Robert De Niro has been Oscar-nominated for his work in a wide range of movies spread over nearly half a century. Throughout his storied career, De Niro has accumulated a whopping eight Academy Award nominations: five for Best Actor, two for Best ing Actor, and one for Best Picture as a producer. He has been working steadily as a leading man since the 1970s when his early collaborations with Martin Scorsese put him on the map. During their decades-spanning working relationship, De Niro’s work with the filmmaker has earned him four of his eight Oscar nods.
Having received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, Robert De Niro is one of the most awarded actors in Hollywood. Despite having only Cape Fear and Awakenings. Here are all eight of De Niro's Oscar-nominated movies ranked from worst to best.
8 Cape Fear (1991)
Robert De Niro was nominated for Best Actor for his terrifying turn as serial killer Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear. After his release from prison, Cady stalks the family of the lawyer who put him behind bars, making it a rare example of an Oscar-nominated horror performance. De Niro lost to Anthony Hopkins for another horror performance, as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. With a 75% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.3 IMDb rating, Cape Fear is a perfectly serviceable Hitchcockian thriller, but it doesn’t go above and beyond. De Niro’s portrayal of a gleefully sadistic murderer is one of his broadest performances.
7 Awakenings (1990)
Robert De Niro was nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Leonard Lowe in Penny Marshall’s Awakenings, but Jeremy Iron won for his performance as Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune. In Awakenings, Lowe and the other catatonic patients of Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) are awakened after decades when a drug is discovered that can save them. Awakenings has an irable IMDb rating of 7.8 and a respectable Rotten Tomatoes score of 86%. Led by De Niro's comionate performance opposite one of Williams’s best dramatic turns, Awakenings is a poignant study of what it means to be truly alive.
6 Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Robert De Niro received a Best ing Actor nod for his role as Pat Solitano Sr. in Christoph Waltz for his performance in Django Unchained. Written and directed by David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook has a lukewarm 7.7 IMDb rating and an irable 92% Rotten Tomatoes score. It's a sympathetic portrayal of mental illness, following a recently released psychiatric patient as he bonds with a new love and reconnects with his father. While it's anchored by the spectacular on-screen chemistry between the Oscar-nominated Bradley Cooper and the Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence, De Niro gives a deeply vulnerable turn as Cooper’s father.
5 The Deer Hunter (1978)
Robert De Niro received a Best Actor nomination for his sobering performance as Staff Sergeant Mike Vronsky in Michael Cimino’s war epic the greatest Vietnam War movies, though it’s more focused on the psychological effect of the war on three friends than on their actual combat. The movie takes its time rounding out these characters before they go to war and then explores how drastically different they are when they return.
4 The Irishman (2019)
Although he missed out on a Best Actor nod for playing hitman Frank Sheeran in the movie, Robert De Niro received a Best Picture nomination for producing Jimmy Hoffa’s murder is accurate or not, The Irishman is a powerful portrait of the moral downfall that follows a hired gun carrying out a hit on his best friend.
3 Raging Bull (1980)
Robert De Niro received his sole Best Actor Oscar for his shockingly honest portrayal of boxer Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese’s black-and-white biopic Raging Bull. The film’s remarkable 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes indicates widespread acclaim, and its 8.2 rating on IMDb proves it is popular with audiences, too. Raging Bull isn’t a standard boxing movie; it’s a character study that happens to revolve around a boxer. Scorsese uses all the tricks in the filmmaking playbook to make the fight scenes truly cinematic then shoots the domestic scenes with a minimalist, realistic aesthetic for a powerful juxtaposition.
Raging Bull offers a raw, unflinching portrait of LaMotta. Scorsese’s biopics tend to focus on their subjects’ worst trait and how it ultimately became their downfall, like Jordan Belfort's greedy lifestyle in The Wolf of Wall Street and Henry Hill’s addiction — not just to drugs, but also to power and money — in Goodfellas. Raging Bull draws parallels between LaMotta's violent rage in and out of the ring and explores all the ways it destroyed his life. Eventually, his anger and abuse drive away his family, his career, and any chance he ever has at happiness.
2 Taxi Driver (1976)
Robert De Niro’s unsettling turn as Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s neo-noir masterpiece Taxi Driver earned him a Best Actor nod, but Peter Finch posthumously won for playing Howard Beale in Network. In Taxi Driver, Travis returns from Vietnam with PTSD and insomnia, driving a cab around the clock and finding himself so disgusted by the rampant crime on the streets that he decides to take the law into his own hands. With a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 8.2 IMDb rating, Taxi Driver is a haunting character study of a traumatized mind turning to vigilantism. It’s a subversively realistic take on the then-popular vigilante thriller subgenre.
1 The Godfather Part II (1974)
Not only did The Godfather Part II become the first sequel to win Best Picture, but it also earned Robert De Niro his first Oscar. After Michael Corleone inherits his father Vito’s criminal empire, The Godfather Part II charts Michael’s corruption at the helm. Michael’s moral downfall is contrasted with a young Vito’s rise to power, depicted in flashbacks, which earned De Niro a Best ing Actor win. After Marlon Brando won the Best Actor Oscar for the first Godfather movie, he and De Niro became the first pair of actors to win Oscars for playing the same character (later followed by Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning Joker performances).
With a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% and an equally impressive 9.0 rating on IMDb putting it in fourth place on the site's Top 250 list, The Godfather Part II is a rare example of a superior sequel. It explores the first movie’s themes of power, betrayal, and corruption in much more depth, offering two perspectives on the same gangland storyline. Michael’s narrative arc is a satisfying follow-up to the original Godfather movie full of shocking twists and turns, but Vito’s prequel storyline is a similarly captivating tale of revenge, brought to life by Robert De Niro’s stellar performance.
