The Alto Knights

‘ VOD release date has now been revealed following the film flopping in theaters. Directed by Barry Levinson, the crime drama marks one of 2025’s biggest box office disasters. De Niro plays dual roles in the film, crime bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, with the Alto Knights story chronicling the increasing friction between the pair over decades as a friendship turns violent. Reviews for the movie were generally negative from critics and the film grossed only $9 million at the box office following its theatrical release in March.

Warner Bros. now confirms that The Alto Knights will release on VOD on Friday, April 11. This will be followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on May 27. The digital edition of the film is confirmed to include one featurette called “One Legend, Two Mobsters.” The announcement does not mention a 4K UHD release, suggesting the movie may not be available on this platform.

What This Means For The Alto Knights

Can The Film Redeem Itself?

It’s possible that The Alto Knights will be more successful on VOD than it has been in theaters. De Niro, after all, remains one of Hollywood’s most well-known movie stars, and he is sure to appeal to an older demographic of viewers who may not be willing to make the trip to theaters. That being said, there’s probably no scenario where The Alto Knights ends up being anything other than a significant failure for Warner Bros.

Made on an estimated budget of $45 million, The Alto Knights may have been looking at a break-even point of $90 million or more, a goal it clearly fell very far short of. In addition to losing WB tens of millions, the film also wasn’t well-received. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a lackluster critics’ score of 39% and a Popcornmeter score of 71%. The Alto Knights reviews took issue with the film’s predictability, pacing problems, and its reliance on classic mob movie tropes and clichés established decades ago in genre-defining movies like Goodfellas (1990), which De Niro also stars in.

Our Take On The Alto Knight’s VOD Release

The Gangster Movie Didn’t Make Sense For Theaters

Though The Alto Knights features a few notable actors, including the on-the-rise Cosmo Jarvis, who recently made a splash as part of the cast of FX’s Shōgun, the film doesn’t really make sense in today’s theatrical landscape. Even if reviews had been glowing, a mob movie starring an actor in his early 80s was never going to have mᴀss appeal. Engaging younger viewers can be a key factor in achieving box office success these days, but there’s nothing in The Alto Knights that does this.

What’s more, The Irishman (2019), which De Niro also stars in, already covered a lot of the ground that The Alto Knights tries to cover – and arguably in a much more effective way – so it’s curious why De Niro wanted to retread that ground. From many perspectives, then, The Alto Knights is a bit of a question mark, and it’s not surprising that it didn’t succeed in theaters. The VOD audience, however, can be very different, and it’s entirely possible that the De Niro film will discover its fan-base on home viewing platforms.

Source: Warner Bros.