While watching “The Alto Knights,” Barry Levinson’s tribute to the mob movie starring not one but two Robert De Niros, it feels like a meta commentary on the gangster films that made De Niro an iconic actor and that he made an iconic part of American cinema, working with directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. This film is in conversation with his other work, so you may be interested in revisiting some of De Niro’s mob movies. Here’s a guide on where to stream them.
First up, with De Niro reuniting with frequent collaborators Levinson and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, it calls to mind his reunion with longtime creative partner Scorsese in 2019’s “The Irishman,” which is another epic about a gangster looking back on his life and career and a meditation on violence. De Niro played real-life labor union official and Bufalino crime family enforcer Frank Sheeran, in the film based on the book “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt. Stream “The Irishman” on Netflix.
“The Alto Knights” isn’t the first time that De Niro has played a famous real-life mobster. In 1987, he played perhaps the most famous of all, Al Capone, in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables,” opposite Kevin Costner as Prohibition agent Eliot Ness. The Oscar-nominated film scored Sean Connery the best supporting actor Academy Award. Stream it on Paramount+.
In his first collaboration with Scorsese, De Niro co-starred as the degenerate Mafia-connected Johnny Boy in Scorsese’s breakout film “Mean Streets” (1973). Harvey Keitel plays Charlie, Johnny Boy’s close friend attempting to wrangle the feckless and reckless youth. Rent “Mean Streets” on all available platforms.
