Film

The Irishman

Name: The Irishman
Genre: Crime, Drama, History
Released: 2019
Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano

Scorsese's longest and quietest gangster film, narrated backward from a nursing home by a hitman who still can't quite explain himself. De Niro, Pacino and Pesci reunite for five decades of union corruption and mob loyalty, paced like memory rather than plot. It's for patient viewers who want the gangster myth dismantled, not celebrated — grief dressed as history.

TMDb rating

7.6

If you liked this

GoodFellas1990

The film Scorsese and De Niro made when the mob still felt thrilling — same director, same star, same crackling energy, just younger and hungrier. It's the reason the tracking shots in The Irishman land at all.

But If you want the elegiac, regretful version, this one's swagger and cocaine-fuelled glee might feel like the wrong mood entirely.

Casino1995

De Niro and Pesci again, Scorsese again, but set in the neon rot of Vegas instead of smoky union halls — greed and betrayal dressed in worse suits and better lighting.

But It's nearly as long and just as bleak about loyalty curdling into violence; if The Irishman wore you out, this won't rest you.

Heat1995

De Niro and Pacino share the screen properly this time, cop and robber locked in mutual respect and inevitable ruin — the professionalism and code of violence Frank Sheeran lives by, filmed as pure procedure.

But Michael Mann's chilly precision is a different temperature than Scorsese's warmth-then-grief; some find it a bit clinical.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Wild Bunch1969

Same story wearing a different costume — men bound by loyalty and violence who realise, too late, that the world moved on without asking them.

Peckinpah's own story of aging outlaws who've outlived their code, watching the world modernise past them — the same slow horror of irrelevance that eats away at Frank Sheeran.

But The violence is far more explicit and stylised than anything in The Irishman; it revels in bloodshed rather than mourning it.

The Godfather Part II1974

The template for the aging-gangster-looks-back structure, with Pacino inheriting a moral rot he can't outrun. It's the film The Irishman is quietly arguing with about what power costs a man.

But More opera than eulogy — grander, colder, less interested in the small, human embarrassments of old age that make The Irishman so sad.

Once Upon a Time in America1984

Sergio Leone's own sprawling, decades-spanning gangster epic about friendship curdling into betrayal, told with the same unhurried, mournful pacing and old man's view of a wasted life.

But Notoriously butchered in some cuts and nearly four hours in the good one — commit to the right version or don't bother.

Donnie Brasco1997

Pacino as the mobster this time, mentoring a man who'll eventually betray him — a smaller, sadder story about loyalty inside the mob that Frank Sheeran would recognise instantly.

But Lower stakes and a smaller canvas; it doesn't reach for the historical sweep or tragic scale of The Irishman.

A Bronx Tale1993

De Niro directs and stars as a father trying to keep his son out of the mob's orbit — the flip side of Frank Sheeran's failure, told with real tenderness.

But It's warmer and more hopeful than anything in The Irishman; if you want more darkness, this will feel almost gentle.

The Departed2006

Scorsese at his most propulsive, with a plot about loyalty, informants and organised crime that shares The Irishman's DNA but moves at triple the speed.

But All momentum and no melancholy — it's thrilling rather than reflective, which is exactly what The Irishman refuses to be.

American Gangster2007

A true-crime empire-building story with the same interest in how organised crime intersects with real American institutions and history, anchored by a towering lead performance.

But Slicker and more conventional than Scorsese's version — less interested in guilt, more in spectacle.

The Fog of War2003

Both are studies of an old man narrating his own violence back to us, and the gap between what he says and what he clearly still can't admit.

Errol Morris interviews Robert McNamara, an old man trying to explain — and half-justify — a lifetime of decisions with body counts attached, in exactly the unreliable, self-serving voice Frank Sheeran uses.

But No mob, no drama, just one man talking to a camera for ninety minutes; it demands you find that as gripping as gunfire.