Every Martin Scorsese Gangster Movie: Ranked From Worst To Best

This is the film that launched Scorsese into the forefront of movie consciousness. It is also an uncompromising, semi-autobiographical vision of New York’s Italian-American criminal underworld. Where Goodfellas and Casino look at the top end of the crime ladder, Mean Streets instead focuses on the mid-level ’hoods’.

Throughout, there is a constant aura of violence, a sense that mindless brutality could erupt at any moment, partly driven by Robert De Niro’s unnerving performance as Johnny Boy. This haunting, impending-doom-like-tone comes to a head at the end when Johnny Boy’s dangerous antics ultimately lead Harvey Keitel’s righteous Charlie down the wrong path to his potential demise.

Unlike most gangster films, Mean Streets doesn’t tell a rise and fall story. Instead it's about guys who can still ‘get out’; who still have a chance at repentance and redemption but are dragged down by their environment and those in it. It isn’t so much rise and fall as it is a steady gradual ‘fall’ from the outset.