best film: Raging Bull but Pesci has been in the 4th best movie of all-time (Raging Bull), 19th (Goodfellas) and 87th (JFK) not to mention one of the best 10 films of the 1980’s with Once Upon a Time in America. Raging Bull was Pesci’s breakout and it proved out the De Niro and Pesci collaboration (helmed by Scorsese of course). It’s one of the best films of all-time and Pesci is spectacular in it standing next to probably the best performance of all-time by De Niro. Oddly enough he worked with De Niro five times (an additional two times outside of the collaborations with Scorsese).
best performance: Goodfellas and it’s a very easy choice but I think a lot of Pesci’s top three performances so saying that it’s his best by a wide margin is no slight to those other performances but a compliment to his work in Goodfellas. Pesci’s Tommy DeVito is a charismatic sociopath. Pesci won the Oscar for his work here and rightly so. He outdoes the great De Niro and delivers an absolute tour-de-force in a top 20 all-time film. His “funny how?” sequence is a justifiably classic sequence in film history and it is so, because of the acting- not Scorsese or even Liotta. We have the shine-box sequence and the poker sequence- funny scenes that turn into horror on a dime.
stylistic innovations/traits: Pesci has 8 films in the archives and 4 of them are masterpieces—he’s close to John Cazale but Cazale doesn’t have a Goodfellas (Cazale’s Fredo would be Pesci’s “Joey” from Raging Bull). If Pesci, Scorsese and De Niro are The Beatles Pesci is definitely George Harrison and that’s a compliment. The knock on him as we climb close to the top of this top 100 list is the lack of depth in the filmography and that is fair—it has to be recognized. I wish we had more of Pesci.
directors worked with: Scorsese (3), and then Leone and Oliver Stone once. Those collaborations with Scorsese (one more coming up!) make Pesci. I guess you could argue that should be a knock against him but that’s an impossible game to play.
Top 5 Performances:
- Goodfellas
- Casino
- Raging Bull
- JKF
- My Cousin Vinny
Archiveable films
| 1980- Raging Bull |
| 1984- Once Upon a Time in America |
| 1990- Goodfellas |
| 1990- Home Alone |
| 1991- JFK |
| 1992- My Cousin Vinny |
| 1993- A Bronx Tale |
| 1995- Casino |
I was really surprised that Joe Pisci was nominated for a Golden Globe but Robert De Niro wasnt!. I mean he was good in The Irishman but De Niro I think was better. Don’t you agree??
Pesci completely stole the show in The Irishman, De Niro was good enough but would put Pesci and Al Pacino ahead
@James Robbins- totally agreed on The Irishman
De Niro gives a pretty pedestrian performance in the Irishman honestly. I mean he’s good but at times it really just feels like he’s observing Pacino and Pesci acting their hearts out.
Just a little error but at the top you say he was in Once Upon a time in the West. Of course, it should be Once Upon a time in America.
Love Pesci’s acting; I think everyone does.
@Graham– thank you- appreciate the help. Fixed
My personal top 5 for Pesci, he would be an all time great in my opinion if he actually liked acting and acted in more movies.
1. GoodFellas (1990) (Martin Scorsese)
2. Raging Bull (1980) (Scorsese)
3. The Irishman (2019) (Scorsese)
4. Casino (1995) (Scorsese)
5. My Cousin Vinny (1992)
am i the only person who thinks that Pesci is better in raging bull than goodfellas. both brilliant performances but i feel more moved and impressed by the subtlety (kind of) in his raging bull perfromance. again both brilliant
@D.W.Griffith- I don’t think it is an outrageous thing to say– it is probably underappreciated in the shadow of De Niro’s towering performance- but Pesci is genius in Raging Bull
I wouldn’t really say Pesci is underappreciated in Raging Bull; I often see people saying he should’ve won the BSA Oscar for it, and I absolutely agree, he is phenomenal in the film. Regardless most of the praise is laid at Scorsese’s, De Niro’s and Schoonmaker’s feet, but I haven’t really seen people leave out Pesci, or Moriarty or Chapman either.
I’m with you on this one. I love the bombastic Pesci performances that you’ll find in Goodfellas and in his comedic roles like Home Alone and My Cousin Vinny but I prefer the more reserved and nuanced Pesci that we saw in Raging Bull and got more of in The Irishman. It just feels more natural from him, don’t know why. At the same time, he is outshined in Raging Bull by De Niro’s outstanding performance though he definitely beat De Niro in Goodfellas.
Here a highly recommended SNL skit for fans of Joe Pesci, Jimmy Stewart, and Jim Carrey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BPL5tT9_2Y
I’ll let you see for yourself, but there’s a moment in it that’s the epitome of meta: Jim Carrey impersonates Jimmy Stewart impersonating Mark McKinney impersonating Jim Carrey.