A masterwork from Martin Scorsese. Great script by Paul Schrader. Robert Deniro is excellent as is Joe Pesci as well. This is still a great film that holds up very well. Beautiful Black & White cinematography by Michael Chapman.
But shouldn't a film that is constantly called a "masterpiece" and the best film of the 80s have more of a story than that of a really mean boxer that annoys everybody in his life to the point where nobody wants to be around him? I have always liked the movie but it's really about a mean jerk and how he annoys people to the point where nobody can stand him.
Rocky may very well be the most influential sports film in cinema, but Raging Bull is the best sports film in cinema. It's art that refuses to compromise and is all the better for it.
He didn’t like the 80s at all. I have a small pocket sized book of Roger Ebert’s four star reviews taken from the 1989 version of his annual video guides and it ended with an article on how Star Wars changed Hollywood. Although he loved Star Wars, he felt that the film did damage to what the great films of the 70s have stood for and how it inadvertently corporatized films. That’s why he disliked the 80s.
@@patrickshields5251 idk the 80’s was pretty corporatized in general. 90’s indie filmmaking was certainly a better time as well, not just the 70’s. Honestly watching something like the king of comedy is bizarre because there weren’t that many films being made like it at that time. We had taxi driver before and other projects after like American psycho and leaving Las Vegas afterwards, these pinpoint character pieces but the 80’s was kind of a dry spell for auteur filmmakers and deep scripts.
That’s not to say that there weren’t good movies of the decade, but the best parts of most of them is script efficiency and tightness, not grand concepts and intimate stories. Back to the future and ghostbusters along with even more mature movies like the firm still being cut from that cloth. The best of the 80’s is in how every line, every action from a character aids in moving the story along. But rarely do films of the period take a step back and get intimate and introspective. All in all, cocaine is a hell of a drug and Hollywood was buying lol
did Joe Pesci even get an Oscar™ nomination for this one? why does nobody ever mention how amazing he is in this movie? it's always about Scorsese or De Niro or both. Pesci gets mentioned usually only passingly. which is insane. he's as good as De Niro is in this, i think.
I'd like to have spoken with Roger Ebert toward the end of his life and ask if he still believed that 1980 wasn't one of the single greatest years for movies in the history of the medium. If you don't believe me, type "movies of 1980" and a list will come up I'm confident will blow your mind.
There was a lot of really awful movies released that year that most of us have forgotten about. Remember, this was the same year as Caligula, Heaven's Gate, Xanadu, Hardly Working, The Blue Lagoon, Friday the 13th, I Spit on Your Grave, and the Neil Diamond version of The Jazz Singer, among others!
"Raging Bull" The story of a really mean boxer that is such a jerk he alienates everybody in his life because nobody can stand being around him and in the ring he beats lots of people up. Not much of a story but De Niro was terrific.
Absolute masterpiece. No-one else could have won Best Actor that year but Robert de Niro. It was one of those performances. And he won it for playing a complete bastard.
Siskel said this was his favourite movie in the 30 something years he worked as a critic. But then he also said Saturday Night Fever was his favourite..hmm.
They don’t make movies like this anymore. As of 2024 I have not seen a good movie at all. Besides Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are in their 80s now. It will be a sad day when these two pass away.
Siskel got a couple great best picture oscar winners he hated rocky & silence of the lambs. I wonder if he changed his mind about both. He actually thought hopkins was too over the top & foster gives an ok performance. He also thought lecter's introduction was over the top. He is such a good film reviewer but boy did he get those two films wrong. Rocky is an American classic & the Cinderella story all others try to emulate. Silence swept the top 5 a rare feat only done 3 times in oscar history & not done since. I doubt we will ever see that done again. Plus both movies became phenomenons. They of course both got films like raging bull , star wars & godfather right but who wouldn't.
Gene actually gave the movie a positive review, he just didn't like the movie as much as Roger did..the only movie out of the 5 he saw and reviewed, part III was the only one he didn't like at all...
Artistically speaking, 1980 was a very significant decline from the groundbreaking personal films of the 70s that made their jobs so delightful. The 80s has generally been considered as the worst decade for American movies and these dudes seem to agree. In the mid 90s, they embraced the indie scene and their thumbs up reviews have gradually increased. And a few years after Siskel's death, Ebert gave so many positive reviews with abandon until his death in 2013. And I know people might ask me why many critics consider the 80s to be a bad decade for movies and list their favorite movies from that period. I have my favorite 80s movies too, but these are not representative samples of the decade at large. I assessed the critical and audience responses one year at a time, then I decide how people react to the decade at large. At its core, no era for cinema was more frustrating than the 80s. The New Hollywood movement of the 1970s had ended when Heaven's Gate bombed and bankrupted a major studio. Exploitation films have reached saturation point, the indie boom was in its infancy, and foreign films were nearly obliterated in North America, which caused financial issues for directors from other countries. Directors have lessened their power. Artistic expression and creative freedom had been diminished. The major Hollywood studios had regained the control they have lost in the 70s. It was a time when the American cinema has turned into a theme park after Jaws and Star Wars made so much cash and the trend escalated year after year. Things recovered in the 90s with the independent film movement, along with the revival of foreign cinema. The 80s movie monoculture covered by these guys is effectively dead and we're better off for it.
I've never gotten people's love for this film. It's a good film.....but Siskel & Ebert called it the best of the 80's. (At the end of the decade.) I also never got how Siskel could find the LaMotta character interesting.....but he thought the Montana character in Scarface was completely uninteresting (based on what a louse he was).
Me personally, I thought 'Amadeus' was the best film of the 80's (In fact, it's number 1 on my all-time list.) 'Platoon' is on my all time (top 10) list too. 'A Soldier's Story' was a great one too.
i didnt even think it was good at all, i didnt like it, i found it a very boring movie. and same with amadeus, very boring movie, a boxing movie that i thought was better was the 1982 movie gladiator starring cuba gooding jr. that movie is much more powerful with the boxing scenes.
1980 was a lousy year for movies? Empire Strikes Back, Airplane, The Shining, Blues Brorhers, Caddyshack, The Elephant Man, My Bodyguard, Ordinary People, 9To 5, Stir Crazy as well as Raging Bull. I gotta say Gene and Roger were waaaay off.
I think that Roger said 1980 wasn't a good year for American movies because he and Gene that year had to endure sequels, pale imitations of popular films, teen movies and even worse countless violent slasher films.
It's hard to trust siskel 's reviews he thought silence of the lambs was awful he said Hopkins performance was over the top & jodie was just ok. Im sure siskel felt dumb when silence swept the top 5 only done 3 times in history. The last time before was cuckoos nest in 1975.
@@christiansoldier77 I agree about raging bull , it's about a horrible person who treated the people close to him terribly bc he was crazy. I disagree about silence of the lambs. After lecter left the movie the last act is not good. I found hannibal & clarice interactions pretty compelling. The whole takes a serial killer to catch one I thought was interesting.
I saw it a couple of times, and thought it was decent, but had I known that the film industry is about making therapeutic pieces for the movie going audience, I would have never gone into it. This movie is the epitome of mass media therapy, and as good as it is, it epitomizes why I should have never gone into it in the first place. But yeah, good movie and the cast does an excellent job.
This to me is the one film that I just never liked. I won't say it's bad cause everyone else seems to love it. But for me, it just didn't do it. I genuinely didn't give a rip about these people in the film.
Qualitatively speaking, they felt that 1980 was a major letdown after the groundbreaking classics of the 1970s that made their jobs so delightful. They were frustrated with the 80s as a whole because the era of the director was over and the studios had regained control. Their faith in cinema was restored by the 90s indie boom.
@@rolan5948 NO its like a 5/10 It boring slow moving and uneventful but because its in black and white people think its better than what it really is LOL
Does Scorsese make anything other than violent ugly people behaving in violent ugly ways? It's as bad as Tarantino making nothing but live action Road Runner cartoons. These people are one-note, one-trick ponies and got stale really fast.
A masterwork from Martin Scorsese. Great script by Paul Schrader. Robert Deniro is excellent as is Joe Pesci as well. This is still a great film that holds up very well. Beautiful Black & White cinematography by Michael Chapman.
Totally agree. And let's not forget the legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
Should have been Scorsese's first Best Director Oscar. Goodfellas should have been the second.
Absolutely. I love how Joe AND Frank V. End up fighting in every movie together. RIP- FV
PS- GIMME a kiss Joey.
But shouldn't a film that is constantly called a "masterpiece" and the best film of the 80s have more of a story than that of a really mean boxer that annoys everybody in his life to the point where nobody wants to be around him? I have always liked the movie but it's really about a mean jerk and how he annoys people to the point where nobody can stand him.
Nothing short of a masterpiece.
My dad and I watch it every year on New Years. Amazing film.
But dreary and depressing.
One of the best movies ever made
No question.
Perhaps the greatest American movie of the last 40 years.
kamuelaleee LOOOOL NOT EVEN THE BEST SCORCESE FILM OF THE LAST 40 YEARS
@@christiansoldier77 Hmm, can you think of one better?
Rocky may very well be the most influential sports film in cinema, but Raging Bull is the best sports film in cinema. It's art that refuses to compromise and is all the better for it.
Ebert didn't think '80 was a good year for movies. Imagine what he'd say about today.
He didn’t like the 80s at all. I have a small pocket sized book of Roger Ebert’s four star reviews taken from the 1989 version of his annual video guides and it ended with an article on how Star Wars changed Hollywood. Although he loved Star Wars, he felt that the film did damage to what the great films of the 70s have stood for and how it inadvertently corporatized films. That’s why he disliked the 80s.
@@patrickshields5251 idk the 80’s was pretty corporatized in general. 90’s indie filmmaking was certainly a better time as well, not just the 70’s. Honestly watching something like the king of comedy is bizarre because there weren’t that many films being made like it at that time. We had taxi driver before and other projects after like American psycho and leaving Las Vegas afterwards, these pinpoint character pieces but the 80’s was kind of a dry spell for auteur filmmakers and deep scripts.
That’s not to say that there weren’t good movies of the decade, but the best parts of most of them is script efficiency and tightness, not grand concepts and intimate stories. Back to the future and ghostbusters along with even more mature movies like the firm still being cut from that cloth. The best of the 80’s is in how every line, every action from a character aids in moving the story along. But rarely do films of the period take a step back and get intimate and introspective. All in all, cocaine is a hell of a drug and Hollywood was buying lol
@@theeoddments960 That's exactly why the 80s sucked. It was the death of the autuer era and the rise of the blockbusters.
@@theeoddments960 Back to the Future is great. Ghostbusters is still a good movie despite what I felt were flaws.
did Joe Pesci even get an Oscar™ nomination for this one?
why does nobody ever mention how amazing he is in this movie? it's always about Scorsese or De Niro or both. Pesci gets mentioned usually only passingly. which is insane. he's as good as De Niro is in this, i think.
On point..and I think this was his first major film performance?? One of the greatest acting debuts ever, bar none
Pesci actually did get nominated for Best Supporting Actor...he didn't win, though...
@@hevyonez97 Winner was Timothy Hutton ("Ordinary People").
@@joebarr725 i already know this, I just never mentioned it...
DeNiro put on weight and lost it as the movie's scened were filmed. ie the scenes were shot in reverse- later scenes shot before earlier scenes.
Still a magnificent film from beginning to end.
Time Magazine got it right when they voted this The Best Film Of The Eighties.
breakfast club
that is all
So did Siskel and Ebert- it was their pick as well.
I'd like to have spoken with Roger Ebert toward the end of his life and ask if he still believed that 1980 wasn't one of the single greatest years for movies in the history of the medium. If you don't believe me, type "movies of 1980" and a list will come up I'm confident will blow your mind.
I know...I think it was a golden year for movies, along with other heralded years like '39 and '74
At least 10 of my favorite movies are from '80
There was a lot of really awful movies released that year that most of us have forgotten about. Remember, this was the same year as Caligula, Heaven's Gate, Xanadu, Hardly Working, The Blue Lagoon, Friday the 13th, I Spit on Your Grave, and the Neil Diamond version of The Jazz Singer, among others!
I haven't seen the list but i grew up in the 80s. I'm pretty sure the nineties has a better More Concise selection.
@@KRhetor friday the 13th and i spit on your grave are classics
Scorsese's greatest film. This is the one he should have won best director and best picture
Dave Vannatta
Goodfellas: Hold my beer
Goodfellas, irishman and the departed are better films, this film is good but imo a bit overrated
@@rolan5948 The Departed is better??? Not even close.
I like Goodfellas and Taxi Driver more.
@@rolan5948Departed is overrated.
De Niro's best performance
"Raging Bull" The story of a really mean boxer that is such a jerk he alienates everybody in his life because nobody can stand being around him and in the ring he beats lots of people up. Not much of a story but De Niro was terrific.
Scorsese’s best flick. Period.
Absolute masterpiece. No-one else could have won Best Actor that year but Robert de Niro. It was one of those performances. And he won it for playing a complete bastard.
Did people watch this before seeing the movie or after? They gave a way a lot
This is an American classic.
de niro deserves his oscsr best acting performance of the 80s but should have won best pic n supporting actor too
Incredible
The preview they show has more color than any of the non montage scenes in the movie.
It was difficult to get high-quality versions of specific scenes to show outside of public movie theaters at that time.
Siskel said this was his favourite movie in the 30 something years he worked as a critic. But then he also said Saturday Night Fever was his favourite..hmm.
40 years old today.
They don’t make movies like this anymore. As of 2024 I have not seen a good movie at all. Besides Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are in their 80s now. It will be a sad day when these two pass away.
Siskel got a couple great best picture oscar winners he hated rocky & silence of the lambs. I wonder if he changed his mind about both. He actually thought hopkins was too over the top & foster gives an ok performance. He also thought lecter's introduction was over the top. He is such a good film reviewer but boy did he get those two films wrong. Rocky is an American classic & the Cinderella story all others try to emulate. Silence swept the top 5 a rare feat only done 3 times in oscar history & not done since. I doubt we will ever see that done again. Plus both movies became phenomenons. They of course both got films like raging bull , star wars & godfather right but who wouldn't.
Gene actually gave the movie a positive review, he just didn't like the movie as much as Roger did..the only movie out of the 5 he saw and reviewed, part III was the only one he didn't like at all...
Siskel usually took aback seat to Ebert...and he knew it.
Light yrs better than Oscar winner that yr: Ordinary People
I wish these reviews didn’t show clips from the movie
1980 a bad year….it beats 2000-2023 combined.
and certainly beats the era of today.
Artistically speaking, 1980 was a very significant decline from the groundbreaking personal films of the 70s that made their jobs so delightful. The 80s has generally been considered as the worst decade for American movies and these dudes seem to agree. In the mid 90s, they embraced the indie scene and their thumbs up reviews have gradually increased. And a few years after Siskel's death, Ebert gave so many positive reviews with abandon until his death in 2013.
And I know people might ask me why many critics consider the 80s to be a bad decade for movies and list their favorite movies from that period. I have my favorite 80s movies too, but these are not representative samples of the decade at large. I assessed the critical and audience responses one year at a time, then I decide how people react to the decade at large. At its core, no era for cinema was more frustrating than the 80s.
The New Hollywood movement of the 1970s had ended when Heaven's Gate bombed and bankrupted a major studio. Exploitation films have reached saturation point, the indie boom was in its infancy, and foreign films were nearly obliterated in North America, which caused financial issues for directors from other countries. Directors have lessened their power. Artistic expression and creative freedom had been diminished. The major Hollywood studios had regained the control they have lost in the 70s. It was a time when the American cinema has turned into a theme park after Jaws and Star Wars made so much cash and the trend escalated year after year. Things recovered in the 90s with the independent film movement, along with the revival of foreign cinema. The 80s movie monoculture covered by these guys is effectively dead and we're better off for it.
Ordinary People won best picture that year.
Embarrassing.
sometimes the boys surprised us with split opinions, but this one was a gimmee.
gawd I wished I saw this in the theaters.
I've never gotten people's love for this film. It's a good film.....but Siskel & Ebert called it the best of the 80's. (At the end of the decade.) I also never got how Siskel could find the LaMotta character interesting.....but he thought the Montana character in Scarface was completely uninteresting (based on what a louse he was).
Me personally, I thought 'Amadeus' was the best film of the 80's (In fact, it's number 1 on my all-time list.) 'Platoon' is on my all time (top 10) list too. 'A Soldier's Story' was a great one too.
It's about the blindness of the human condition. It's a religious film. It's certainly not about boxing.
@Flying Hellfish Howard Rollins went on to do in the heat of the night.
i didnt even think it was good at all, i didnt like it, i found it a very boring movie. and same with amadeus, very boring movie, a boxing movie that i thought was better was the 1982 movie gladiator starring cuba gooding jr. that movie is much more powerful with the boxing scenes.
I was supposed to see this film at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline MA this past summer. F’CKN LOCKDOWN!!!!!!
don't give up!
@@lordemed1 The theater opened back up and I saw it late last year. Thanks
Film has great acting,cinematography but i didnt care for characters and plot was boring and too much screaming.
1980 was a lousy year for movies? Empire Strikes Back, Airplane, The Shining, Blues Brorhers, Caddyshack, The Elephant Man, My Bodyguard, Ordinary People, 9To 5, Stir Crazy as well as Raging Bull. I gotta say Gene and Roger were waaaay off.
I think that Roger said 1980 wasn't a good year for American movies because he and Gene that year had to endure sequels, pale imitations of popular films, teen movies and even worse countless violent slasher films.
My Bodyguard. Man I thought I was the only one who saw that film. You are right it's a great film. Matt Dillon was absolutely incredible in that film.
Unless this came out early in the year.
and Coal Miner's Daughter.
They just forgot about all those classics being the same year..all that good blow lol
Did anyone see this movie when it came out in ‘80? I would love to hear from someone.
Jimmy Bonez
I did. I was in high school.
@@billc4002 cool, thx
i saw it and was mesmorized by it. Great movie then and now.
@@lordemed1 I envy you!!
I wish Marty would make UNDISPUTED MIKE TYSON already.
The Best Scorsese film following Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed.
It's hard to trust siskel 's reviews he thought silence of the lambs was awful he said Hopkins performance was over the top & jodie was just ok. Im sure siskel felt dumb when silence swept the top 5 only done 3 times in history. The last time before was cuckoos nest in 1975.
Natalie Panaro Stack Silence of the Lambs was overrated and so is Raging Bull
Well, he was certainly wrong there, but he sure isn't here.
@@christiansoldier77 I agree about raging bull , it's about a horrible person who treated the people close to him terribly bc he was crazy. I disagree about silence of the lambs. After lecter left the movie the last act is not good. I found hannibal & clarice interactions pretty compelling. The whole takes a serial killer to catch one I thought was interesting.
i didnt like raging bull at all, i found this movie very boring, but i loved silence of the lambs
Great movie
To think the Scorsese is admittedly not at all a “sports guy”.
"Two very enthusiastic yes votes" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
Yeah, because it was a boring, crap movie. Scorcese is terribly overrated, as were Siskel and Ebert.
@@rikvin1981 lmao
Rick Vinson go watch your kiddie movie little boy
@@rikvin1981 let me guess, you're a marvel fanboy aren't you?
@@rikvin1981imagine trying this hard to get attention lol
deniro 100 owecwnt deserved his oscar wun best win since brando
I saw it a couple of times, and thought it was decent, but had I known that the film industry is about making therapeutic pieces for the movie going audience, I would have never gone into it. This movie is the epitome of mass media therapy, and as good as it is, it epitomizes why I should have never gone into it in the first place. But yeah, good movie and the cast does an excellent job.
This to me is the one film that I just never liked. I won't say it's bad cause everyone else seems to love it. But for me, it just didn't do it. I genuinely didn't give a rip about these people in the film.
Same
I completely agree. There is nothing about this movie that I liked. It was both overblown AND hollow. Overrated.
The first movie where De Niro plays a violent, muttering Italian mook. Pretty much played the same role the rest of his life.
He actually played one years earlier in Godfather, Part II
Mean Streets.
He does not play the same role the rest of his life lmao
@@lionelraoul
Sicilian
@@j7220
He wasn't Italian exactly
Jake LaMotta, Rupert Pupkin, Jimmy Conway, max Cady etc.
All villainous & extremely unlikable characters of Robert De niro.
never bothered to see raging bull. too much acting. unpleasant. cringey.
1980 not a good year for film? best star wars film came out in 80 raging bull n a great horror film the shining.
Qualitatively speaking, they felt that 1980 was a major letdown after the groundbreaking classics of the 1970s that made their jobs so delightful. They were frustrated with the 80s as a whole because the era of the director was over and the studios had regained control. Their faith in cinema was restored by the 90s indie boom.
@@patrickshields5251 70s was better still 80s hsd some good ones
@@movieman104 Agreed about the 70s.
@@patrickshields5251 best movie of all time came out in the 70s the godfather
God bless Martin Scorsese.
Raging Bull is seriously overrated but De Niro had a great performance
I agree, I went into it thinking it was one of the greatest films of all time lol, its a solid 7/10
@@rolan5948 NO its like a 5/10 It boring slow moving and uneventful but because its in black and white people think its better than what it really is LOL
One of the most overrated films of all time.
Does Scorsese make anything other than violent ugly people behaving in violent ugly ways? It's as bad as Tarantino making nothing but live action Road Runner cartoons. These people are one-note, one-trick ponies and got stale really fast.
Scorsese also directed "The Last Temptation of Christ"
He made a family film called Hugo.
After hours
Oh damn you calling him a one trick ponies. Like you’ve never seen his Dylan documentaries
The Last Waltz