Popular reviews

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  Review by Ben McDonald ★★★ 4

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  A very conflicting film. The first half is astounding, a sweepingly poetic landscape of nostalgia for the past and excited hope for the future. The production design and cinematography are predictably breathtaking- I've thought fondly about that shot on the poster ever since I first laid eyes on it. Ennio Morricone delivers his best Leone score, second only to Once Upon A Time In The West.

  Yet almost immediately after we're reintroduced to our adult gang of characters, the film falls apart, becoming largely tedious and lacking a coherent direction. Then our principal character commits two horrific rapes, almost completely without motivation.

  From where I stand, this isn't nearly as polished as Leone's two western masterpieces, and it certainly doesn't earn its absurd runtime.

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  Review by liam f ★★★★ 2

  there's a lot that could be said about this film, but one thing's for sure: these men were most definitely not good fellas

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 32

  I kinda hate gangster films. This isn't a new idea to me, but this film more or less crystalized what I hate about them. In short, gangsters are not Robin Hood. They do not rob from the rich to give to the poor. They do not empower the poor; they feed off of them. They do not fight injustice disguised as law; they simply treat the law as coincidental. The closest argument you have is that they gave immigrant populations recourse to power in a system that hated them, and that is certainly true. But you rarely see them wield that power toward anything but assimilating into the system in a backward sort of way. While some gangster films have…

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  Review by sophie kempenaar ★½ 57

  hard to feel anything but unadulterated disdain—MUCH less care or interest—for this man after watching him commit atrocity after atrocity, including (but certainly not limited to) two violent rapes. sir your name is NOODLES you and your buddy egg salad sandwich can sit the hell down.

  even in general, the film never says or does anything interesting enough to justify the agonizingly long runtime. every single woman and girl exists to either get ogled or raped—sometimes both. i wish i could say there‘s even a single exception. the pretty, romantic score undercuts any attempt to criticize the gangster lifestyle, effectively doing the opposite and glamorizing it even further. this is made even more glaringly obvious when the film culminates in…

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  Review by Kevin Jones ★★½ 12

  Checking in at just under four hours, Once Upon a Time in America takes a long time to say absolutely nothing unique. A gangster film, the film does nothing for the gangster genre that could not be accomplished in a far shorter runtime because oh my God is this thing long. It just takes forever to end and even then, I still had no idea why it took so long. I love gangster films with The Godfather Parts I and II being among my favorites. I even like Black Mass and Live by Night, which have hardly been universally beloved. Yet, I could not enjoy Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. There are many repulsive elements included that…

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  Review by Will ★★★★★ 4

  I’m so annoyed at myself for putting this film off. 

  Everyone should see this film. The camerawork, the editing (especially the transitions), the acting and the story telling is just too good. It’s what all films should be like. 

  I wish there was more of Joe Pesci but we got a shit load of Robert De Niro so we good. 

  I enjoyed the crap out of this film and I’ll probably be thinking about it for a very long time.

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  Review by 𝙿𝚊𝚘𝚕𝚘 𝙼𝚊𝚌𝙶𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚗 | 🇮🇹 ★★★★★ 7

  In Once Upon a Time in America Sergio Leone traces the rise of Noodles and Max (superbly played by Robert De Niro and James Woods), and their gang of very young Jewish immigrants who, as they grow up, will reach the top of New York's organized crime scene. The film begins and ends in a den above a Chinese shadow puppet theater, where Noodles is used to smoke opium, a drug that increases visionary abilities and alters the perception of time. And it is precisely time that is the real protagonist of the film. A succession of events spanning over fifty years, broken down into a complex interlocking between different planes and moments, in a skilful game of flashbacks and…

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  Review by Sarah ★ 117

  second movie I've watched today with a lovely score, a beautiful dance sequence, mind numbingly boring almost everything, and multiple rape scenes that are passed off as positive for the woman.

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 2

  "You're in no position to exercise your will."

  freedom is a trap, destiny is a fluke. you can do anything you want except escape yourself.

  [251m version]

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 12

  Mobsters as children who never grow up, Once Upon a Time in America replaces Sergio Leone's lawless Wild West with the lawless world of organised crime. Following a thematic through-line from Once Upon a Time in the West, we witness individual struggle be replaced with more complex, more corrupt systems. This film is obviously a dream, but not necessarily a dream of one of the characters. This is a fantasy film, filled with moments that make no sense and feel like an exaggerated truth. The mythical rise and fall of these gangsters is a childlike unreality. It is forced storytelling on top of a truth inspired plot, a cinematic distortion of the world. There are moments here of pure cinema, of…

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  Review by marsh boy ★★★★ 4

  80s Ranked 👍

  Luxurious as a post-Godfather gangster movie, Once Upon a Time in America ascends gracefully on a less extreme narrative that is explicit and cautious as it continuously shifts its contrasting timelines skillfully with a heart-rending tone and finale.

  With a grandiose theme and an extensive, overarching story, Sergio Leone doesn’t shy away on putting an end on the romantic anti-hero of the gangster as he exclusively unveils their moral bankruptcy and unconditional repulsiveness that they’ve exerted unto an already nauseating world. It’s as tragic as it can be but the end result is still immensely satisfying for its notable care in its characters who are a microcosm of the “american dream”, where growth and change are obscure as greed and hatred will always triumph over anything else.

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  Review by The Reel House ★★★★ 11

  Hot take: This film walked so that ‘The Irishman’ could run.