While critics have acknowledged that David Chase’s new Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark isn’t as profound or groundbreaking as its small-screen predecessor, the movie has been warmly received nevertheless. A large chunk of that praise has been directed at the performances by The Many Saints’ impressive cast.
The cast includes such revered stars as Ray Liotta, Vera Farmiga, and Jon Bernthal. Between them, the actors in The Many Saints of Newark have given acclaimed performances in a bunch of high-ranking movies on IMDb.
Jon Bernthal - The Wolf Of Wall Street (8.2)
Tony Soprano’s father Johnny Boy doesn’t have the biggest role in The Many Saints of Newark, but he is integral to Tony’s origin story and the early days of the DiMeo crime family. Jon Bernthal nailed the short Soprano temper and the Sopranos universe’s wry sense of humor.
Bernthal’s top-rated movie on IMDb is Martin Scorsese’s pitch-black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. He played Brad, a drug dealer who’s close friends with crooked stockbroker Jordan Belfort, and his dry comic talents fit perfectly into Scorsese’s unique crime-ridden world.
Alessandro Nivola - Selma (7.5)
While The Many Saints of Newark is primarily an ensemble piece, if it does have a star, it’s Alessandro Nivola, playing Christopher Moltisanti’s father Dickie. Dickie’s story, framed by his son’s voiceover narration from beyond the grave, makes it clear that Christopher’s grim fate was inevitable from the beginning.
The actor’s highest-rated movie on IMDb is Ava DuVernay’s powerful, historically accurate Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic Selma. Nivola played John Doar, a significant player in the civil rights movement who worked for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Billy Magnussen - The Big Short (7.8)
Billy Magnussen doesn’t have a huge role in The Many Saints of Newark. His turn as a young Paulie Walnuts is essentially a cameo. The actor has a much larger, more substantial role in the new James Bond adventure, No Time to Die.
While his 007 outing is a close second, Magnussen’s top-rated movie on IMDb is the financial drama The Big Short. This is the movie that successfully transformed Adam McKay from a director of goofy comedies like Anchorman to a bona fide Oscar-baiting dramatic filmmaker.
Leslie Odom, Jr. - One Night In Miami (7.1)
Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr. plays an original character in The Many Saints of Newark. Harold McBrayer is a DiMeo associate who breaks off and starts his own criminal organization, creating all kinds of tension in the ganglands of New Jersey.
His highest-rated film on IMDb is Regina King’s directorial debut, One Night in Miami, about a seminal 1964 meeting between Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X. Odom plays Cooke alongside Eli Goree’s Clay, Aldis Hodge’s Brown, and Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Malcolm X.
Vera Farmiga - The Departed (8.5)
Vera Farmiga gives one of the greatest performances in The Many Saints of Newark as a young Livia Soprano. She deftly recreates James Gandolfini and Nancy Marchand’s strained father-son dynamic from the series with Michael Gandolfini’s teenage Tony.
Farmiga’s highest-rated film on IMDb is a different gangster epic: The Departed, the movie that finally earned Scorsese an Academy Award for Best Director. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio star in Scorsese’s quintessential cat-and-mouse thriller as a mole and the undercover cop trying to identify him, respectively, while Farmiga plays a police psychiatrist that they both fall for.
Joey Diaz - Spider-Man 2 (7.3)
Comedian Joey Diaz has told countless stories from his own youth about cops and crooks on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, so it made sense to include him in the Sopranos universe with a supporting role in The Many Saints of Newark. He plays “Big P*ssy” Bonpensiero’s father, and overshadows Big P*ssy himself.
Diaz’s top-rated movie on IMDb is Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, widely regarded to be one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Diaz cameos as a subway passenger who boldly stands between Doctor Octopus and an injured Spidey.
Corey Stoll - Midnight In Paris (7.7)
Despite being a recognizable actor with roles in both arthouse favorites and a Marvel blockbuster, Corey Stoll gives an uncanny turn as a young Junior Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark. He’s younger and more virile in the prequel, but just as grumpy.
Stoll’s top-rated performance on IMDb is in Woody Allen’s time-traveling rom-com Midnight in Paris. The premise sees Owen Wilson’s nostalgic writer traveling back in time to the 1920s and meeting his literary idols. Stoll gives an incredible supporting turn as a cocky, fast-talking Ernest Hemingway.
Ray Liotta - Goodfellas (8.7)
Following rumors that he supposedly turned down the role of Tony in The Sopranos, Ray Liotta plays two roles in The Many Saints of Newark to make up for it. He initially plays Christopher Moltisanti’s grandfather “Hollywood Dick,” then plays his imprisoned twin brother following Dick’s unexpectedly early death scene.
Liotta has enjoyed a decades-long career, appearing in several acclaimed movies, but there’s one movie that stands above them all – Goodfellas – and, unsurprisingly, it’s his highest-rated movie on IMDb. Scorsese’s fast-paced darkly comic biopic of gangster Henry Hill was a huge influence on a bunch of filmmakers and storytellers (including David Chase himself, who was inspired by Goodfellas to create The Sopranos).