In 1967, a young Tony Soprano accompanies his mentor, Dickie Moltisanti, to welcome home Dickie's father, Aldo "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti, and his new Italian bride, Giuseppina. Dickie is a soldier in the DiMeo crime family, which also includes Tony's father Johnny, a capo, and fellow soldiers such as Johnny's brother Corrado (nicknamed "Junior") and Lino Bonpensiero (nicknamed "Buddha"), as well as associates such as Hollywood Dick, Silvio Dante, Paulie Gualtieri, and Lino's son Salvatore (nicknamed "Pussy"). After white police officers assault and rob a black taxi driver, riots break out in Newark.
Watching from outside the Playland amusement park, Tony witnesses cops arresting Johnny and Junior, thus interrupting an illegal card game they were participating in. Johnny is eventually sentenced to four years in Rahway State Prison for engaging in assault with a deadly weapon during the riots. During an argument, Hollywood Dick kicks Giuseppina down a flight of stairs. Upon discovering the incident, Dickie murders him before transporting the corpse to his father's Atta Boy Drainage Supply warehouse and committing arson, burning both the body and the building.
Regretting the murder, Dickie visits his uncle Salvatore ("Sally"), his father's twin brother who is serving life in prison for killing another made man in his own family, and inherits Giuseppina as his comare. Tony is suspended from school for running a gambling operation, and Dickie makes Tony pinkie promise him to be on his best behavior in the future. Sometime later, Harold McBrayer, one of his black associates, visits him, planning to escape to North Carolina following a murder warrant for killing a looter named Leon Overall during the riots and receiving $500 ($4,828 in 2025) from Dickie as a parting gift.
Four years later, Johnny is released from prison and at a welcoming back party, he and the rest of his family are introduced to Christopher, the toddler son of Dickie, now a capo, and his wife Joanne. Simultaneously, Harold returns to Newark to form a black criminal family. Giuseppina commences a romantic affair with Harold after arguing with Dickie. After Harold kills one of Dickie's men, Giulio "Julie" DeRogatis, and steals his extortion money, Dickie, Pussy, Paulie, and Silvio question Harold's lieutenant, Cyril, and torture him with an impact wrench before Silvio shoots him dead. Harold and his gang then retaliatorily kill Buddha in a drive-by shootout with Johnny's crew. Harold and Dickie engage in a standoff, but both men disperse upon hearing police sirens.
After Tony steals the answers for his geometry exam, the school guidance counselor Mrs. Jarecki tells Tony's mother Livia that he has a high Stanford–Binet IQ and the Myers–Briggs personality traits of a leader. She relates how Tony told her about a time in which his mother hugged him and read him a book about Sutter's Mill, which he considered one of his best memories. Livia attempts to show Tony affection, but mentions how her physician, Dr. Cuomo, recommended antidepressants, antagonizing Tony when he suggests that she take them.
Outside Buddha's wake, Tony asks a hesitant Dickie if he could get Elavil for his mother. After Junior slips on the mortuary steps in the pouring rain and fractures his hip, Dickie mockingly laughs uproariously in his face, infuriating him. Dickie reconnects with Giuseppina and promises to finance a beauty parlor for her to manage. During a beachside stroll, she confesses to her romantic affair with Harold; enraged, Dickie drowns her in the ocean. He revisits Sally, who warns that everyone close to Dickie ultimately perishes, and advises him to distance himself from Tony.
Heeding Sally's advice, Dickie intentionally begins avoiding Tony, declining to visit him or answer his calls. One night, a distressed Tony throws the speakers Dickie gave him out his window, startling his father. Later on, Silvio encourages Dickie to reconcile with Tony, and Dickie relents. Before he can arrive home, Dickie is assassinated by an unknown assailant on Junior's orders. At Dickie's wake, Joanne reveals to Livia that Dickie acquired the Elavil for Tony and was carrying it in his pocket when he was murdered. Tony sadly surveys Dickie's corpse and imagines doing another pinkie promise with him, like the two had done years before. Sometime later, Harold relocates to a white neighborhood.
The origins of what ultimately took shape as The Many Saints of Newark happened when David Chase finished film school, having the idea of making a film about four white men living around Newark, New Jersey, who joined the National Guard to avoid being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War only to be sent instead to the 1967 Newark riots, though the film went unproduced. Following the release of The Sopranos, it was suggested by Oz creator Tom Fontana that Chase write a film centered on Tony Soprano's father Giovanni "Johnny Boy" Soprano set in the 1930s or 1940s.
Reception
The Many Saints of Newark grossed $8.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $4.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $13.1 million.
In the United States and Canada, The Many Saints of Newark was released alongside Venom: Let There Be Carnage and The Addams Family 2, and was projected to gross around $10 million from 3,180 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $2.1 million on its first day, and debuted to $5 million, finishing fourth at the box office. Following its less-than-expected opening weekend, Variety wrote that the film "stands to lose millions". The
