Infographic: The Year Robert De Niro Stopped Caring About His Career

It's no secret that in this latter phase of his career, Robert De Niro has made some pretty poor decisions regarding the movies he chooses to make. Dirty Grandpa, New Year's Eve, Meet the Parents sequels, and Shark Tale are just some of the awful movies De Niro has made that aren't worthy of the actor's talents. So what's the deal? Well, after analyzing the films that the Oscar-winning actor has made throughout his long career on film, a Reddit user seems to have determined the exact year that Robert De Niro stopped caring.

Here's a look at the bad movies Robert De Niro has made, illustrating when the actor stopped caring (via Reddit):

The post which contained the above chart said that 2002 was the year that Robert De Niro stopped caring. However, in the comments it has been determined that it was more likely 1998 that De Niro gave up. The chart inaccurately shows some movies with a score above 50% are Certified Fresh, but only movies at 60% and above are fresh.

That means it was actually after Jackie Brown or even Ronin (which would have been made before 1998) was the last movie that De Niro truly cared about. That would make sense since The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle would arrive in 2000, having been made the year before in 1999.

Of course, this is just a generalization of De Niro's career. There has been some great work that De Niro has turned in since the estimate of when he stopped caring. Silver Linings Playbook had a great turn from De Niro, and even though The Intern seems like one of those movies that wouldn't be worthy of De Niro's talents, it's actually a charming, well-done movie.

On a related note, just at a quick glance, around the same time De Niro stopped caring about his career appears to be the same time Al Pacino also took a turn for the worse. Maybe they have some kind of pact or competition going on.