In which film does Robert De Niro play a gangster named Noodles?

David "Noodles" Aaronson is a fictional character who is the protagonist of the 1952 novel The Hoods by Harry Grey, and of the book's 1984 film adaptation, Once Upon a Time in America, where he was portrayed by Robert De Niro.

Film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote that the character of Noodles, as an underworld Hamlet, develops through the story to become one of its two heroes.

The jumping backward and forward in time in Once Upon A Time In America is done through the memories of Noodles, showing how Noodles is haunted by his involvement in the deaths of his childhood companions.

In Cinema and Multiculturalism, it is offered that while the story Once Upon a Time in America is ostensibly about the "children of immigrants scraping the bottom of the American melting pot" and about "Jewish criminal kingpin David "Noodles" Aaronson, who dreams of greatness 'once upon a time', and spends the rest of his days wondering why his salad days wilted", they offer that the film is more "about time itself, and how Noodles learns that its more important to make sense of your life, your own history".