De Niro’s frequent collaborations with director Martin Scorsese would define much of his work for the next decade, but he also worked with other famous auteurs in this period, playing against type as a heroic air conditioning engineer in Terry Gilliam’s absurdist dystopian fantasy Brazil (1985), and as Al Capone in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987).
Two years after The Deer Hunter, De Niro won his second Academy Award for his work in Raging Bull, playing legendary boxer Jake LaMotta. Arguably Hollywood’s greatest living actor, Robert De Niro’s career has had ups and downs since his performance as Mike in The Deer Hunter, but the former far outweigh the latter.
