Revisiting Robert De Niro’s 8 Oscar nominations in honor of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Robert De Niro has been working in Hollywood for almost six decades now, with eight Oscar nominations to his name and two wins. His most noted collaboration has been with director Martin Scorsese, with whom he has done 10 films, including their latest partnership on “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which was released October 20 through Apple Original Films. In celebration of the western crime epic, let’s take a look back at De Niro’s eight Oscar nominations in 45 years; seven for acting and one for producing.

His first Oscar nomination and victory came on the heels of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic crime film “The Godfather” with the equally successful second installment “The Godfather Part II” (1974), in which De Niro plays a young Vito Corleone, played by Oscar winner Marlon Brando in the first movie. Just like Brando, De Niro triumphed at the 1975 Oscars for the character, albeit in the Best Supporting Actor category (Brando won for lead) against his co-stars Michael V. Gazzo and renowned acting teacher Lee Strasberg. De Niro was one of seven wins (and 11 nominations) for the sequel, along with Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Director and Best Picture.

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Two years later, De Niro would return with the first of four bids he would receive for a Scorsese picture with the psychological noir and Palme D’or winner at Cannes, “Taxi Driver” (1976), playing the antihero Travis Bickle. Another classic film that generated many talking points when it premiered, including the improvised “You talkin’ to me?” scene that would become a cornerstone in pop culture, De Niro would receive his first Golden Globe nomination, along with a BAFTA mention to go with his first Oscar notice in Best Actor, while “Taxi Driver” gained additional nods for Best Picture, Jodie Foster for Best Supporting Actress, and a posthumous nomination for celebrated composer Bernard Herrmann in Best Original Score. De Niro would lose to Peter Finch for “Network” in what was as well a posthumous win.

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De Niro would again be recognized for another Best Picture winner with Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) two years later as a steelworker and his life during and after the Vietnam War, starring with Christopher Walken, John Cazale and Meryl Streep. Along with Best Picture, the war epic won five of its nine Oscar noms, including Best Director, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor for Walken, while De Niro lost Best Actor to Jon Voight for “Coming Home,” but he would once again be cited for the Golden Globe and BAFTA.

In what would be another continuous two year cycle, De Niro would star in one of his most defining Scorsese roles with “Raging Bull” (1980) as boxer Jake LaMotta, depicting his rise and fall. De Niro would gain approximately 60 pounds during filming as the story would time jump between his life from a young middleweight champion to an overweight stand-up late in his life. This would give him his second Oscar win, going two for four, and his first Golden Globe for Best Actor, while being nominated for another BAFTA, and the film would receive eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Scorsese, while also winning Best Editing for Thelma Schoonmaker.

After his triumph, De Niro would have to wait a decade for his next trip to the Oscars with Penny Marshall’s“Awakenings” (1990), where he portrays a patient who briefly awakes after decades of being in a catatonic state. Starring alongside Robin Williams, the movie garnered three Oscar mentions in the main categories including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, while De Niro would come up short in Best Actor to Jeremy Irons for “Reversal of Fortune.”

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He would quickly return the year after with his seventh collaboration with Scorsese in a remake of the 1962 film “Cape Fear” (1991), switching personalities entirely from “Awakenings” and playing a violent convict who hunts down his lawyer for his poor legal defense. De Niro and Juliette Lewis were singled out for their performances in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, the film’s only Oscar recognition, while De Niro got his sixth Golden Globe nom, and would lose both to Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs” dominance.

It would be 21 years before De Niro would gain more notice from the academy in 2013 for David O. Russell’s“Silver Linings Playbook” (2012) as the father of a bipolar man who moves in with him after being released from a psychiatric hospital. Even though he was left off the list for the Globes, he would get his first individual Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor, which would lead to his seventh Oscar nod and second in the supporting category. In what was an uncertain year with different winners at most precursor awards, Christoph Waltz would eventually beat De Niro at the Oscars for “Django Unchained.”

His most recent Oscar nomination was his first in the Best Picture category for producing Scorsese’s “The Irishman” (2019) reuniting with him since “Casino” in 1995. Since he was also starring in the gangster epic as Frank Sheeran, many believed at the beginning of the season that he was secured for another citation in Best Actor, so it came as a shock when he was snubbed at all of the precursor awards, except the Critics’ Choice Awards. But he was part of the producing team that included Scorsese, Jane Rosenthal and Emma Tillinger Koskoff for the Oscars and “The Irishman” came away with 10 nominations total at the ceremony. It was bested in the top category by the Korean-language thriller “Parasite” in a historic year.

Now De Niro returns for another shot at an acting nomination for “Killers of the Flower Moon” as William King Hale, a sheriff and cattle rancher who manipulates his nephew Ernest Burkhart to murder wealthy people of the Osage Nation after oil is discovered on their land. Being the tenth time working with Scorsese and the third working with Leonardo DiCaprio, De Niro will seek his third Oscar bid for Best Supporting Actor and his ninth overall. The epic crime drama is all but certain to be a surefire Oscar contender in many creative aspects and De Niro will no doubt be in the awards conversation as “Killers of the Flower Moon” is now in theaters and will soon stream on Apple TV+.

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