Don’t let the three-and-a-half-hour runtime scare you from “The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s dazzling epic that recontextualizes the gangster movie while still delivering the scope and kinetic style of his earlier genre efforts like “Goodfellas.”

A marvel of technical achievement across the board, “The Irishman” is impeccably edited, and the first two hours breeze along before the movie purposefully takes on a more contemplative tone in the final stretch as hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) gets older and begins outliving many of his mobster contemporaries. Well, he might have had something to do with a few of those early graves.

Point being, “The Irishman” can definitely be watched in a single sitting on Netflix, however there’s no shame in splitting it into halves if necessary. But seriously, if you’ve watched eight episodes of “Stranger Things” in a row then you can probably handle this movie. It’s made by a master still at the top of his game at age 77.

Based on the nonfiction book, “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt, “The Irishman” follows WWII vet Sheeran across several years as he goes from being a lowly truck driver to an essential “fixer” for mobster Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci, returning to the screen after a long, long absence) and the famed Teamster Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).

The three commanding central performances drive the movie, with De Niro doing his best work in at least a decade. Pacino hoots and hollers all over this movie, though the depiction plays nicely into Hoffa’s larger-than-life legacy. Pesci, meanwhile, is the film’s genuine surprise, playing Russell as a quiet, iron-willed leader that could order a hit on a room full of snitches without raising his voice.

Scorsese employs make-up and de-aging CGI to meddle with the faces of his three stars, and while it can be sporadically jarring and/or unconvincing in individual shots, the overall effect eventually blends into the greater narrative.

The last 90 minutes or so of “The Irishman” play out like something different for Scorsese. Sheeran becomes a pawn in a plan that hits a little close to home, and the movie slows down to show him finally beginning to feel the consequences of his lifestyle. Anna Paquin appears in a small role as Sheeran’s adult daughter, and while she has very little dialogue, her performance steers “The Irishman” into the kind of reflective drama only Scorsese could make at this point in his career.

‘Knives Out’

If a 210-minute gangster flick (even a great one) still sounds like too much heavy lifting for this chilly time of year, consider Rian Johnson’s whodunit “Knives Out” as a slick, smart and extremely-entertaining alternative.

Okay, just see both.

“Knives Out” begins with a typical murder mystery setup. After a famed author (Christopher Plummer, terrific in several flashbacks) seemingly commits suicide the night of his 85th birthday party, an eccentric private detective (Daniel Craig) begins to believe one of the author’s insane family members offed him for the inheritance money. Suspects include acerbic daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, aloof son Michael Shannon, spoiled grandson Chris Evans and daughter-in-law/overeager social media influencer Toni Collette.

Craig goes for broke as the detective, playing him as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot by-way-of Foghorn Leghorn (another character basically describes him as such). The brilliance of “Knives Out,” however, revolves around the character of Marta (Ana de Armas), the late author’s nurse. She has a medical condition where she vomits if she tells a lie (really), and she knows a heck of a lot about what’s going on with this crazy family.

Writer/director Johnson knows how to twist plot conventions into believable and increasingly-suspenseful knots that won’t cheat even the most observant viewers. “Knives Out” becomes something unexpected very early in its runtime, and it’s a blast to watch Johnson work the movie out of its own jam.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com. He is the co-host of Old Millennials Remember Movies, available anywhere you find podcasts and at OldMillennialsRemember.com