We’re going to ask you to don your thinking caps for a minute with this question: Name a better director/actor tandem in Hollywood history than Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. Go on. We’ll wait. De Niro’s best movie roles almost completely overlap with Scorsese’s legendary films.

You might be able to argue Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson; Tim Burton and Johnny Depp; Wes Anderson and Bill Murray; Christopher Nolan and Michael Caine; or Woody Allen and Diane Keaton surpass the Scorsese-De Niro dyad, but you’d have your work cut out for you. We’re taking a look at the Martin Scorsese movies that define De Niro’s career, but first, we’ll discuss how each one started in show business.