The Alto Knights
Warner Bros. | Release Date: March 21, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
26
Negative:
5

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Film ThreatPerry NortonApr 2, 2025
The Alto Knights is an impressive film, taking inherently interesting material and doing very well not to foul it up. Sure, it’s something we’ve seen de Niro do before, but it leaves you wanting more of it, as he fits this mold perfectly. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan NgMar 21, 2025
The appeal here is a solid story of an aging mobster with all the charm of indie filmmaking. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 19, 2025
If there was any doubt as to De Niro’s greatness, it’s laid to rest in these face-to-face confrontations. No star could’ve held his own quite so effectively against De Niro. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 19, 2025
In retrospect, Levinson might secretly wonder if the bizarre casting was the right move after all. But at least he got strong performances from his lead actor, and he took a good script by Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and made a good movie out of it. You can’t ask for much more than that. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 19, 2025
De Niro infuses Costello with a kind of avuncular charm, while Genovese has the fiery temper and paranoid fury to match Jake La Motta in “Raging Bull.” It’s a privilege to witness one of the best actors of all time, still at the top of his game. Read full review
70
The New York TimesGlenn KennyMar 20, 2025
While it’s inevitable that some, maybe many, viewers will find the dual role a distraction, those who hunger for De Niro in mobster mode will get more than their fill. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 19, 2025
The Alto Knights is a good movie, but one that feels like it could have been great. And for what it’s worth, although I’m still not sure why it’s here, De Niro’s Pesci imitation is killer. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 27, 2025
It’s not the worst we’ve seen from either Levinson or De Niro but there’s a sense that a pairing of these two working with a Pileggi script should have borne juicer fruits. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 24, 2025
It’s not on a par with Scorsese or Coppola’s best statements on this history, but it’s not bad. And twice the De Niro at the same price makes it a bargain. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshMar 20, 2025
This curio of a film could have gone deeper into what it means to be a gangster, but its core themes resonate all the same. Read full review
60
The New YorkerJustin ChangApr 1, 2025
Toward the end, though, this dubious, shapeless patchwork of a movie does achieve a strange, halting power—by making an inquiry into the nature of power itself. Read full review
60
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaMar 20, 2025
It can’t decide whether it wants to tell the real-life story of respected mob boss Frank Costello and his comrade-turned-scheming-enemy Vito Genovese, or if it wants to skewer the entire genre of films they helped inspire. However, with Robert De Niro in both leading roles, there’s always something interesting to watch, even if it’s buried by mountains of repetitive dialogue. Read full review
60
Time OutElizabeth WeitzmanMar 19, 2025
If you take The Alto Knights on its own terms – as an eccentric but engaging curio – there’s still plenty of fun to be had. Read full review
60
Little White LiesLeila LatifMar 19, 2025
Once you get used to some of its perplexing choices, there’s fun to be had here. De Niro has delicious chemistry with himself, which becomes more amusing when imagining how he would have been performing these duologues to an empty void. Read full review
60
EmpireLaura VenningMar 19, 2025
Occasionally clunky and retrograde but in the same manner as a story told by a grandparent, The Alto Knights reminds us that De Niro will always be cinema’s greatest gangster. Read full review
54
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 19, 2025
Every single beat of The Alto Knights feels like an historical footnote from Goodfellas or The Godfather Part II stretched out to interminable feature length – musty, dusty, dry. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsMar 21, 2025
As a gangster film, “The Alto Knights” does little more than putter along, taking in very few new or interesting sights along the way. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 20, 2025
It still feels like you’ve wandered into a Mob-themed animatronic presentation at some amusement park — the Disney Hall of Famous Mafia Bosses — and dutifully watch as landmark moments in crime history are checked off and re-enacted. Take away the De Niro Con: The Movie bona fides, and you’ve got nothing but a fancy Discovery special. Read full review
50
Original-CinKaren GordonMar 20, 2025
While there is pleasure to be had in watching De Niro play opposite De Niro, an overly detailed plot gets in the way, making it a listless and frustrating watch. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckMar 20, 2025
The Alto Knights, despite its pedigree, doesn’t rise anywhere near the heights of its glorious predecessors. It is, rather, an enjoyable if choppily paced look at a relationship between two men, where unfortunately we’re arriving pretty late in the game. Read full review
50
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeMar 19, 2025
Even with De Niro (and De Niro) in the leads, this is mob-movie cosplay, a hollow shadow of previous triumphs. As a mob lawyer might bellow, “Nothing to see here.” Read full review
50
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 19, 2025
An ignominious tour-de-force for the esteemed headliner, who gets to indulge in just about every caricatured mannerism and colloquialism in the stale La Cosa Nostra cookbook. Read full review
50
ColliderAidan KelleyMar 19, 2025
It's a real shame that The Alto Knights doesn't explore its real-life story as thoroughly as it should have, as there is a genuinely interesting story to tell here. The film details historical events that didn't just dramatically impact the shadowy world of organized crime, it changed the public perception of the Mafia forever. The Alto Knights perhaps would have been better served if it had been a documentary narrated by one Robert De Niro instead of a meandering feature film that stars two. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerMar 19, 2025
This one’s The Irishman for anyone in dire need of new glasses. Read full review
50
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaMar 19, 2025
There's nothing offensively bad about The Alto Knights ... but you kind of wish there was, because at least that might've made the movie more interesting. Read full review
50
Screen RantMary KasselMar 19, 2025
Fans of De Niro and the gangster movie will have fun with this addition to the genre, but they won't find anything new in its well-tread story. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 19, 2025
It’s almost as if Frank can’t fathom why anyone today should care about the incredible true story of how some enterprising immigrants without a nickel to their names formed a multi-billion-dollar racket that shaped a huge part of 20th century America. The tragedy of “The Alto Knights” is that Levinson can’t either. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 21, 2025
The Alto Knights is a movie whose ambition has passed. It feels like the husk of something that might have been great once. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithMar 20, 2025
Perhaps the Oscar winner was simply attracted to reliving glory days, just as Mr. Levinson must have enjoyed revisiting the territory of one of his best movies, the 1991 Bugsy Siegel saga “Bugsy.” "Alto Knights is, however, buggy: a curious mixture of the inert and the frenetic. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesTara BradyMar 19, 2025
The grand casting gambit of pitching De Niro against De Niro proves an unnecessary distraction. Curiously bloodless in every respect. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 19, 2025
And while the events depicted in The Alto Knights will result in a major law-enforcement action that profoundly shaped the American mafia, Levinson’s sombre, pedestrian approach captures neither the excitement nor the momentousness of the incident. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 19, 2025
The Alto Knights certainly has the off-screen pedigree you’d hope for. Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas, Casino) wrote the script, named after an infamous Manhattan social club. But the circuitous shaping feels off, a problem Barry Levinson’s direction is too flaccid to fix. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMar 19, 2025
He’s more than capable of handling the daunting assignment — he’s De Niro, after all — but the net effect is ultimately so gimmicky that it saps the movie of its intended seriousness. It’s a fatal miscalculation that consigns The Alto Knights, Levinson’s first theatrical film since 2015’s Rock the Kasbah, to being a footnote in the distinguished careers of both its director and star. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 19, 2025
When all is said and done, The Alto Knights imparts very little about these two men that couldn’t be gleaned by reading their respective Wikipedia pages, and it does it at a sluggish pace and with little visual flair. Some of the biggest and best names to ever work in gangster movies contributed to this film; De Niro and Pileggi, obviously, but also producer Irwin Winkler and director Barry Levinson. Despite their many contributions to this genre in the past, they’ve got nothing new to say here. And they provide zero evidence that casting De Niro in both lead roles is anything more than a gimmick. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 19, 2025
Pileggi’s screenplay and Levinson’s scattershot direction, like De Niro, make little out of the clash of ideologies at the film’s centre. What could be biblical, feels passionless. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 19, 2025
There is a kind of solidity and force to the film in its opening act, but its interest dwindles and we get little in the way of either ambition or moment-by-moment humour. Read full review
38
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMar 21, 2025
The plot goes nowhere glacially. Underdeveloped side characters are so far to the side, they’re out of frame. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 19, 2025
When we’re not being fed warmed-over narration and editing tricks that remind us of the Scorsese-directed examples, we’re trapped with a visibly disinterested De Niro. He barely gives one performance, let alone two. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 21, 2025
The speculative ending is actually the most intriguing thing about “The Alto Knights,” more interesting even than De Niro times two. And yet the film’s climax nevertheless fails to raise much of a heartbeat in this boglike slog through a momentous moment in murderous mob history. Read full review
30
ABC NewsPeter TraversMar 21, 2025
Even a double dose of the great Robert De Niro taking on the grandpa roles of feuding mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, can’t lift this gimmicky, grating, draggy attempt to join the pantheon of classic gangster cinema. It’s a losing battle. Read full review
8
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiMar 19, 2025
So let me be absolutely, 100% clear: “The Alto Knights” is indeed a bad movie, but not the good kind. It doesn’t make you feel alive, it makes you feel dead. It’s a tedious, directionless, bumbling chore of a gangster picture, incoherently written and edited, featuring two of the limpest performances of Robert De Niro’s career. Read full review
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