Movie · 1984 · Drama, Crime · 3h 49m · R · English
Curator score: 8.9/10 (693.9K ratings)
Crime, passion and lust for power.
Overview
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.9/10
IMDb: 8.3/10
Letterboxd: 4.22/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
Metacritic: 75
TMDB: 8.4/10
Director
Sergio Leone
Production
Embassy International Pictures, PSO, The Ladd Company, Rafran Cinematografica
Cast
Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, Treat Williams, Danny Aiello, Richard Bright, James Hayden, William Forsythe, Darlanne Fluegel, Larry Rapp, Richard Foronjy, Robert Harper, Dutch Miller, Gerard Murphy, Amy Ryder, Olga Karlatos, Mario Brega
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sprawling, mournful gangster epic that trades propulsion for memory, regret, and operatic scale. Its beauty is undeniable—Leone’s imagery, Ennio Morricone’s score, and the lived-in performances make it a major work, even if its treatment of women and its sometimes glacial pacing are hard to ignore.
Best for
Viewers who like epic crime dramas with tragic sweep
Fans of stylized, painterly filmmaking
People drawn to stories about memory, guilt, and the passage of time
Those comfortable with morally ugly protagonists and bleak endings
Skip if
You need a tight, fast-moving crime film
You’re sensitive to sexual violence and misogyny in older films
You prefer sympathetic leads or clean moral framing
You don’t have patience for a long, elliptical runtime
Overview
Sergio Leone turns the gangster film into a memory palace: smoke, shadows, childhood loyalty, betrayal, and the ache of time passing. The film’s structure is deliberately untidy, moving between eras like a man trying to remember his own life and failing in the exact places that matter most. That gives it a hypnotic, elegiac power that few crime films can match.
Worth noting
The craft is extraordinary. Leone’s compositions are monumental, the transitions are often dazzling, and Morricone’s score does a huge amount of emotional heavy lifting. Robert De Niro and James Woods give the film its bruised, fatalistic core, and the supporting ensemble helps sell the sense of a whole vanished world.
Bottom line
At the same time, the film is difficult to embrace uncritically. Its treatment of women is often appalling, and the moral distance it keeps from its central men can feel like either tragic perspective or evasive romanticization depending on your tolerance. If you can accept that tension, it remains one of the great American crime epics: flawed, immense, and unforgettable.
Top Letterboxd reviews
liam f (4★) · 3497 likes
there's a lot that could be said about this film, but one thing's for sure: these men were most definitely not good fellas
sophie kempenaar (1.5★) · 1991 likes
hard to feel anything but unadulterated disdain—MUCH less care or interest—for this man after watching him commit atrocity after atrocity, including (but certainly not limited to) two violent rapes. sir your name is NOODLES you and your buddy egg salad sandwich can sit the hell down.
even in general, the film never says or does anything interesting enough to justify the agonizingly long runtime. every single woman and girl exists to either get ogled or raped—sometimes both. i wish i… more
Mike Flanagan · 1645 likes
Last night we finished our Sergio Leone screening series with his magnum opus, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Rahul Kohli curated and presented our Leone screenings, which started last summer with A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, THE GOOD THE BAD & THE UGLY, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, and ended last night with this film, Leone's final work and - I think - his masterpiece.
The story behind the film is a fascinating… more
Quintin (2.5★) · 1422 likes
There were parts of the movie I enjoyed but at the end of the day I spent four hours watching a rapist with the fucking name Noodles.
Sally Jane Black · 1069 likes
I kinda hate gangster films. This isn't a new idea to me, but this film more or less crystalized what I hate about them. In short, gangsters are not Robin Hood. They do not rob from the rich to give to the poor. They do not empower the poor; they feed off of them. They do not fight injustice disguised as law; they simply treat the law as coincidental. The closest argument you have is that they gave immigrant populations… more I kinda hate gangster films. This isn't a new idea to me, but this film more or less crystalized what I hate about them. In short, gangsters are not Robin Hood. They do not rob from the rich to give to the poor. They do not empower the poor; they feed off of them. They do not fight injustice disguised as law; they simply treat the law as coincidental. The closest argument you have is that they gave immigrant populations… more