You’ve got De Niro’s tremendous performance, which won him a well-deserved Oscar he captures not only Jake LaMotta’s fierce brutality, so triumphant in the ring and so destructive outside of it, but the endless churning of his mind, the way he fixates on the tiniest detail, like his wife referring to a rival boxer as “good-looking,” leading him first to relentlessly badger her about what she meant, then to beat the other boxer so viciously in the ring as to make an audience member remark, “He ain’t pretty no more.” He famously gained weight for the final act of the film, but it’s his nose, a scarred lump in the middle of his face that testifies to all the punishment he took in the ring, that really strikes me. My reasons for preferring those other films come down more to matters of taste than actual quality, because Raging Bull has quality in spades. I still do (and I’d probably rate The Irishman slightly higher as well), but I really can’t argue with anyone who’d claim it as his finest work. Rewatching it this time, I found myself appreciating it more I’d always recognized it as a great film, but I’d placed it conspicuously below GoodFellas, Taxi Driver, and The King of Comedy among Scorsese’s works.

After 40 years of continuous praise, it’s fair to ask what one can say about Raging Bull that hasn’t been said already.

Cathy moriarty raging bull