10 Movie Moments We Waited Years For (That Lived Up To Expectations)

8. De Niro Meets Pacino - Heat

Heat DeNiro Pacino
Warner Bros.

It would be somewhat unfair to say Heat was marketed only on the first ever meeting of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino face-to-face in a movie, but it certainly played a major part of the conversation. And not only that, but director Michael Mann played up to it, delaying the reveal until late into the movie.

For decades, the pair of acting titans had been the ultimate dream team that never was (albeit aside for sharing a movie but no scenes in The Godfather Part II). It was such a hyped moment that it could barely hope to live up to expectations, but it managed it thanks to how Mann pushes the mythology of each man within the movie and then lets their screen chemistry deal with the rest.

More than a decade later, Jon Avnet tried to recapture the magic with Righteous Kill, which was marketed pretty much solely on the meeting of DeNiro and Pacino again. Sadly, unlike Heat, it was garbage and the cynical marketing ploy was revealed as little more than a lie.

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