Movie · 2019 · Crime, Drama, History · 3h 29m · R · English
Curator score: 8.4/10 (1.4M ratings)
His story changed history.
Overview
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.4/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.91/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 94
TMDB: 7.6/10
Director
Martin Scorsese
Production
Tribeca Productions, Sikelia Productions, Winkler Films
Cast
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jack Huston, Kathrine Narducci, Jesse Plemons, Domenick Lombardozzi, Paul Herman, Gary Basaraba, Marin Ireland, Lucy Gallina, Jonathan Morris, Dascha Polanco, Welker White
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sprawling, elegiac crime epic that trades gangster swagger for regret, memory, and the slow corrosion of loyalty. It’s long and deliberately paced, but the craft, performances, and melancholy payoff make it a major watch for viewers who like prestige crime dramas with an end-of-life perspective.
Best for
fans of patient, character-driven crime dramas
viewers interested in organized crime history and labor politics
people who appreciate reflective, late-career filmmaking
audiences who don’t mind long runtimes and slow-burn storytelling
Skip if
you want nonstop action or constant plot twists
you dislike long runtimes and episodic structure
you prefer morally clean protagonists
you want a conventional rise-and-fall gangster movie
Overview
The Irishman is less interested in the mechanics of mob power than in what that life does to the soul over time. It moves with a calm, almost administrative rhythm, which makes the violence feel colder and the betrayals more devastating. Scorsese treats criminal history like a memory problem: everything is vivid, but nothing is glorious for long.
Worth noting
The film’s emotional center is not the hits or the politics, but the ache of men who have spent decades mistaking loyalty for purpose. De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci each play against their most familiar screen identities, and the result is unusually mournful. Even the film’s humor lands like a defense mechanism against emptiness.
Bottom line
Its length is part of the point, though not every viewer will feel that way in the moment. This is a movie about time passing, bodies aging, institutions decaying, and the terrible quiet that follows a life built on obedience. If you want a gangster film that ends as a reckoning rather than a triumph, this is one of the defining examples.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Roberto_ (5★) · 9039 likes
jimmy hoffa's secrets to success:
• never show up late• always wear a suit for a meeting• don't drink• eat a lot of ice cream• always charge a guy with a gun! ...(with a knife, you run away!!!)
maria (4.5★) · 8414 likes
when the movie ended and martin scorsese's name appeared on the screen, a woman who was sitting next to me in the theatre stood up, clapped for a little while and then said WELL DONE, MARTY for everyone to hear and i can honestly say i have never been more represented by a person in my entire life
well done, martywell done, robertwell done, alwell done, joewell done, harveywell done, y'all
Karsten (4.5★) · 5865 likes
This won’t make a lot of sense but:
I can’t honestly say every minute of this is necessary. But none of those minutes feel like a waste of time. This was everything I love about Marty and his films but polished. The most thoughtful, precise, and vulnerable film I’ve seen from him. Can’t wait to see it again!
Josh Lewis (5★) · 3899 likes
Working stiffs.
Not sure I've ever mentioned this before but I have a very personal fear of not... feeling... correctly. Like enormously important things are happening around you in a matter-of-fact, dissociative way that you can understand the significance of but you can't shake this idea that you're experiencing them wrong—like they're a thing you've been vaguely told and taught about so you're performing it like work when really you're supposed to be doing more, feeling more, being more. Because… more
Patrick Willems (4★) · 3731 likes
Oh maybe I DON'T want to be a gangster after all. It looks bad and sad!