10 Best Robert De Niro Villains, Ranked by Evilness (original) (raw)
Published May 28, 2024, 6:00 PM EDT
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Robert De Niro’s an acting legend who’s been a staple in the film industry as far back as the 1960s, though his breakout role arguably came in the 1970s, with Mean Streets. He played a young criminal in that film, his first of many collaborations with Martin Scorsese, and though it didn’t lead to him being typecast necessarily, he has ended up playing numerous criminals, antagonists, and morally sketchy characters as the decades have gone along.
It's hard to highlight them all, so much so that two of his best roles that might fit will need to be honorable mentions. These films are Heat, where he plays an antagonist, technically speaking, but doesn’t feel super villainous, and then Taxi Driver, where it feels difficult to label Travis Bickle one way or another; he’s a uniquely tortured and controversial lead character, and it’s maybe best to leave it at that. The following roles, however, all see him playing villains, serving the role of antagonist in a story, or being the central character, albeit not a “good” or “heroic” one. These movie roles are ranked below, starting with the very evil and ending with the terrifyingly villainous.
10 Al Capone
'The Untouchables' (1987)
Al Capone talking to someone while being shaved in The Untouchables
Image via Paramount Pictures
Robert De Niro has played numerous real-life figures throughout his acting career, though the version of Al Capone he plays in The Untouchables feels a little cartoonish, but by design, and in a way that’s kind of fun. The whole film is a little simplistic with its cops vs. criminals storyline, but that old-fashioned spirit also makes it entertaining and exciting, perhaps even being one of the most thrilling gangster/crime movies ever made.
Brian De Palma’s style shines through and adds to this feeling, and then De Niro – as well as other actors like Kevin Costner and Sean Connery – also give The Untouchables this sense of heightened reality. Capone, as depicted in this film, is technically volatile and violent, but the over-the-top nature of De Niro’s performance reduces how terrifying he can be, in a way, (but again, not in a bad way; it works for the film and its overall tone).
Release Date
June 3, 1987
Runtime
119 minutes
Director
Brian De Palma
9 Louis Gara
'Jackie Brown' (1997)
Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson talking while sitting on a couch in Jackie Brown (1997).
Image via Miramax Films
Quentin Tarantino’s movies are often defined by great dialogue, references to older movies, entertaining yet morally dubious characters, and a good deal of ultra-violence. Jackie Brown stands out a little, dialing down the bloody violence to some extent and making the references to older movies less in-your-face, but still shining when it comes to dialogue and featuring great characters.
Robert De Niro has a memorable supporting role as the seemingly low-key Louis Gara, who’s kind of schlubby and funny until he snaps, at one point, and shows his true colors. The suppressed rage Louis has throughout the film becomes more obvious on rewatches, and while De Niro plays him in a way where he doesn’t necessarily feel villainous all the way through, his nature is ultimately shown to be violent, with his anger inevitably bringing about his downfall.
8 Jake LaMotta
'Raging Bull' (1980)
Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull
Image via United Artists
The first of many movies to feature both Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, Raging Bull is a biographical sports movie that sees the pair playing brothers: Jake and Joey LaMotta, respectively. The former’s a boxer while the latter’s his manager/younger brother, and the film largely centers around Jake LaMotta’s aggressive behavior both within and outside the boxing ring, and the consequences of such anger.
Though Jake LaMotta might not be a villain in the traditional sense, Raging Bull does not shy away from highlighting how terrible of a person he can be, and how he’s prone to lash out violently against those close to him, sometimes without a moment’s notice. It’s a dedicated performance from De Niro, playing a terrifying central character who’s nevertheless a tragic one, in the sense that he brings about all the bad things that eventually befall him in life, especially once he starts getting older and has to leave his boxing career in the past.
Release Date
December 19, 1980
Runtime
129 minutes
Director
7 Dwight Hansen
'This Boy's Life' (1993)
Leonardo DiCaprio as Tobias "Toby" Wolff and Robert De Niro as Dwight Hansen posing together for a picture in This Boy's Life
Image via Warner Bros.
This Boy’s Life is a somewhat underrated movie, proving to be a great showcase of the talent Leonardo DiCaprio had as a young actor, as well as it being funny in hindsight how he starred alongside De Niro before becoming something of a 21st-century De Niro for Scorsese, starting with 2002’s Gangs of New York. In This Boy’s Life, the two are at odds, though, with De Niro playing the tyrannical stepfather of DiCaprio’s character.
It's based on a real-life memoir, which makes things even more harrowing, and This Boy’s Life certainly doesn’t shy away from the abuse inflicted on both the young boy at the film’s center and his mother (Ellen Barkin). De Niro’s character might not inflict as much damage to society as he might in other movies, antagonizing two people rather than many, but the evil he subjects them to is still despicable, not to mention uncomfortably personal, and he plays perhaps one of the most villainous stepfathers of any film made in the past few decades.
This Boy's Life
Run Time
115 minutes
Director
Michael Caton-Jones
Release Date
April 9, 1993
Actors
Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin, Leonardo DiCaprio
Language
English
Rating
R
6 Frank Sheeran
'The Irishman' (2019)
Robert De Niro in the opening scene of Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019)
Image via Netflix
Showing that age doesn’t seem to slow down Robert De Niro, nor prevent him from giving a great performance, The Irishman reunited the actor with Martin Scorsese for their first feature film made together since 1995’s Casino. In The Irishman, De Niro plays an aging hitman named Frank Sheeran, with the film largely being a series of flashbacks showing the violent lifestyle he lived when he was younger.
Frank Sheeran is a cold and detached character, committing numerous murders in a manner so unfeeling that it might even make a Terminator blush (well, if those futuristic cyborgs had a built-in blush function, that is). It’s possible that he feels remorse for at least one of the murders he’s shown to commit, and viewers may pity Sheeran by the film’s final few scenes, but they’re the only saving graces… and even then, such things don’t make too much of an impact when he carried out so many other killings with seemingly little concern at all.
Release Date
November 27, 2019
Runtime
210 minutes
Director
5 Jimmy Conway
'Goodfellas' (1990)
Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Goodfellas could well be Martin Scorsese’s best movie, not to mention his most quotable, too. It stars Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a low-ranking mobster who details his tumultuous life in the mafia, with other characters either being based on real-life people or inspired by them. When it comes to Robert De Niro’s character, he plays a character almost named after a real-life person: in the film, he’s Jimmy Conway, with the equivalent in real life being a gangster named James Burke.
The most volatile character of the film is probably Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito, but De Niro’s Jimmy Conway is more calculating and probably did more damage when you take into account the murders he didn’t commit himself, but ordered. Though no one in Goodfellas is really a good fella, Jimmy emerges as the villain by the film’s end, with the danger he poses to Henry Hill being a significant factor in the latter ratting on his former mobsters before going into witness protection.
Release Date
September 19, 1990
Runtime
145 minutes
Director
4 Louis Cyphre
'Angel Heart' (1987)
Louise Cyphre (Robert De Niro) holding a cappuccino cup in a cafe in Angel Heart
Image via StudioCanal International
Spoiler warning for a movie that’s nearly 40 years old, because while Robert De Niro’s character in Angel Heart always feels suspicious, the extent of his evil isn’t really made apparent until closer to the film’s end. The reveal that he’s the Devil might not be too surprising (Louis Cyphre sounding like “Lucifer” and all), but it is nevertheless saved until near the end of the movie.
So, technically, Louis Cyphre might well be the evilest character De Niro’s ever played, given the Devil is about as evil as characters get, but that would be taking into account things that he presumably does outside the events of Angel Heart. He certainly wrecks lives within this neo-noir/supernatural mystery/thriller film, but given the focus of the film is only on a few characters, he kind of has to be judged purely on what he does here (still very evil; please don’t misinterpret).
Release Date
March 6, 1987
Runtime
113 minutes
Director
Alan Parker
3 William Hale
'Killers of the Flower Moon' (2023)
Robert De Niro as William Hale, frowning in Killers of the Flower Moon
Image via Apple TV+
William Hale marks another instance of Robert De Niro playing a real-life historical figure, though his evil here is far more insidious than the cartoonish villainy seen in his take on Al Capone in The Untouchables, and the damage he causes is greater than what Jimmy Conway does in Goodfellas. This is fitting, because Killers of the Flower Moon is a bleak and harrowing exploration of mundane, systemic evil and murder, much of it orchestrated by Hale, who goes out of his way to hide who he really is to most people in his life.
The film is another winning historical crime epic from Martin Scorsese, narratively following how the Osage people were continually murdered throughout the 1920s, all because Hale – and others – wanted the wealth they’d obtained through oil reserves being discovered on their land. Hale doesn’t get his hands dirty, instead puppeteering various other people to do the bloody work for him, and he emerges as the most vile and cruel character in Killers of the Flower Moon, as a result.
2 David "Noodles" Aaronson
'Once Upon a Time in America' (1984)
Robert De Niro as Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Image via Warner Bros.
Not only being the most epic of gangster movies, Once Upon a Time in America also gave Robert De Niro the chance to play the most terrible and evil of all his gangster characters. It’s hard to weigh up the things Noodles does against the things that William Hale does in Killers of the Flower Moon, with both being capable of being in control of indiscriminate violence and cruelty, but Noodles being someone who actively gets his hands dirty in his criminal pursuits.
Once Upon a Time in America can be a hard watch, owing to what De Niro’s character and his fellow mobsters do, seemingly never caring about their actions beyond some possible regret at a life wasted, once they’ve reached old age. The decades-spanning narrative is engrossing, and the film is beautiful, but the main characters – especially Noodles – are nevertheless rotten to their very cores.
Release Date
June 1, 1984
Runtime
229 Minutes
Director
1 Max Cady
'Cape Fear' (1991)
Robert De Niro as Max Cady with his arm outstretched in Cape Fear (1991)
Image via Universal Pictures
Max Cady sees Robert De Niro going over-the-top once more when playing a villain, but something about how he does it in Cape Fear makes him genuinely terrifying; perhaps one of the most horrific in thriller/horror movie history. He’s a recently released convict who vows revenge against the public defender he blames for his imprisonment, targeting both the man and, eventually, his family.
A being of pure evil, thrilled with both the chase of his prey and the eventual kill, Max Cady quite possibly couldn’t be more violent and terrifying a person than he is here. Cape Fear is relentless largely because Robert De Niro plays the central antagonist the way he does, and he gave a villainous performance for the ages. Indeed, Max Cady is likely the most vile of all the villains De Niro's ever portrayed.
Release Date
November 15, 1991
Runtime
128 minutes
Director