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Synopsis

Ten years in planning, Sergio Leone’s epic Once upon a Time in America portrays 50 years of riveting underworld history and offers rich roles to a remarkable cast. Robert De Niro and James Woods play lifelong Lower East Side pals whose wary partnership unravels in death and mystery. Strong support comes from Tuesday Weld, Joe Pesci, Jennifer Connelly, Elizabeth McGovern and the young actors playing the central characters as ghetto kids. To see this film (offered for the first time in the full version 1984 Cannes Film Festival audiences cheered) is “to be swept away by the assurance and vitality of a great director making his final statement in a medium he adored” (Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times). –Warner Bros.

Director

Original

Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema – he was the son of Roberto Roberti (aka Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy’s cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and American directors working in Italy (usually making Biblical and Roman epics, much in vogue at the time). Towards the end of the 1950s he started writing screenplays, and began directing after taking over Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1959) in mid-shoot after its original director fell ill. His first solo feature, Il colosso di Rodi (1961), was a routine Roman epic, but his second feature, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), caused a revolution. Although it wasn’t the first spaghetti Western, it was far and away the most successful, and shot former TV cowboy Clint Eastwood to stardom (Leone wanted Henry Fonda or Charles Bronson but couldn’t afford them). The… read more

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Francisco R.

12Feb12

If there is one valuable skill Leone proved to have during his entire career, is the masterful handling of material this dense and present it with all its narrative nuances while never being tedious or something even remote to it, and despite the everlasting problems of poor female characterizations and stilted dialogue still lingering here, the result is remarkable and endlessly compelling.

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Bill Arceneaux

5Feb12

"The Godfather Trilogy" is to family as "Once Upon A Time In America" is to memory.

Picture of Murtaza Ali

Murtaza Ali

7Jan12

Once Upon a Time in America was Sergio Leone's dream project and it took him almost two decades to realize his dream. OUTA is a testament to Leone's penchant for Cinema and his absolute adherence to its free spirit as an Art form. The complete review is present at: http://apotpourriofvestiges.blogspot.com/2011/10/once-upon-time-in-america-unabridged.html

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Hal

24Nov11

One of my favorite movies of all time ! Loved the music , the story, the staring roles and the film making. Great movie if seen in its original version (The way Sergio Leone wanted it)

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He's my uncle!

By sodr2 on September 21, 2011

I’ll give this movie some time in the future to develop into one of my favorite films of all time. I didn’t quite feel like I grasped everything at first, yet all that I could grasp was like grabbing…  read review

Untitled

By Frank Esteban on May 6, 2009

Leone goes out with a bang. Though this was his last film, he showed that he still had the skill that made the Dollars trilogy. Once Upon a Time in America is the definitive gangster epic, chronicling…  read review

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