Once Upon a Time in America

This is easily one of my all-time favorites. James Woods is a straight-up genius.

granitecanyon172 said:This is easily one of my all-time favorites. James Woods is a straight-up genius.

Unlike those old movies about Irish or Italian mobsters, we haven't seen many films focusing on Jewish crime families until recently. I actually really dug the parts where they were just kids.

granitecanyon172 said:This is easily one of my all-time favorites. James Woods is a straight-up genius.

👍

I finally sat down and watched this classic myself, and honestly, what a masterpiece... De Niro is absolutely incredible in this... Woods is just stellar too... It’s such a brilliant story, told in the most perfect way imaginable... Those four hours just flew by without me even noticing... Aside from The Godfather, this is hands down the best mafia film I've ever seen

Absolutely. This movie is an emotional powerhouse, but that first act? It’s some of the best filmmaking ever put to screen. 🙏

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj6v1jyqAq8

This scene is masterclass—it captures that raw, brutal reality perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebStLI36t4w

And this one... just as stunning. It shows he’s still just a kid at heart, completely innocent. 😁

The ending is a total masterpiece too. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oczk6wf02qM)

Was Noodles just hallucinating the whole thing under the influence of opium?

What a phenomenal film. It’s probably my all-time favorite. Quentin Tarantino nailed the description—it's so poetic, yet it depicts such absolute filth. As for the acting, it's already been said, but Woods was incredible; he's such an underrated actor. Joe Pesci wanted to go full throttle with his role, but Leone shut him down. Honestly, thank God he did. It was the right call—just imagine if Pesci had been in that final scene. 🤣🤣

De Niro is one of the greatest of all time because of roles like this. Leonardo DiCaprio and the rest of that crowd simply can't compete with performances of this caliber.

The opium scene happens just before he heads out to Buffalo, if I recall correctly... but honestly, this movie is just overflowing with these legendary, anthology-style moments. It’s such a rare pleasure to watch a serious crime drama where you actually find yourself laughing until you cry—like that part in the workshop where they swapped out the babies... 😂😂.. or when they cornered that cop on the roof during the action 😂.. It really is a film that manages to capture everything. ☕

Honestly, I've got this soundtrack blasting in my car non-stop... It’s probably the best score ever put to film. Everything just hits perfectly—they just don't make stuff like this anymore. It’s like Maestro Morricone was actually living inside the movie while he was composing/picking the tracks.

You guys practically begged me to run it back, even though I still can't stomach Woods...

Patrick Martin said:You guys practically begged me to run it back, even though I still can't stomach Woods...

Look, if you haven't watched it in a while, just do it. 👍

So, I finally sat down and actually watched the thing after wasting a ton of time, but this time I went with the extended cut (251 min.), and man, it’s a completely different beast altogether.



It’s way more emotional (yeah, right), way more provocative, more brutal, more explicit... it just feels much more intimate.
But yeah, it’s slower too. The shorter version was basically just some long horse ride
but this one? This one absolutely wrecked me. It was like a total soul-crushing experience.

But honestly, weirdly enough, it didn't even bother me. If anything, I actually dug how Leone shows everything out in the open with that old-school style of his.

And look, I don't want to go on forever, but this is textbook cinema,
actually, forget textbook,
this belongs in a global encyclopedia.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Patrick Martin said:So, I finally sat down and actually watched the thing after wasting a ton of time, but this time I went with the extended cut (251 min.), and man, it’s a completely different beast altogether.



It’s way more emotional (yeah, right), way more provocative, more brutal, more explicit... it just feels much more intimate.
But yeah, it’s slower too. The shorter version was basically just some long horse ride
but this one? This one absolutely wrecked me. It was like a total soul-crushing experience.

But honestly, weirdly enough, it didn't even bother me. If anything, I actually dug how Leone shows everything out in the open with that old-school style of his.

And look, I don't want to go on forever, but this is textbook cinema,
actually, forget textbook,
this belongs in a global encyclopedia.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Just imagine how many breaks modern Hollywood would force into a movie like this just to sell a few more buckets of popcorn, and they'd end up totally ruining the flow... They'd probably only show it for a week before moving on...

But when you're actually watching this thing, you're praying for it to last as long as possible.

Nancy Williams58 said:Just imagine how many breaks modern Hollywood would force into a movie like this just to sell a few more buckets of popcorn, and they'd end up totally ruining the flow... They'd probably only show it for a week before moving on...

But when you're actually watching this thing, you're praying for it to last as long as possible.

After seeing how the American censors totally butchered his vision,
he pretty much quit directing for good. Forever.

I mean, sure, the movie hits you so hard it feels like it's twisting the truth,
but that De Niro smirk at the end? That's legendary. Pure immortality right there.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau talking about Once Upon a Time in America 🙏

I have to agree... that assault scene is 😲 absolutely brutal... mine as well 😁 I honestly find myself at a loss for words... this film impacted me more deeply than almost anything else I've seen. I actually watched it three times in just two days; I don't even push ☕ 10/10

So, what have you guys actually been up to all these years?
Honestly, just hitting the sack early.🙏

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...2FqM7HeA#t=104

Once Upon a Time in America: breaking down that garbage truck scene and the whole dream theory