MovieChat Forums > Mean Streets (1973) Discussion > Greatest gangster film ever

Greatest gangster film ever


Way better than Goodfellas,Godfather etc.This movie has amazing themes about religion, guilt, attaining penance etc, the story is so realistic and the performances and direction are among the best of all time.The character of Johnny boy is so unique(should have won De Niro the Oscar),I can go on and on about the film and would run out of words. Its in my top5 films of all time and terribly underrated,Anyone else agree.

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I agree. I love this movie. For as long time Goodfellas was my favorite, but then I saw Mean Streets and that all changed. Its very realistic too. I could also go on and on. I recommend this to everybody, but sadly I meet alot of people who don't like it.

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Better than Godfather and Goodfellas I'm glad your not employed as a film critic!

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[deleted]

No, And stop saying mafias.



There's no way that this is better than Goodfellas, even though it is the ground floor to the same structure. Goodfellas is the penthouse.




'Then' and 'than' are different words - stop confusing them.

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I found "Mean Streets" to be very exciting. I like "The Godfather", but I love "Mean Streets". This movie, along with "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" are the two Scorsese films that I love.

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While I don't fully agree, I definitely prefer these earlier Scorsese films to Goodfellas and etc.. Taxi Driver is my favorite. They're far less jumbled. Goodfellas and especially Casino were over-ambitious and clearly aren't able to fully execute what they set out to do within the constraints of feature-film-length. Mean Streets on the other hand, along with movies like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are simpler and get their points across beautifully.

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I just found a copy of Mean Streets for $3 new. I was stunned. I don't go out of my way to by DVDs, but it was sitting there at 7-11 for $2.99. How could i say no?

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Maybe I need to see it again but I didn't like this one. Didn't really seem to have any direction to it but to each his own.

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