When the pilot episode of landmark crime drama The Sopranos aired in January 1999, not many media commentators would have foreseen this wildly experimental HBO series transforming the entire landscape of television. But then, they also wouldn’t have predicted that a wholly unrelated Robert De Niro mobster movie with exactly the same premise would come out two months later.

De Niro’s gangster role wasn’t his typical fare, either. It saw him star opposite Billy Crystal as a mafia don wracked with mental health problems he needed to work through. This setup will inevitably sound familiar to any fan of The Sopranos , since it’s the storyline that initially frames the show.

Incredibly, although the series does share some actors with the movie Analyze This , there’s ostensibly no co

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