Robert De Niro is quite comfortably one of the most famous and respected movie actors of all time, known for both his dramatic and comedic roles. With a body of work stretching back to the 1960s, there's a lot of great performances from the actor for a movie fan to go through and lots of examples to put forward as his best movies of all time.
With this in mind, let's take a look at the actor's 10 highest-rated movies on Metacritic to give a clear outline of what critics have identified as De Niro's best movies over the decades. From sprawling gangster sagas to intimate family dramas. if you love Robert De Niro then every one of these movies is a must-see.
Silver Linings Playbook (81)
De Niro received his first Oscar nomination in over two decades for his supporting role in this romantic comedy-drama from writer and director David O. Russell.
He plays the father of the main character, a man trying to put his life back together after a violent episode that caused a brief-but-mandatory stay at a mental health facility, and proves a dynamite dramatic sparring partner for his son, played by Bradley Cooper. Cooper was also nominated that year alongside their co-stars Jacki Weaver and Jennifer Lawrence, who took home Best Actress.
Brazil (84)
Another supporting role from De Niro, yet still one of his most memorable, he plays a mysteriously rebellious handyman figure in director Terry Gilliam's nightmarishly satirical future dystopia of Orwellian bureaucracy and choking cityscapes.
The character becomes a symbol of hope to the downtrodden main character in their quest to find a beautiful woman who appears in his dreams and breaks the soul-crushing monotony of his life. It was apparently De Niro's second choice of roles on the project after being unable to get the part of Jack Lint, according to Gilliam's longtime Monty Python collaborator Michael Palin (who took the part of Lint).
The Deer Hunter (86)
De Niro was nominated for Best Actor during The Deer Hunter's famously contentious campaign at the Oscars along with his co-stars Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively, with Walken winning.
The story of Pennsylvania steelworkers irrevocably altered by their experiences in the Vietnam war certainly provoked both strongly positive and negative reactions but took home both Best Picture and Best Director at that year's Oscars also, strengthening its status as one of the most ultimately well-received war movies of all time.
Raging Bull (89)
The most significant working relationship of De Niro's career as a movie actor has, from the perspective of fans, undoubtedly been between him and revered director Martin Scorsese.
Their fourth collaboration together, and the first to appear on this list, is their movie about boxer Jake LaMotta and De Niro's powerhouse performance earned him his first win for Best Actor at the Oscars while beginning another of the actor's most significant professional relationships with co-star Joe Pesci, who would successfully reteam with both De Niro and Scorsese several times.
American Hustle (90)
Reteaming the actor with David O. Russell, along with both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, after the success of Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle rounded out its impressive ensemble with stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Renner.
De Niro only takes a small role in this sprawling story of con artists strongarmed into working with the FBI and the movie was a similarly big hit with critics and movie fans, earning it 10 Oscar nominations.
The Godfather Part II (90)
De Niro received his first Oscar nomination–and win–for his role as the younger version of Don Corleone starting out as a crime kingpin in Francis Ford Coppola's followup to his iconic gangster movie, The Godfather.
Fans of the movies regularly debate whether the second part is in fact superior to the original and, while it may be close with an impressive score of 90 out of 100, the first movie takes the gold by Metacritic's calculations with an emphatic score of 100.
Goodfellas (90)
De Niro reteamed with Martin Scorsese and Joe Pesci for this true-life story of mobster Henry Hill and his rise through the ranks. Hill is played by Ray Liotta but De Niro and Pesci debatably steal the show as his psychotic mafia associates.
Emulated by many movies and TV shows released after it, Goodfellas reinvented the crime movie genre in many ways and its quickfire style would be explored further by Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker on several other projects that followed, several of them directly involving De Niro and Pesci again.
Taxi Driver (94)
One of the actor's most famous roles, De Niro's performance as Travis Bickle created one of the most iconic movie characters of all time in the form of the psychotically unwell Vietnam veteran who drowns out the bad thoughts in his head with a job as a taxi driver in New York City.
Bickle marked the beginning of a long line of complex characters from the director and actor duo spanning decades and running right up until the modern day with our list's next entry.
The Irishman (94)
Scorsese and De Niro's most recent collaboration demonstrated just how strong the bond between the director and actor really is, reteaming with Pesci and tackling similar subject matter from Goodfellas to huge praise from critics and movie fans.
The Irishman follows the adult life of Frank Sheeran, whose claims of employment within the Italian-American mafia purportedly put him in the midst of several major events in 20th century American history. Using de-aging technology, a 74-year-old De Niro was able to play Sheeran in scenes that take place over the course of several decades alongside Pesci, and their chemistry together packed as much punch for critics as it did in Raging Bull, if not more so.
Mean Streets (96)
The first collaboration between De Niro and Scorsese was a landmark moment in cinema that nobody would have been able to understand the full significance of at the time, yet nonetheless helped propel both figures into the legendary status that they enjoy today within the movie community.
Even though De Niro wasn't playing the main character, his performance in Mean Streets would become the most standout aspect of the entire movie, and Scorsese's view of low-level gangsters in New York would go on to become something the pair would progressively revisit together throughout their careers.