Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro

Film director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro have frequently collaborated throughout their careers, making a grand total of eight feature films together since 1973, along with one short film. Most of the pair's films were in the crime genre.

In 1967, Scorsese made his first feature-length film, the black and white I Call First, which was later retitled Who's That Knocking at My Door, with fledgling actor Harvey Keitel. The film was intended to be the first of Scorsese's semi-autobiographical "J. R. trilogy", which also would have included his later film, Mean Streets. Scorsese had impressed many with the film and made friends with Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis, known as the influential "movie brats" of the 1970s. It was De Palma who introduced Scorsese to the young actor Robert De Niro.

De Niro had known De Palma for several years previously, and his first film role in collaboration with De Palma materialized in 1963 at the age of 20, when he appeared in The Wedding Party. However, the film was not released until 1969. The two reunited for the 1968 film Greetings, which was De Niro's official film debut.

In 1973, De Niro had been praised for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly while Scorsese had been working as an editor on the movie . The same year, Scorsese and De Niro collaborated for the first time on the gangster film Mean Streets. Scorsese had been taught that entertaining films can be shot with little money by Roger Corman, who had helped prepare Scorsese for the difficulties of making Mean Streets.

The film, about a small-time gangster living in Little Italy, was a success and in 1997 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was also listed in a BBC poll as the 93rd best American film.

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