Here we go. Finally. Part 3. Top 25.
This is about to get messy. It's exceedingly tricky. We've been counting down the Top 73 characters from Scorsese's films-- one for each year of his life --and now we're here.
If you missed Part 1, check it out here. If you missed Part 2, check it out here.
There are ways of justifying just about everything, but we're not going to go too far in-depth until about the top 5 because they matter the absolute most.
But in the end, it might all feel predictable.
You know there's going to be a lot of De Niro everywhere, but where exactly? Read on.
How did we get to this point? Here's a little recap.
What we're not doing: Putting main characters because their main characters, ranking main characters higher because-- again --they're main characters, ranking female characters higher or lower than they should be by virtue of being, well women.
What we are doing: Trying to rank 73 different characters from nearly two-dozen pieces of fiction based on the reaction we had to them in first viewing, how well those characters have stood the test of time in second and third viewings, and how much the actors' performances had to do with all of it.
These Top 25 took full advantage of their screen time, and most of them turn out to be main characters from Scorsese's films.
These characters are almost the first thought when it comes to Scorsese's name and legacy, or, their performances are too forgotten or recent to evoke the same sentiments as the storied and iconic, so we're reminding you. Some of them are certainly questionable, but no great list is without question.
They captivated the audience for more than one scene in the movie, they had a lasting impact after the credits rolled, and the actors themselves gave audiences a new or nuanced view of what they were, the best of what they'd always been, or what they still could be.
25. Katharine Hepburn - The Aviator
"Men can't be friends with women, Howard."
Okay, so let's clarify something about The Aviator. It's almost a really great movie, but it's very long, and droll at times. That means it's a one-time view. We're curious how many people have made it through the entirety of the film while it's been on Netflix, and in this conversation we're having here that's a hard thing to overlook.
But hell, it was nominated for 11 Oscars and walked away with 5. That wasn't a bad year for film either. That was the year of Sideways, Hotel Rwanda, Finding Neverland, Ray, and Million Dollar Baby.
[anad]
But The Aviator won what it absolutely should have: Cinematography, Costume Design, Editing (holy hell yes), Art Direction, and Best Supporting Actress, Cate Blanchett.
Leo and Alan Alda both turned in great performances (and again, Alan Alda is definitely an honorable mention here), but Cate Blanchett makes that movie. It's one of her best roles of all-time, and a distant second is her role in Blue Jasmine (closely followed by Elizabeth and maybe Meredith Logue in The Talented Mr. Ripley).
24. Donnie Azoff - The Wolf of Wall Street
"You show me a pay stub for $72,000, I quit my job right now and work for you."
Time will tell how great this character actually was, but the chemistry he had with Jordan Belfort has a lot more to do with Jonah Hill's comedic acting chops than anything. Every line he has is pretty hilarious, and while he should get docked for being a rat, we can justify that with our overall opinion of the movie.
Nobody in 2013 was ready to celebrate the 1%, especially when they had proven themselves legit crooks. It might have been different had we not been so closely removed from an economic collapse at the hands of dubious bank heads, and this somewhat nostalgic tone for the men who could do anything rings a little, well, sh*ttily.
So Donnie should get docked for being a rat, but he caused the downfall of one of the most awful human beings we've ever seen on screen. Sure, Donnie was just as bad, but on the other hand, he's one of two cats you'll re-watch this three-hour movie for, and his character is worth it.
23. Hugo - Hugo
"I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too."
Asa Butterfield is an exciting kid. For a minute there were rumors he'd be the next Spiderman, and we're pretty glad that he's not. But he was great in Ender's Game (despite how underwhelming that ended up being), and he was great in Hugo.
He's one of the few kids that can't kill a movie, and when you decide to do a kids movie like Scorsese did, having a lead that doesn't make you want to die (like some of the kids in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom) goes a long way.
22. Vince Lauria - The Color of Money
"I think maybe the money's what's throwing you off today."
He might easily be ranked too high, but again, The Color of Money is an almost-great movie that suffers primarily because of one guy, and it ain't Tom Cruise (shocking, we know).
He's got some great lines, some great, vintage Tom Cruise freak-outs, and he's a convincing hustler: cocky, but with shades, and shades, and shades of deep, abiding insecurity. It's one of Tom Cruise's best performances where he isn't constantly running or getting the sh*t beat out of him.
21. Morrie - Goodfellas
"What am I? A schmuck on wheels?"
You're going to freak out. You're going to say, "Oh, well you guys just love Goodfellas so much..." We get it. The hate is real. The hate is warranted.
But this has everything to do with re-watch value. And there are 4 guys that make you re-watch this movie over and over: Billy Batts, Tommy DeVito, Henry Hill, and Morrie's Wigs.
20. Madame Olenska - Age of Innocence
"How can we be happy behind the backs of people who trust us?"
It's a beautiful movie. It really is. But it's an Edith Wharton novel, and it's a little off-brand for Scorsese. That said, this is the best possible way it could have been brought to the screen, and despite Winona Ryder's own personal greatness in it, Michelle Pfeiffer keeps you going.
And you wouldn't expect her to carry a movie that Daniel Day Lewis should be carrying, but his performance was weird. Newland Archer's a weird fellow, but there wasn't anything desirable or charismatic that he brought to the screen. Michelle Pfeiffer carried them both, and it worked.
19. Alice - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
"I don't sing with my a**!"
Ellen Burstyn is a gem, and this is a weird, one-time view that you watch specifically for her. She's charming, witty, beautiful, good with the kid Tommy (who has some godawful dialogue for good measure), and she got an Oscar for it.
That's not to take anything away from Burstyn, though. She's a 100%, bonafide leading lady here. She got her Oscar (whatever those actually meant in the 70s... or now, even). She's delightful, and that's a high compliment for that movie in this conversation.
,18. Ginger - Casino
*Intro music: "Love Is Strange" by Mickey and Sylvia*
Sharon Stone says a lot of crazy sh*t, but her most captivating moment-- and another musical gem by Scorsese (or whoever actually decides that he should use music when he does) --is this scene. It's weirdly tone-setting because the song itself isn't incredible.
It's a lyrically driven song in this context, and the weirdness of the music matches the proceeding weirdness of her and Lester and Ace and Nicky. It's all weird, but it works. Sharon Stone is great in a movie that isn't, and while this isn't the best instance of that, it's one of the more fitting.
17. Iris/Sport - Taxi Driver
Iris: "I don't like what I'm doing, Sport."
Sport: "Aww baby, I don't want you to like what you're doing. If you like what you're doing, then you won't be my woman."
Sound logic. Of course Little Jodie Foster makes the cut. She's an adorably hard woman.
Harvey Keitel is also highly underrated in this film. He's absolutely fantastic in everything he does, sure, but especially in early Scorsese films (we won't mention JR from Who's That Knocking at My Door, but he's fantastic in that despite how rough the film is).
They had to be here together. Their relationship is so beautifully, awfully, twistedly jacked up, it's ridiculous. Both of them deserve to be here on their own, but they make it here together because the world's against them and we can dig it the same way we root for Jamie and Cersei Lannister to make it.
16. Ace Rothstein - Casino
"In Vegas, everybody's gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I'm watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all."
The voice over narration works when it's De Niro, but that's because we could listen to him say anything. There's about to be a lot more De Niro coming up, and his role as Ace is everything great that Casino just can't be.
15. Vickie - Raging Bull
"Jake's never gonna be champ. Too many people hate him."
Vickie, Vickie, Vickie.
It's hard watching a woman get beat in any context, and Vickie is representative of every struggle of leaving the abusive relationship. She waited until Jake wasn't in fighting shape anymore before she could leave him. How twisted is that?
That's a wholly different brand of strength that Scorsese rarely shows. Women leave all the time, and women get beaten all the time in his films, but Vickie had to bide her time for years before she actually could, and Cathy Moriarty (where the hell did she go?) gives an amazingly understated performance.
14. Paul Hackett - After Hours
"I said I wanna see a Plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paper weight, now cough it up!"
This movie is very entertaining. There are a number of good cameos (Catherine O'Hara, Cheech & Chong), but Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett did something few people could have pulled off in a Scorsese movie (that never really felt like a Scorsese movie).
He was frantic, anxious, kind of a d-bag, annoying, frightened, and all of a sudden he screams out about the "Plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paper weight." He gets framed for murder, gets chased down by a crazy woman in a Mister Softee truck, and then just gets doused in paper mache.
It's a weird movie about a word processor who only wants to meet up with some chick he met in a SoHo coffee shop and then everything just goes to sh*t. It's a brand of frustration humor that worked, yet somehow nobody paid enough attention, so it never made its way to the screen again.
13. Max Cady - Cape Fear
"Every man... every man has to go through Hell to reach Paradise."
What. A. Creep. He should go a little lower on this list simply because Cape Fear is a movie that's especially lacking as a whole, but Max Cady is the one force that keeps it watchable and makes it re-watchable.
This was a close call between Goodfellas's Jimmy the Gent, but there's not enough nuance to justify Jimmy the Gent and Ace Rothstein, plus the other roles that make the list...
12. Joey - Raging Bull
"If you win, you win. If you lose, you win."
This is one of Joe Pesci's best roles. He's so balanced, but he still shows that volatility; that propensity to freak out and murder/beat someone with a taxi door.
[anad2]
He also gets smacked around a lot. Like, a lot. Jake goes to town on him. But poor Frank Vincent... First, Salvy Batts gets the door, then Billy Batts gets everything else.
11. Bertha - Boxcar Bertha
"Guts and luck."
Okay, don't get upset. Bertha is here for good reason. Barbara Hershey is absolutely perfect for this film, and this film would have been a mess with anyone slightly less talented.
That's not to say this is a great movie by any stretch. It's not. It's just okay. But this quote makes you fall in love with her from the start.
Even if David Carradine is a little weird and rapey, Bertha (awful name, though. Honestly, should have gotten docked for that and the alliterative title) is still one of the greatest female characters of Scorsese's, even if she dabbles in prostitution for a moment.
Again, like we said in Parts 1 and 2, this movie (less than 90 minutes) is built for the end scene.
Get ready for the top 10...
,10. Henry Hill - Goodfellas
"You really are a funny guy!"
He didn't make #1 on our Goodfellas Power Ranking, so doesn't he seem high on this list, especially if Jimmy the Gent isn't on here?
No. The story, one of the more captivating tales Scorsese's told, filters through him. We see almost all of the action with him as our spectator, perpetrator, or guide. There aren't many characters in film we see all of this through, and Scorsese does it beautifully.
As for Ray Liotta, he's great. A little unbalanced at times (his laugh is a little absurd), but if for anything, it's his reaction to the radio broadcast after the Lufthansa Heist. "Jimmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!"
9. Billy Costigan - The Departed
"You sit there with a mass murderer. A mass murderer. Your heart rate is jacked, and your hand... steady. That's one thing I figured out about myself in prison. My hand does not shake... ever."
This line. This scene. This movie. This character. This actor. He got snubbed. By himself.
The problem with doing the movies Leo did at the time he was doing them, is one role cannibalized the other. He was perfect in Blood Diamond, and we'll go ahead and say he was better than Forrest Whitaker, Will Smith, Peter O'Toole, and maybe even Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson is great, hard-to-watch film, by the way).
Billy Costigan is such a great character, and Leo did a pitch-perfect job of showing the trauma he was experiencing at every turn. Not the greatest snub of that year, though...
8. Rupert Pupkin - The King of Comedy
"Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime!"
Absolutely wonderful. If you wondered why Robert De Niro was great, it's not just because of his mob roles. He was a great Vito Corleone, a great Jimmy the Gent, and Ace Rothstein, but this is a completely different look for him.
If you've seen his latest crap, The Intern, well, we apologize. We wish we could refund that money. But there are certain mannerisms in that film that remind us of Rupert Pupkin, this ultimately harmless psychopath. He just wants to be Jerry Lewis (Jerry Langford in the movie), and that's not a bad thing.
Check out The King of Comedy. De Niro is hysterical.
7. Johnny Boy - Mean Streets
"I f**k you right where you breathe!"
Oh, another De Niro? Really? In the Top 10?
Have you seen Mean Streets? We got a guy who can quote the entire last scene in the bar with Michael, word for word, timing down pat, and just as amazing. Yeah, we got a guy for that.
But Johnny Boy is De Niro at his most playful. Sure, he's a funny little weasel in King of Comedy, but this is playful badassery, and if that's a real thing, it's because of Bobby D.
Justify putting him in the Top 10? Well, of course. Mean Streets has a re-watch value from a craft perspective, meaning it's always great (not for nostalgic purposes) to revisit older works to see how the director got to where he is now.
Johnny Boy is the character map for many more characters to come, but it's so uniquely De Niro that it's never been quite the same since.
6. Tomy DeVito - Goodfellas
"Not the first time I dug a hole. I'll f****n' dig a hole. Where are the shovels?"
Like, really. What do we have to say about Tommy DeVito? Check out Goodfellas for yourself if you've never indulged, but if you know, then you know. Except for him killing off favorite characters like Spider and Billy Batts.
Pesci's great, but he's really not good enough for the Top 5 because these guys are game changers.
5. Bill "The Butcher" Cutting - Gangs of New York
"That, my friends, is the minority vote."
It was hard to pick a quote that fit both the best part of his character and the purposes of this list, but because The Butcher might seem contentious in the Top 5, we had to go for the minority vote.
Gangs is a hard to rate movie. The fight scene at the beginning, while amazing, has annoyingly ill-fitting music. The end scene is a little annoying because of how it ends, and then it gets worse because someone though U2 was a good idea.
But this is The Butcher's movie. It's not about Amsterdam's vengeance. It's about Nativism ruining New York City during the Civil War. Again, nobody scales history like Scorsese, and there isn't a movie about Tammany Hall and the 5 Points District like Gangs of New York. That's a feat in itself.
But Daniel Day-Lewis was made for this role. Every line, every costume, every motion, every facial tick and bead of sweat. Absolutely perfect in every moment. He's also one of the top 10 quotable Scorsese characters: "He ain't earned the death!" "You'll excuse my friend, he used to be an Irishman."
4. Frank Costello - The Departed
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."
The biggest snub of 2007, Jack Nicholson was absolutely phenomenal as Frank Costello (based on the actual rat, Whitey Bulger). Mark effing Whalberg got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and we're still puzzled. Where was Jack Nicholson in all of this?
If you've ever been creeped out by him as a romantic interest (think: As Good as It Gets and Something's Gotta Give), then this is just another contributing role for that discussion.
But why is he great? Again, there are skeletal problems with this movie, namely the dialogue. It takes so much for these guys to carry these lines out, and Frank carried the whole movie until the moment he died. He didn't have a bad scene. He didn't look, sound, or feel out of place. He was the rat king.
You get three of those characters in that movie: dubious double-players. It's the ultimate game of trust, but the problem is Frank Costello was just playing for the sake of playing any game at all. When you realize how little he actually cared about anybody in that movie (except for French), you get why he's here at #4.
3. Travis Bickle - Taxi Driver
"I think someone should take this city and just... just flush it down the f****in' toilet."
This scene. Every scene. Every line. The mohawk. The gun sliding out from the arm of his coat. The porn theater. The pills. The jacket. The Unnamed Passenger. The letter to Iris's father. Saving Iris. Betsy. Palantine. Sport. You talkin' to me. Clean like my consience. Loneliness following him most of his life. The guns. Easy Andy. THE GUN SLIDING OUT FROM THE SLEEVE OF HIS COAT.
All of that. He's the most unknowable character Scorsese's ever given us.
Any questions?
2. Charlie - Mean Streets
"Twenty dollars? Let's go da movies!"
Charlie is the first, greatest glimpse we get of Harvey Keitel and Scorsese, and re-watching it shows you some of the value we talked about: what they were at the time; what they ended up being; what they still could be.
The whole film is great, but Charlie's fascination with the candle (albeit a sort of trite expression of Catholic guilt) is huge. And again, Mean Streets falls into that whole craft perspective of the first rough drafts of Scorsese's career, but it's amazing.
[anad2]
Justification: Origin. You get points for being great from the start and never faltering. Again, JR in Who's That Knocking at My Door is great, too, but this movie-- from start to finish --rarely falters, and Keitel has everything to do with that.
1. Jake La Motta - Raging Bull
"That's... entertainment."
You had to have known this, right? Honestly, it came down to La Motta and Bickle, but when you binge Scorsese (like we had to for all of this), you see something in both La Motta and the whole of Raging Bull that you never see again.
A few things: Scorsese's mastery of time in Raging Bull is not something so clearly defined or beautifully rendered again. The still shots in the rink. The newspapers. The home videos of La Motta and family. Everything is beautifully pieced together.
Then there's the fall and change of character. It's one thing to say someone doesn't or can't change. We've seen that enough. Don Draper, Tony Soprano, whatever. Nobody changes. We get it.
But before all of this unchanged masculinity, it's another thing entirely to have shown someone change in mannerism and character over the span of 20 years, fall into despair and turmoil, lose everything he loves, and then seek out forgiveness in the least deserved places.
Does he change? Would he still smack Vickie around? Would he still take the fall for Tommy Como? Would he still ever get the "title" (personal/emotional/spiritual fulfillment) his way? Who knows? We got a glimpse at the small chance he would. That's entertainment.
Check out 9 Lessons We Learned from Grantland's Shutdown.
*Original post edited to correct misinformation on Morrie's death (#21). Original text mistakenly attributed the pink Cadillac scene as the discovery of Morrie and Belle's bodies, rather than Johnny Roastbeef and his wife's. We apologize. Such happens when you binge Scorsese. We don't recommend it.*