10 Essential Robert De Niro Performances

Michael Cimino's crippling, devastating The Deer Hunter - a three-hour epic in the truest sense of the word - sees De Niro as the strongest willed, yet ultimately most troubled person in a group of friends who together suffered the horrors of the Vietnam war (John Cazale and Christopher Walken are among the others). 

In a performance of expert control De Niro takes his character, Michael, through multiple mindsets, starting with the long, slow opening sequence of the film, which presents the characters' last night in the real world before shipping off to 'Nam. From there, it's 'Nam itself, and the brutal, annihilating centerpiece of the picture, the Russian Roulette scene, which serves as one of cinema's most harrowing depictions of war (or anything else). Then it's the aftermath, with Michael trying to tend to his damaged comrades, struggling to visit them in VA hospitals or to retrieve them from Vietnam when he learns they are still there. 

De Niro is never less than captivating in The Deer Hunter, and the film gives us one of his most intelligent, mature performances in one of the great films of the '70s. The actor was nominated for his third Academy Award here, but lost out to another great performance in a film about Vietnam, Jon Voight's in Coming Home.