Mean Streets
National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.
What critics thought
One of the most acclaimed American films ever made, Mean Streets announced Scorsese as a major filmmaker and still reads as a founding document of modern American cinema. Critics were nearly unanimous about its power, with debate centering less on quality than on where to rank it — contemporary reviewers celebrated its raw energy and improvisational performances, while retrospective voices have elevated it further as a source point for everything that followed.
“a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking”
Pauline Kael·The New Yorker
“no matter how bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the narrative, some films are so thoroughly, beautifully realized they have a kind of tonic effect that has no relation to the subject matter”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Scorsese's impulse to express all he feels about life in every scene (a cannier, more prudent director wouldn't have started his film with that great De Niro monologue), and thus to wrench his audience upwards into a new state of consciousness with one prolonged and devastating gesture, infinitely hurting and infinitely tender. Mean Streets comes close enough to this feverish ideal to warrant our love and much of our respect.”
David Denby·Sight and Sound
“In countless ways, right down to the detail of modern TV crime shows, Mean Streets is one of the source points of modern movies.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
Genres
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast & Crew
DirectorMartin Scorsese
StarringRobert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus
Mean Streets
National Film Registry
A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.
What critics thought
One of the most acclaimed American films ever made, Mean Streets announced Scorsese as a major filmmaker and still reads as a founding document of modern American cinema. Critics were nearly unanimous about its power, with debate centering less on quality than on where to rank it — contemporary reviewers celebrated its raw energy and improvisational performances, while retrospective voices have elevated it further as a source point for everything that followed.
“a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking”
Pauline Kael·The New Yorker
“no matter how bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the narrative, some films are so thoroughly, beautifully realized they have a kind of tonic effect that has no relation to the subject matter”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Scorsese's impulse to express all he feels about life in every scene (a cannier, more prudent director wouldn't have started his film with that great De Niro monologue), and thus to wrench his audience upwards into a new state of consciousness with one prolonged and devastating gesture, infinitely hurting and infinitely tender. Mean Streets comes close enough to this feverish ideal to warrant our love and much of our respect.”
David Denby·Sight and Sound
“In countless ways, right down to the detail of modern TV crime shows, Mean Streets is one of the source points of modern movies.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
Genres
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast & Crew
DirectorMartin Scorsese
StarringRobert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus
Rent/Purchase