Film Career

At the age of 20 came his first important collaboration with Brian De Palma in 1963 when he appeared in the The Wedding Party however it was not released until 1969. He spent much of the 1960s working in theatre workshops and off-Broadway productions. 

He was an extra in the French film Three Rooms in Manhattan, (1965) and was reunited with Brian De Palma in Greetings, 1968 and Hi, Mom, 1970. He gained popular attention with his role as a sick Yankees catcher in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). 

The same year he began his fruitful collaboration with director Martin Scorsese when he played his memorable role as the small time Mafia hood Johnny Boy alongside Harvey Keitel's Charlie in Mean Streets. 

This led to an incredibly successful relationship between the actor and director in films such as Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991) and Casino (1995). In these films, De Niro has primarily played charming but emotionally unstable characters who have sociopathic tendencies. 

Taxi Driver is particularly important to De Niro's career, with his iconic performance as Travis Bickle shooting him to stardom and forever linking De Niro's name with Bickle's famous "you talkin' to me?" monologue.

In 1978 De Niro played the lead Michael Vronsky in the acclaimed and touching Vietnam War film Deer Hunter, another notable role being in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America as the Jewish gangster David 'Noodles' Aaronson (1984). 

In the mid-1980s, De Niro began expanding into occasional comedic roles, and has had much success in that area as well with such films as Brazil (1985), Midnight Run (1988), Wag the Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004).

In the late 1980s De Niro began to invest in the Tribeca area of New York including establishing a film studio and a film festival in the area. De Niro later admitted that some of the 'below par' film roles he had taken in the 1990s were solely for the purpose of supporting these charitable ventures.

He has won two Academy Awards: as Best Actor for his role in Raging Bull; and as Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather, Part II.

Interestingly, De Niro and Marlon Brando are the only pair of actors who have won Academy Awards for portraying the same character: Brando won for playing the elderly Don Vito Corleone (although he declined the award) in The Godfather while De Niro later won the award for playing the young Vito in The Godfather, Part II. Brando and De Niro did not work together on screen until The Score (2001).

De Niro is often compared to fellow iconic actor Al Pacino and they finally worked together in Michael Mann's Heat (1995). De Niro played a younger version of Pacino's father in The Godfather, Part II.

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