---
title: "Mean Streets: the reviews"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/mean-streets/reviews"
title_page: "https://film.one/film/mean-streets"
critics_score: 86
critics_reviews: 16
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): what the critics said

Critics' score 86 from 16 reviews: 16 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative.

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.

## Radio Times — Andrew Collins

Rating 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 the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-5yhhki/mean-streets/)

## The New Yorker — Pauline Kael

Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 1 October 1973. 

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 the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1973/10/08/everyday-inferno)

## Los Angeles Times — Kevin Thomas

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 March 1998. 

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 the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-13-ca-28294-story.html)

## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 2 October 1973. 

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 the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mean-streets-1973)

## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 October 2023. 

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 the review](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

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 October 1973. 

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 the review](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

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 12 October 2023. 

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 the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/jukebox-johnny-boy)

## Empire — Simon Braund

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2015. 

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 the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mean-streets-review/)

## Little White Lies — Paul Risker

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 20 May 2015. 

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 the review](https://lwlies.com/long-read/how-mean-streets-changed-the-face-of-american-cinema)

## Slant Magazine — Jake Cole

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 15 November 2023. 

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 the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/mean-streets-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-review-martin-scorsese/)

## Variety — Variety Staff

Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 1973. 

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 the review](https://variety.com/1972/film/reviews/mean-streets-1200422989/)

## The Times

Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 9 April 2005. 

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 the review](https://www.thetimes.com/article/mean-streets-18-mqfr30lhmjg)

## Den of Geek — Tony Sokol

Rating 5/5. 11 January 2013. 

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 the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/mean-streets-1973-lookbackreview/)

## Paste — Craig D. Lindsey

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 16 October 2023. 

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 the review](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/martin-scorsese/mean-streets-martin-scorsese-breakout-robert-de-niro-harvey-keitel)

## Collider — Samuel Williamson

Rating B+. 14 October 2023. 

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 the review](https://collider.com/mean-streets-review-martin-scorsese/)

## Eye for Film — Stephen Carty

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 3 February 2009. 

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 the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/mean-streets-film-review-by-stephen-carty)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/mean-streets.md