Righteous Kill is a 2008 American crime thriller film with elements of a buddy cop film directed by Jon Avnet, and starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. This is the second film (the first one is Heat) in which De Niro and Pacino appear together in the same scenes (both De Niro and Pacino starred in The Godfather Part II, but did not appear in any of the same scenes). Righteous Kill also features John Leguizamo, Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy, and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. The film was released in the United States on September 12, 2008.