Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Once Upon a Time in America rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb8.3/10· 408K votes

Rotten Tomatoes86%

Metacritic75%

TMDb8.382/10· 6K votes

With 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 8.3/10 on IMDb and 75/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been very positive.

About Once Upon a Time in America

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Cast of Once Upon a Time in America

• 

  Robert De Niro

  as Noodles

• 

  James Woods

  as Max

• 

  Elizabeth McGovern

  as Deborah

• 

  Joe Pesci

  as Frankie

• 

  Burt Young

  as Joe

• 

  Tuesday Weld

  as Carol

• 

  Treat Williams

  as Jimmy O'Donnell

• 

  Danny Aiello

  as Police Chief Aiello

• 

  Richard Bright

  as Chicken Joe

• 

  James Hayden

  as Patsy

• 

  William Forsythe

  as Cockeye

• 

  Darlanne Fluegel

  as Eve

Once Upon a Time in America facts

Budget

$30M

Box office

$5.5M

Our take on Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone's sprawling crime epic charts a former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster who returns to Manhattan's Lower East Side decades later, haunted by the ghosts and regrets of the life he left behind. Told across shifting timelines, it is less a plot-driven gangster tale than an elegiac meditation on memory, friendship, betrayal, and the way the past refuses to stay buried. Leone's patient scale and lyrical sense of loss demand an unhurried viewer willing to sink into its length and melancholy. It rewards those who love ambitious, novelistic filmmaking about aging, guilt, and time, and it treats its criminal world as tragedy rather than adventure.