This isn't a boxing movie.

This is THE boxing movie.

An incredible performance by De Niro, and Pesci at his very best in a brilliant piece of work by Scorsese.

A near-perfect film. . .a masterpiece by Scorcese

The best boxing movie, ever. One of the few (only?) boxing movies where the 'hero' is a complete jerk: paranoid, delusional, violent, abusive, and finally (after retirement) obese, philandering and physically repulsive as well. LaMotta's only redeeming qualities were his ability to take a beating-and to dish it out. The fact that Scorcese and Schrader were able to make the greatest boxing movie of all time from these materials speaks to their awe-inspiring ability, as well as that of DeNiro and the rest of the cast. Filmed entirely in B&W, but it works. Impressive photography on the boxing scenes.

Again, I agree with Irishgit. DeNiro was at the pinnacle of his artistic success here and I thought Pesci was even better. The greatest movies are those that can involve the viewer in the protagonist's life story even if said viewer is not really familiar with the subject matter- in this case, boxing. Raging Bull was just such a movie. A masterpiece. (I think the Mafia figure depicted was supposed to be Frank Carbo, although I may be wrong about this).

Jake LaMotta,who helped prepare Robert DeNiro to play him,reportedly claimed that DeNiro was good enough to be a top 20 middleweight.Maybe not.But,it isn't the biggest exaggeration ever made. There haven't been too many actors that put more into a role,than DeNiro put into playing LaMotta,as a fighter-and on the downside.And it's impossible that DeNiro could ever make less than a great movie with Joe Pesci(as his bother Joey) and Martin Scorcese as director.