ever.
After giving a phenomenal effort in Alan Clarke’s legendary play Scum, Winstone’s future as an actor was assured and in the following years, in performed in the film adaptation of the play, plus the likes of Quadrophenia, Sexy Beast and Nil by Mouth, each time giving a performance of the utmost intensity.
Even the best actors have their heroes, though, and for Winstone, they don’t come much bigger than Robert De Niro, the star who has commanded the attention of so many of his fellow actors. For Winstone, there are two movies that epitomise the career of De Niro, two of the British actor’s all-time favourites.
In a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Winstone named his top choice films, and he spoke highly of De Niro, beginning with his effort in Martin Scorsese’s 1980 sports drama Raging Bull. “It’s a masterpiece of movie-making,” Winstone said of Scorsese’s biopic of the former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta.
The boxing scenes are absolutely brilliant in Raging Bull, but what Winstone admires the most is when the action scenes are removed, all that’s left in De Niro’s harrowing portrayal of a violent man who loses everything. “I love it because, when you cut the boxing out, it’s about people,” he said.
Winstone had been a boxer himself when he was younger and found emotional resonance in Raging Bull. “The heart just got to me,” he noted. “I was sitting there with my mate watching that, and he’s a boxer and a champion boxer, and we were both crying at the end of the movie – which sounds ridiculous, but it got to us, you know.”
The actor’s love for De Niro doesn’t end there, though, as he also stated his admiration for his performance in Sergio Leone’s final directed movie, 1984’s Once Upon a Time in America. Based on Harry Grey’s novel The Hoods, the film tells of two best friends, Noodles and Max, as they rise in prominence as Jewish gangsters in New York City.
Winstone called Leone’s film “a bit of genius film-making, I think. That’s a film I can watch all night long. And I think it is four hours long, or something like that. It’s just a wonderful film to watch.” Indeed, Once Upon a Time has an extraordinary runtime, but De Niro’s performance as David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson is one that Winstone could watch over and over again.
While the likes of Goodfellas and Taxi Driver can sometimes overshadow the likes of Raging Bull and Once Upon a Time in America, for Ray Winstone, they are De Niro’s best moments and inspired the actor to achieve his own greatness in the likes of Sexy Beast and Nil by Mouth.
Winstone has previously expressed his love for the likes of John Wayne, James Cagney and Albert Finney, but Robert De Niro can easily find his place amongst Winstone’s favourite actors of all time. It’s fair to say that De Niro is one of the most acclaimed stars in the film industry and has captured the hearts of many of his fellow actors, none more so than Ray Winstone.
