--- title: "Mean Streets" year: 1973 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mean-streets" fi1m_score: 87 critics_score: 86 critics_reviews: 16 published: "2026-09-16T10:14:09.883421+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T10:14:21.805345+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Mean Streets (1973) Directed by Martin Scorsese · 1h 52m · MPA R · Drama, Crime **Fi1m score: 87** · Critics 86 from 16 reviews *In a sentence:* Robert De Niro makes a persuasive case for leaving your friends to their own devices > Martin Scorsese’s small-time crime drama is funny, abrasive and frightening, with Harvey Keitel doing the worrying while Robert De Niro makes trouble. Its loose storytelling occasionally drags, but we recommend it for the performances and the unease. ## Synopsis In New York’s Little Italy, small-time hood Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel) tries to look after his reckless friend John ‘Johnny Boy’ Civello (Robert De Niro). Catholic guilt makes the responsibility difficult to put down, while Johnny Boy gives Charlie little reason to believe he can keep him out of trouble. Their days revolve around neighbourhood encounters, arguments and unpaid debts. The people around them include Teresa Ronchelli (Amy Robinson) and Michael Longo (Richard Romanus). Charlie wants to help his friend without being dragged further into his problems, but Johnny Boy is not inclined to make that easy. ## Review *Mean Streets* is a funny, troubling crime film whose strongest scenes make looking after a friend seem like a full-time occupation. We recommend it, with a warning that its wandering story sometimes forgets to move. Martin Scorsese follows small-time hustlers in New York’s Little Italy, where Catholic guilt and unpaid debts complicate Charlie Cappa’s efforts to look after Johnny Boy. The screenplay, by Mardik Martin and Martin Scorsese, gives their daily encounters room to become awkward and repetitive. We soon understand why Charlie has difficulty walking away, even when staying is exhausting. Harvey Keitel makes Charlie’s concern feel like a habit he cannot break. There is affection in the performance, but also the strain of a man who keeps volunteering for more worry, and we never quite settle on how much of this caretaking is for Johnny Boy’s benefit. The Catholic guilt matters because it makes an ordinary sensible decision – stop taking responsibility for this man – feel morally suspect. Harvey Keitel holds our attention through those doubts without making Charlie seem nobler than the people around him. Robert De Niro is allowed to be much less reasonable. His Johnny Boy has a teasing, dangerous energy that makes each quarrel interesting even when the quarrel itself is petty. We laughed at their bickering, then felt anxious for Charlie, because Robert De Niro keeps making irresponsibility look entertaining enough to forgive. He also makes it hard to mistake that charm for kindness. The friendship works because Harvey Keitel keeps showing the effort involved in putting up with someone the audience can enjoy from a safe distance. Kent L. Wakeford’s cinematography gives the neighbourhood a rough, immediate presence, with street scenes that feel caught in progress rather than tidied for inspection. The more feverish images suit men whose judgement is already unreliable; visual neatness would be the wrong choice here. David Nichols’s production design supports that sense of a small, enclosing neighbourhood, without the grand surroundings that might make crime look like a sensible career. The places matter because these people seem to belong in them, and because belonging does not make them comfortable. The 1960s pop songs are essential to the film’s pleasure. They give the street life a lift without making the violence feel harmless, and their familiarity helps draw us towards people we might otherwise keep at a distance. Martin Scorsese and Sidney Levin’s editing keeps the rhythm unsettled as the music propels these everyday encounters. The roughness works because the quarrels can feel funny and dangerous almost together, without a solemn pause to tell us which response is correct. The looseness also costs the film something. Some encounters repeat the same failures of judgement, and the later stretches occasionally slow when the accumulated worry ought to be enough to keep them moving. The screenplay could lose a little of that repetition without making these lives look any less aimless. At 112 minutes, the film is not long, but there are moments when the attention given to a quarrel exceeds what we learn from it. As a gangster film, *Mean Streets* asks us to stay close to people with limited power and poor prospects. That small scale suits it: an unpaid debt or a friend’s bad judgement is enough to make the whole neighbourhood feel difficult to live in. Allow for the stretches that drift, and watch it for the uncomfortable business of liking someone Charlie would be wiser to avoid. *Fi1m score 87, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimously positive, with praise clustering around Scorsese’s personal depiction of Little Italy, the performances of Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, and the use of popular music. Most critics value the film’s attention to small-time criminal life, where Catholic guilt, friendship and unpaid debts shape everyday behaviour. De Niro’s reckless Johnny Boy draws particular notice, while the street scenes, volatile rhythms and jukebox soundtrack are repeatedly praised for making the neighbourhood feel lived in. The differences concern the degree of enthusiasm and the film’s loose storytelling, rather than its central strengths. Variety admires the performances but finds the screenplay content to sketch daily happenings; Slant Magazine notes narrative sags in the final stretch while praising the force of the filmmaking. The spread runs from qualified approval to wholehearted admiration, with no negative assessments and little disagreement about the conviction of the setting or the energy of the cast. ### Reviews we read (16) - **Radio Times**, Andrew Collins (5/5): Mean Streets is hailed as Scorsese's breakthrough and a keystone of 1970s American cinema, driven by powerful performances from Keitel and De Niro. The critic singles out its masterful integration of 1960s pop music with gritty violence and semi-autobiographical storytelling from Little Italy. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-5yhhki/mean-streets/) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (95/100, inferred): Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” is a true original and triumph of personal filmmaking with a hallucinatory look, unsettling rhythm, and high-charged emotional range. It gets at the psychological connections between Italian Catholicism and crime in a thick-textured way unlike any prior American movie. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1973/10/08/everyday-inferno) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kevin Thomas (90/100, inferred): Revisiting the film nearly 25 years later confirms its status as a modern American screen classic with leanness, innate structure, pace, and spontaneity that sustains career-making portrayals by Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It moves with the inevitability of “Oedipus Rex.” [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-13-ca-28294-story.html) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” is a perceptive, sympathetic, finally tragic story about growing up in a gangster environment. It excels in its improvisational feel, realistic violence, and strong performances by Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mean-streets-1973) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a blistering early masterpiece and ultraviolent urban pastoral that remains thrilling and fluent on its 50th-anniversary re-release. It singles out the vivid, worm’s-eye view of low-level mafia life in Little Italy, the central theme of sin and unpaid debt, and Scorsese’s pioneering use of pop music and street scenes. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/12/mean-streets-review-scorsese-gangster-sin-shame-robert-de-niro-harvey-keitel) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (90/100, inferred): The film is a tough, vivid melodrama set in New York’s Little Italy with accurate look, language, and performances that evoke life rather than cinema. It is a decidedly first-rate film that reinforces its themes with gestures taken from life. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/14/archives/take-a-walk-down-mean-streets-take-a-walk-down-mean-streets.html) - **Sight and Sound**, Ian Penman (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Mean Streets as an authentic rock film that captures the bleak nihilism of 1970s youth culture through its jukebox soundtrack and restless energy. The music and performances create a claustrophobic, percussive portrait of male friendship and excess in Little Italy. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/jukebox-johnny-boy) - **Empire**, Simon Braund (80/100, inferred): Scorsese's breakout film follows small-time hood Charlie's guilt-driven caretaking of his reckless friend Johnny Boy. The chief pleasure is De Niro's charismatic, menacing performance as the loose-cannon Johnny Boy, alongside the raw, documentary-like energy of Scorsese's pre-Hollywood Little Italy. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mean-streets-review/) - **Little White Lies**, Paul Risker (80/100, inferred): The piece highlights how Mean Streets marked a youthful, energetic shift in American cinema with its raw interpersonal drama and innovative use of popular music. It positions the film as a foundational work that influenced later Scorsese classics through its blend of music, image and character dynamics. [Read](https://lwlies.com/long-read/how-mean-streets-changed-the-face-of-american-cinema) - **Slant Magazine**, Jake Cole (80/100, inferred): The review praises Martin Scorsese’s first great feature for its visceral, concussive force and grounded remembrances of Little Italy life, while noting some narrative sags in the final stretch. It highlights the film’s music-infused crescendos and Catholic guilt themes as enduring strengths. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/mean-streets-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-review-martin-scorsese/) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (75/100, inferred): Mean Streets is an updated downtown version of “Marty” with small-time criminality, competently played by Harvey Keitel and outstandingly by Robert De Niro. Scorsese guides his cast to near-flawless recreations of types, though the screenplay remains content to sketch day-to-day happenings. [Read](https://variety.com/1972/film/reviews/mean-streets-1200422989/) - **The Times** (70/100, inferred): The piece notes the re-release of the 1973 film as a reminder of Scorsese’s radical ambition in depicting small-time hustlers rather than glamorous gangsters, praising the world-class bickering between Keitel and De Niro and the use of period pop music. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/article/mean-streets-18-mqfr30lhmjg) - **Den of Geek**, Tony Sokol (5/5): The critic praises it as a personal, influential film that captures the essence of Little Italy and Scorsese's roots, highlighting its raw, home-movie quality and character performances. He singles out the authentic neighborhood depiction and the performances of Keitel and De Niro. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/mean-streets-1973-lookbackreview/) - **Paste**, Craig D. Lindsey (85/100, inferred): The piece positions Mean Streets as the official start of the Scorsese revolution, where all his signature elements first appear. It highlights the film's personal authenticity drawn from Scorsese's own experiences in Little Italy and praises its impact on establishing the director's voice. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/martin-scorsese/mean-streets-martin-scorsese-breakout-robert-de-niro-harvey-keitel) - **Collider**, Samuel Williamson (B+): The critic praises it as a raw, stylistically innovative gangster movie showcasing Scorsese at his most primordial form. They single out the gritty '70s NYC atmosphere and De Niro's hilarious, captivating performance as Johnny Boy for particular praise. [Read](https://collider.com/mean-streets-review-martin-scorsese/) - **Eye for Film**, Stephen Carty (80/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a powerful experience brimming with raw talent and streetwise grit, calling it Scorsese's most seminal work: intimate, personal and semi-autobiographical, with a star-making turn from De Niro that established the template for modern mob movies. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/mean-streets-film-review-by-stephen-carty) ## Details - **Director:** Martin Scorsese - **Director:** Martin Scorsese - **Screenplay:** Mardik Martin, Martin Scorsese - **Story:** Martin Scorsese - **Cinematography:** Kent L. Wakeford - **Editor:** Sidney Levin, Martin Scorsese - **Production design:** David Nichols - **Producer:** Jonathan T. Taplin - **Cast:** Robert De Niro as John 'Johnny Boy' Civello; Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa; David Proval as Tony DeVienazo; Amy Robinson as Teresa Ronchelli; Richard Romanus as Michael Longo; Cesare Danova as Giovanni Cappa; Victor Argo as Mario; George Memmoli as Joey 'Clams' Scala - **Runtime:** 1h 52m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 14 October 1973 - **Genres:** Drama, Crime - **Budget:** $500,000 - **Box office:** $3 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9xHpS10CZ0 ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BR, CA, CL, CO, EC, FR, GB, MX, PA, PE, RO, RS, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Friends of Eddie Coyle* (1973): Small-time criminals discover how little protection a lifetime of acquaintances provides. - *La Haine* (1995), Fi1m 90: Male friendship and neighbourhood loyalties grow dangerous under constant pressure. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/la-haine.md) - *The Long Good Friday* (1980), Fi1m 88: A wider criminal operation, with the same fear beneath the swagger. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-long-good-friday.md) - *As Tears Go By* (1988): Another reckless friend makes loyalty an increasingly difficult way to live. - *A Prophet* (2009), Fi1m 86: Patient attention to criminal apprenticeship, with violence that never feels abstract. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-prophet.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. 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