Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli
The Alto Knights is a 2025 American biographical crime drama directed by Barry Levinson, starring Robert De Niro in a dual role as two of the most powerful mob bosses in mid-twentieth-century New York — Vito Genovese and Frank Costello — tracing the arc of their decades-long alliance and its explosive collapse.
What is The Alto Knights about?
At the height of organized crime's grip on postwar America, two Italian-American crime lords have carved out enormous empires built on loyalty, fear, and carefully maintained silence. Vito Genovese is ambitious and ruthless, always hungry for more power; Frank Costello is calculating and diplomatic, preferring the backroom deal over open confrontation. For years the two have coexisted, their territories overlapping in an uneasy truce. But ambition is a restless force, and Genovese's hunger for dominance eventually pushes the partnership past its breaking point. What follows is a slow-burn collision of pride, paranoia, and betrayal set against the glamour and brutality of 1950s America — a period when the old-world codes of the mob were beginning to fracture under modern pressures.
Cast & crew
Director Barry Levinson, the filmmaker behind Rain Man and Bugsy, returns to the crime-drama genre with a sure hand. Robert De Niro takes on both central roles, creating a layered double portrait that anchors the film. Debra Messing appears in a key supporting role, while Cosmo Jarvis and Kathrine Narducci round out the principal ensemble, lending texture to the period world Levinson reconstructs.
Context & significance
For Persian-speaking viewers and the Iranian diaspora, The Alto Knights offers the kind of grand American crime saga that has always resonated across cultures — morality plays dressed in sharp suits, where loyalty and greed collide in ways that feel universal. The film is available on K-Time with a full Persian dub and Persian subtitles, making it fully accessible whether you prefer to watch in your native language or follow along in the original English. The biographical grounding in real historical figures gives it an added weight beyond the typical genre entry, and De Niro's dual performance is a conversation piece in its own right.
Where & how to watch
The Alto Knights is available on K-Time with both Persian dub and Persian subtitles. Stream it on the web, on your TV دستگاه, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, cancel anytime.