10 Essential Robert De Niro Performances

It all started here. De Niro had been promising before Mean Streets (especially in a few early Brian De Palma pictures) but it's this, his first collaboration with Martin Scorsese, which really introduced the world to Robert De Niro, actor. 

As a film, Mean Streets hasn't stood the test of time quite as well as some would have you believe, and while it's no doubt an important and hugely influential film, it's by no means a masterpiece. What it is instead, then, is a blueprint for Scorsese's future masterpieces, and the best thing about it, naturally, is De Niro. Few entrances are more iconic than his as Johnny Boy here, sashaying his way into the club to the tune of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (a song Scorsese will later use time and again), all smirks and swagger. 

This is the performance which De Niro would draw from and build upon for the chunk of his career, especially so during his incomparable run of films in the '70s, where he turned out role after great role. It's also the first true incarnation of De Niro as that coiled snake of an actor, tension embedded in stillness, always ready for violence and seemingly good at it. His reputation would only grow from here.