50th anniversary screening! A powerful tale of urban sin and guilt that marks Scorsese's arrival as an important cinematic voice and features electrifying performances from Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro.
A slice of street life in Little Italy among lower-echelon Mafiosos, unbalanced punks, and petty criminals. A small-time hood (Robert De Niro) gets in over his head with a vicious loan shark. In an attempt to free himself from the dangers of his debt, he gets help from a friend (Harvey Keitel) who is also involved in criminal activities. A powerful tale of urban sin and guilt that marked Martin Scorsese's arrival as an important cinematic voice and features electrifying performances from Keitel and De Niro. [112 min; drama; English]
"The movie's blazing energy is still astounding; the vérité street-scenes are terrific and Scorsese's pioneering use of popular music is genuinely thrilling." — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"The acting and editing have such an original, tumultuous force that the picture is completely gripping." — Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking. It has its own hallucinatory look; the characters live in the darkness of bars, with lighting and color just this side of lurid. It has its own unsettling, episodic rhythm and a high-charged emotional range that is dizzyingly sensual." — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
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