The Mind Blowing Secret Of 'Once Upon A Time In America'

0:00 (Introduction)

1:28 (Story recap)

3:48 (The hidden secret explained)

6:17 (The garbage truck scene)

7:11 (Ending explained)

Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 epic crime drama film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. Based on Harry Grey's novel The Hoods, it chronicles the lives of best friends David "Noodles" Aaronson and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz as they lead a group of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence as Jewish gangsters in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, together with the rise of mobsters in American society.

The film contains an incredible plot point that potential changes the entire scope of the film.

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[johnathonlivingston]

When young Max and Noodles fall off the boat into the water of the harbor, Max plays a joke on Noodles by secretly climbing back onto the boat. For a moment Noodles believes Max drowned and disappeared. This is a foreshadowing of Max faking his own death.

[WarTheory]

Legend still has it that phone is still ringing...

[katmag]

The movie runs much deeper. Its also a statement on the very foundation of the birth of America thru violence and crime. Ultimately, the movie is about friendship and betrayal. Let's not forget that Noodles called the cops to save his best friend Max not to have him killed. The killing was arranged by Max who double-crossed him in order to get rid of him. Noodles refusal at the end to ' acknowledge that Mr. Baily is in fact Max, is telling him that for him ( Noodles) his best friend died when he betrayed their friendship. While Noodles had put their friendship above everything, his commitment to it is 100% ("I go where you go"), Max keeps playing with it ( " I ought to damp you") and ultimately sacrificed their friendship in order to get to the top. Only, once Max is at the very top ( and even has Noodles girl) he realizes that the best thing he ever had was his friendship with Noodles. And that he lost forever, in spite of all the wealth in the world he's got now he's got nothing. That is the real tragedy and makes the movie timeless. Max realizes too late that the only thing that really ever meant something to him was, in fact, Noodles, their friendship and he threw it away., And no amount of wealth can buy it back. Max realizes he wasted his life on the wrong values. That's why Morricone's emotional score resonates so deeply with what we see and feel onscreen - it's the tragedy of loss. Loss of friendship, love, youth, unfulfilled dreams, and broken promises. And with that Once Upon A Time In America completely transcends the gangster movie. It's a cinematic masterpiece in a category all of its own and put Leone on a par with the other grande masters of cinema such as Kubrick and Kurosoawa.

[drewfleming]

Insanely undervalued film. As underrated as it is long

[montgomeryramone]

If Noodles heard Yesterday in his dream he should have released it before the Beatles and would have made millions.

[josephcamhi]

The fact that Debra didn't age makes me think it was a dream, but I never heard that theory before.

[progamerkid]

I always hated the dream idea when I first heard it, always kind of rooted for noodles to have some redemption as the phone call was although misguided for the right reasons but it's really grown on me and is the best ending, they were all criminals and it's either an early death or a life of regret for people in that life, Fantastic film, epic in every way

[rael]

Debra did age, wrinkles are shown when she takes her make up off.
She aged gracefully as expected in an actress.
Also I don't think Noodles caused the death of his friends, he feels guilty of that, but in reality his life was spared by Max's fit of rage. Noodles was supposed to be killed too according to Max's scheme.
The opium dream theory is good, though.
That would mean Max died too, and Noodles would never have closure, forgiveness nor redemption.
His life was spared to spend it in loneliness and regret. His curse.

[paulvallandigham]

The fact that you can logically interpret it in more than one way (plus the epic score) is what makes this movie a masterpiece and my all-time favorite.

[arthureckstein]

The quote from Leone is crucial. Leone told the interviewer two years before he died that he fully meant the "future" (1968) parts of the film merely to be Noodles' opium dream. The source for this is not mentioned in "The Mind Blowing Secret of "Once Upon a Time..." That's unfortunate. But for those who want to know the source of the quote, it is: Conversations avec Sergio Leone, Noel Simsolo interviewer (1987, in French) chapter 15 on OUATIA.

[Marahangia]

It is a dream.
Noodles at the end is smiling at US. It's a knowing smile. He somehow knows somebody is watching, in 1984 (that's opium for ya) He's relying on us to hear The Beatles, to see the Mack truck, to fill in those details to make his dream of the future REAL, so that his absolution is complete and convincing.
And in this way Noodles is Sergio Leone, smiling at us, knowing we know movies are dreams, and we're in on it, and we will play along.

[DGately]

I was aware of the opium-dream implications, but hadn’t considered that it was Noodles absolving himself of what he’d done - nice reading, nice work

[travisgray]

One of the greatest films ever made. This film transcends cinema.

[alfredino]

I love this film. didn't know Leone could go all Stanley Kubrick on us 🤯

[davidayn]

One of the best movies ever. I place it in the same category as "The Godfather" . Very under-rated, and very rarely shown.

[fletchermercer]

It still seems that people are hesitant to call this movie a classics . I always hear “Gangster movie masterpiece”, no. This movie is A masterpiece

[michaelguest]

The dream theory makes perfect sense simply for the fact that Deborah has absolutely no reaction to Noodles suddenly showing up years later. By that I mean, anyone that's been raped suffers PTSD from the rape and the sudden reappearance of the rapist would be more than most rape victims could handle. The fact that they have a full-blown conversation just adds weight to the fact that this isn't really happening. Just my opinion.

[batcaveloner]

Damn they should’ve released the 6 hour version of the film... I would like to see more of the union and childhood parts of the movie... I read the script it was very interesting...

[bradforddillman]

This is the only movie I started watching again as soon as it ended. Many times in fact.

[kingcrow]

I just watched the movie again for the first time in about 30 years or so and what a different experience I had. When I first watched it in my twenties I thought this was a pretty good gangster movie and then when I watched it last night I realized what a masterpiece it is because it has many different possibilities. I didn't think too much about the opium scenes until I watched this review of it, but what I did think was it also showed how in America you can ( or used to be able) change your identity and become a new person and start over again. I think that's why Max invited him to that party at his house so that people saw a Hitman come to the house and then he disappeared. Max screwed Noodles over again. Anyway, a very very interesting movie. It's back on my list of one of the greats.