# Mean Streets
**Mean Streets** is a 1973 American crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese, set in the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan and following small-time hoodlum Charlie ([Harvey Keitel](https://www.edgepedia.org/harvey-keitel)) as he tries to manage the debts and self-destructive behavior of his volatile friend Johnny Boy ([Robert De Niro](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-de-niro)). It was Scorsese's third feature, his first collaboration with De Niro, and the film that established his reputation as a major director.[1](https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/movies/mean-streets-1973/) • [2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/mean-streets)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | Premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 1973; earliest domestic theatrical release October 2, 1973[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/) • [4](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0070379/) |
| Director and writers | Martin Scorsese, co-written with Mardik Martin; produced by Jonathan T. Taplin[5](https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets) |
| Principal cast | Harvey Keitel (Charlie), Robert De Niro (Johnny Boy), David Proval (Tony), Amy Robinson (Teresa), Richard Romanus (Michael)[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mean_streets) |
| Setting and basis | Little Italy, New York City; a semi-autobiographical story drawn from Scorsese's youth there[7](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-50th-anniversary-afi-catalog-spotlight/) |
| Format | 112 minutes, color, 1.85:1, rated R, distributed by Warner Bros.[5](https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets) |
| Critical standing | 92% Tomatometer from 78 reviews; Metascore 96, "universal acclaim"[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mean_streets) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mean-streets/) |
| Recognition | Inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant"[1](https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/movies/mean-streets-1973/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
The film follows Charlie Cappa, a guilt-ridden small-time operator working his way up the ranks of a local mob in Little Italy.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mean-streets/) His closest friend, Johnny Boy Civello, is a small-time gambler in serious debt to loan sharks, and Charlie repeatedly absorbs the consequences of Johnny Boy's recklessness.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mean-streets/) • [5](https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets) Charlie also carries on a relationship with Teresa, Johnny Boy's cousin, whom his family deems unsuitable because of her epilepsy.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mean-streets/) The supporting cast includes David Proval as Tony, Richard Romanus as the loan shark Michael, and Cesare Danova as Uncle Giovanni.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mean_streets) • [9](https://www.saoki.org/poly/engl372/scorsese/mean-streets.html)
Roger Ebert, the longtime film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times*, described the film as not so much a gangster movie as "a perceptive, sympathetic, finally tragic story about how it is to grow up in a gangster environment," with Johnny Boy a violent, uncontrolled product of romanticized notions of criminal street life.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mean-streets-1973) The film's opening voiceover sets its moral frame: "You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets."[1](https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/movies/mean-streets-1973/)
## Origins and production
Scorsese began the script in the mid-1960s, while studying film at New York University and still deciding between filmmaking and the priesthood; the project was originally titled *Season of the Witch*, after the Donovan song.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-word-on-the-streets-mean-streets-was-the-making-of-martin-scorsese-sheila-johnston-finds-the-director-still-enthusing-about-it-20-years-later-and-assessing-its-influence-on-his-forthcoming-film-the-1472492.html) • [7](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-50th-anniversary-afi-catalog-spotlight/) The story was semi-autobiographical, based on his youth in New York City's Little Italy.[7](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-50th-anniversary-afi-catalog-spotlight/) Scorsese later said of it: "In my mind it's not really a film, but a declaration or a statement of who I am and how I was living, and those thoughts and dilemmas and conflicts that were very much a part of my life at that time."[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/)
The characters drew on real people. According to an account given at a 2011 [Directors Guild of America](https://www.edgepedia.org/directors-guild-of-america) event, De Niro's Johnny Boy was fashioned on Scorsese's uncle, Joe the Bug, and the film's violent ending stemmed from an actual neighborhood shooting.[12](https://www.dga.org/events/2011/04-april-2011/martin-scorsese-on-mean-streets) A 2025 documentary about Scorsese, *Mr. Scorsese*, identified Salvatore "Sally Gaga" Uricola, one of the director's old Little Italy friends, as the model for the mailbox-blowing-up Johnny Boy.[13](https://apnews.com/article/5ef4e480330a810079bb38de2968adca) Production was difficult; one scene shot on Eighth Street without permits, in the middle of the night, Scorsese described as "a nightmare."[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-word-on-the-streets-mean-streets-was-the-making-of-martin-scorsese-sheila-johnston-finds-the-director-still-enthusing-about-it-20-years-later-and-assessing-its-influence-on-his-forthcoming-film-the-1472492.html) The film was initially rejected by the major studios because of its narrative intransitivity (story that resists clear causal linkage between events).[14](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2952/1/WRAP_THESIS_Grist_1996.pdf)
## Style and music
Scorsese used techniques in *Mean Streets* that became familiar as his reputation grew: pop music to propel the story, violence treated as a character trait, and lighting used as a mood-setter.[15](https://themobmuseum.org/blog/classic-mob-movie-mean-streets-celebrates-50th-anniversary/) The film opens with Charlie waking to the sound of the Ronettes,[16](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100002609/) and Johnny Boy makes his entrance into Tony's bar in slow motion, a girl on each arm, to the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash," a scene the [British Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-film-institute)'s program notes treat as one of the defining moments of American cinema.[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/) The same notes describe the film as having "established a film language that continues to be immediately identifiable as Scorsese's own."[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/)
The filmmaker [Michael Powell](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-powell), one of Scorsese's acknowledged heroes, wrote to him after seeing the film that he liked it, "except that I used too much red."[17](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/kings-movies-martin-scorsese-powell-pressburger) A scholarly reading by Laura E. Ruberto, a scholar of Italian American studies, emphasizes the film's neorealist style and its use of everyday objects to portray a specifically Italian American community, including what she calls "silent presences" around the Italian-American Civil Rights League of the 1970s and a legacy of Fascism.[18](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00145858241260009)
## Reception and legacy
On its premiere at the [New York Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-film-festival) in October 1973, [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), the *New Yorker* critic, hailed *Mean Streets* as "a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking" and called it the best American movie of the year, in a release year that also included *The Exorcist*, *Badlands*, and *Serpico*.[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/) Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* called it "an unequivocally first-class film," while Richard Schickel in *Time* wrote that one left the film "with the sense of having endured a class in social anthropology rather than an aesthetic experience."[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-word-on-the-streets-mean-streets-was-the-making-of-martin-scorsese-sheila-johnston-finds-the-director-still-enthusing-about-it-20-years-later-and-assessing-its-influence-on-his-forthcoming-film-the-1472492.html) Reviews were not uniformly positive: [John Simon](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-simon) in *Esquire* called it "a pretty banal low-life melodrama" oozing amateurishness, and the *Observer*'s Russell Davies was similarly dismissive.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-word-on-the-streets-mean-streets-was-the-making-of-martin-scorsese-sheila-johnston-finds-the-director-still-enthusing-about-it-20-years-later-and-assessing-its-influence-on-his-forthcoming-film-the-1472492.html)
Commercially the film was small: [Box Office Mojo](https://www.edgepedia.org/box-office-mojo) records a domestic gross of $32,645, drawn from its 1998 re-release, against a worldwide total of $61,676 across all releases.[4](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0070379/) Its standing has instead rested on influence. Critics have noted it as one of the first films to portray Italian-American culture from the point of view of someone who lived it daily; *The Village Voice* called it at the time "a piece of urban ethnography, a realist rendering of a subculture that had never been shown on screen in such detail before."[19](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-afi-movie-club/) The BFI notes that while *Raging Bull* may be Scorsese's masterpiece and *GoodFellas* his perfect gangster movie, *Mean Streets* has been his most influential work, both for the crime genre and for later generations of filmmakers.[3](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/) It began the Scorsese-De Niro collaboration that continued through *Taxi Driver*, *Raging Bull*, *The King of Comedy*, and *Goodfellas*.[20](https://time.com/3801604/magnificent-obsession-robert-de-niro-on-the-set-of-raging-bull/) The film was added to the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry), and a director-approved 4K restoration was issued by the Criterion Collection in 2023.[1](https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/movies/mean-streets-1973/) • [5](https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets)
## References
1. [Mondays with Marty: Mean Streets (1973) 4K Restoration, Gateway Film Center](https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/movies/mean-streets-1973/)
2. [Mean Streets, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/mean-streets)
3. [Mean Streets, BFI Southbank Programme Notes](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2023/10/20/mean-streets/)
4. [Mean Streets (1973), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0070379/)
5. [Mean Streets (1973), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/29024-mean-streets)
6. [Mean Streets, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mean_streets)
7. [Mean Streets 50th Anniversary, AFI Catalog Spotlight](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-50th-anniversary-afi-catalog-spotlight/)
8. [Mean Streets Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mean-streets/)
9. [Mean Streets (1973) cast list](https://www.saoki.org/poly/engl372/scorsese/mean-streets.html)
10. [Mean Streets movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mean-streets-1973)
11. [The word on the streets, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-word-on-the-streets-mean-streets-was-the-making-of-martin-scorsese-sheila-johnston-finds-the-director-still-enthusing-about-it-20-years-later-and-assessing-its-influence-on-his-forthcoming-film-the-1472492.html)
12. [Martin Scorsese on the Impact of Mean Streets, Directors Guild of America](https://www.dga.org/events/2011/04-april-2011/martin-scorsese-on-mean-streets)
13. [In 'Mr. Scorsese,' fitting a filmmaking titan into the frame, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/5ef4e480330a810079bb38de2968adca)
14. [Grist, Leighton (1996), PhD thesis, University of Warwick](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2952/1/WRAP_THESIS_Grist_1996.pdf)
15. [Classic Mob movie 'Mean Streets' celebrates 50th anniversary, The Mob Museum](https://themobmuseum.org/blog/classic-mob-movie-mean-streets-celebrates-50th-anniversary/)
16. [Mean Streets, AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100002609/)
17. [Kings of the movies: Martin Scorsese on Powell & Pressburger, Sight and Sound](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/kings-movies-martin-scorsese-powell-pressburger)
18. [Ruberto, Laura E. (2024). Civil Rights, Fascism's Legacy, and Italian American Material Culture in Scorsese's Mean Streets. Forum Italicum 58(3).](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00145858241260009)
19. [Mean Streets (1973), AFI Movie Club](https://www.afi.com/news/mean-streets-afi-movie-club/)
20. [Magnificent Obsession: Robert De Niro on the Set of Raging Bull, TIME](https://time.com/3801604/magnificent-obsession-robert-de-niro-on-the-set-of-raging-bull/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1970s films*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license