10 Essential Robert De Niro Performances

10. Louis Gara - Jackie Brown (1997)

Not one of his biggest performances, De Niro's turn as Louis Gara in Quentin Tarantino's still underrated Jackie Brown is instead great for its brevity. (It's also not big in character sense, with De Niro playing a humble, polite ex-con right up until the point he snaps in a trademark burst of Tarantino violence.)

Far from being the main character, De Niro appears in only a handful of scenes, mostly lolling about on a couch with Bridget Fonda's stoner/surfer-chick, Melanie.

But what he lacks in screen-time De Niro makes up for in performance, presenting Gara as a laconic man, a balancing act to the over-the-top antics of Sam Jackson's motor-mouthed Ordell Robbie. There's something disquieting about watching an actor as ready for violence as De Niro play subdued, and the aforementioned moment of it is made better by the fact that, this time, we really didn't expect it (though we really should have).

Jackie Brown is De Niro at his professional best, letting the vibrant, more-memorable characters do their thing until it's time for him to steal the show. Look out for his 15 second sex-scene with Fonda, one of the best Worst Sex Scenes in recent memory.