As boys, they said they would die for each other. As men, they did.

As boys, they made a pact to share their fortunes, their loves, their lives. As men, they shared a dream to rise from poverty to power. Forging an empire built on greed, violence and betrayal, their dream would end as a mystery that refuse to die.


Though some viewers might be put off by its length, graphic violence, and absence of likable characters, Sergio Leone's final film is also a cinematic masterpiece. Spanning four decades, the film tells the story of David "Noodles" Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his Jewish pals, chronicling their childhoods on New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, through their gangster careers in the 1930s, and culminating in Noodles' 1968 return to New York from self-imposed exile, at which time he learns the truth about the fate of his friends and again confronts the nightmare of his past. The acting, the re-creation of the time period, the cinematography, and the music are all superb. However, even more important is Leone's ability to make the film work on so many different levels: it's both a criticism of gangster-film mythology and a continuation of the director's exploration of the issues of time and history. Strange as it may seem, the violence and gore in the first half of the film turn into a sad elegy about wasted lives and lost love. The film's strengths emerge only in its full 229-minute version -- the 139-minute and other edited versions don't make nearly the same impact


Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime drama film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. It chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, and the rise of mobsters in American society.
Leone adapted the story from the novel The Hoods, written by Harry Grey, while filming Once Upon a Time in the West. The film went through various casting changes and production issues before filming began in 1982.
The original version by the director was 269 minutes (4 hours and 29 minutes) long, but when the film premièred out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival,[1] Leone had cut it down to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes) to appease the distributors. This was the version that was to be shown in European cinemas. However, for the US release on June 1, 1984, Once Upon a Time in America was edited down even further to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes) by the studio and against the director's wishes. In this short version, the flashback narrative was also changed, by re-editing the scenes in chronological order. Leone was reportedly heartbroken by the American cut, and never made another film before his death in 1989.
In March 2011, it was announced that the original 269 minutes version was to be re-created by a film lab in Italy under the supervision of Leone's children, who have acquired the Italian distribution rights, and the film's original sound editor, Fausto Ancillai, for a premiere in 2012 at either the Cannes Film Festival or the Venice Film Festival.[2][3] The new restoration of the film premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, but due to unforeseen rights issues for the deleted scenes, the film's new restoration actually ended up being 251 minutes.[4][5] However, Martin Scorsese (whose Film Foundation helped with the film's restoration), stated that he is helping Leone's children get the rights to the final 24 minutes of deleted scenes to make a complete version of Leone's original 269 minute version.
On August 3, 2012, it was reported that the restored version of the film that premiered at the 2012 Cannes film festival has been pulled from circulation pending further restoration work.


The film premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival in April[1] and, according to Howard Hughes' book Crimewave: A Filmgoer's Guide to Great Crime Movies, received a "15 minute standing ovation".[13] Several sneak premieres in Canada and the US gained a mixed reception at best (some suspect due to studio tampering). The film was then cut again – without the supervision of Sergio Leone – to 139 minutes for cinema distribution in the United States.[13] Roger Ebert wrote in his 1984 review that the uncut version was "an epic poem of violence and greed" but described the American theatrical version as a "travesty".[23] Ebert's television movie critic partner Gene Siskel considered the uncut version to be the best movie of 1984.[24]
The uncut version of the film is considered to be far superior to the severely edited version shown in America. James Woods, who considers Once Upon a Time in America Leone's finest work, mentions in the DVD documentary that one critic dubbed the film the worst of 1984, only to see the original cut years later and call it the best of the 1980s. Ebert, in his review of Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, called the original uncut version of Once Upon a Time in America the best film depicting the Prohibition era.[25] When Sight & Sound asked several UK critics what their favorite films of the last 25 years were in 2002 as a reaction to its earlier poll, Once Upon a Time in America was placed number 1

Release Date: June 1, 1984


Distrib: Warner Brothers


Boxoffice: $5,321,508 2013: $12,923,700