It stars Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, Jorge Porcel, Joseph Siravo and Viggo Mortensen.

It initially received mixed reviews from critics and lukewarm results at the box office, although general reception to the film has improved in subsequent years.

In 1975 New York City, after having served five years of a thirty-year prison sentence, career criminal Carlito Brigante is freed on a legal technicality that has been exploited by his close friend and lawyer Dave Kleinfeld.

Carlito vows to end his unlawful activities but is persuaded to accompany his young cousin Guajiro to a drug deal at an illegal speakeasy.

Carlito takes Guajiro's $30,000 from the botched deal and uses it to buy a stake in a nightclub that is owned by a gambling addict named Saso, intending to save $75,000 to retire to the Caribbean.

Carlito declines several offers for a business partnership with a hot-headed young gangster from the Bronx named Benny Blanco.

Fueled by his now-extensive use of alcohol and cocaine, Dave brazenly pulls out a gun and threatens to kill Benny, but Carlito intervenes.

Knowing that mob retaliation is imminent, Carlito immediately severs his ties with Dave and decides to leave town with Gail.

Having noticed a suspicious man dressed in a police uniform waiting in the lobby, Carlito secretly unloads Dave's revolver and leaves.

As Carlito runs to catch the train where Gail and Pachanga are waiting for him, Benny ambushes him and fatally shoots him several times with a silenced gun.

Pacino was working out for his movie Serpico when he met New York State Supreme Court Judge Edwin Torres (the author who was writing the novels Carlito's Way and After Hours).

Kastner claimed that Pacino had reneged on an agreement to star in his version of a Carlito movie with Marlon Brando as criminal lawyer David Kleinfeld.

[14] Initially, filming began on March 22, 1993, although the first scheduled shoot, the Grand Central Station climax, had to be changed when Pacino arrived on crutches.

Instead, the tension-building pool-hall sequence, where Carlito accompanies his young cousin Guajiro on an ill-fated drug deal, started the production.

[8] After the film studio had viewed a cut of the pool hall sequence, a note was passed onto the crew stating that they felt that the scene was too long.

The courtroom, in which Carlito thanks the prosecutor, was shot in Judge Torres's workplace, the State Supreme Court Building at 60 Centre Street.

A multi-level bistro club designed by De Palma took shape at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Long Island City, in a style of 1970s art-deco disco.

For a climactic finale, De Palma staged a chase from the platform of the Harlem-125th Street (Metro-North) station to the escalators of Grand Central Terminal.

The site's consensus states: "Carlito's Way reunites De Palma and Pacino for a more wistful take on the crime epic, delivering a stylish thriller with a beating heart beneath its pyrotechnic performances and set pieces.

"[22] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone criticized the film for Pacino's "Rican" accent that slips into his "Southern drawl from Scent of a Woman", "De Palma's erratic pacing and derivative shootouts" and "what might have been if Carlito's Way had forged new ground and not gone down smokin' in the shadow of Scarface".

He correctly predicted that Pacino, having just won an Oscar, would be criticized; Koepp, having just done Jurassic Park, would "suck"; Penn would be "brilliant" because he had not done anything for a while; and De Palma, having not been forgiven for The Bonfire of the Vanities, would not quite be embraced.

[18][26] Patrick Doyle composed the original score, while musical supervisor Jellybean Benitez supplemented the soundtrack with elements of salsa, merengue and other authentic styles.

[32] The Manic Street Preachers song "Black Dog on My Shoulder" (from the 1998 album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours) contains the lyric, "Like Carlito's Way, there are no exit signs".

[33] American singer Lana Del Rey compared herself to the titular character with the line, "When I'm violent, it's Carlito's Way", from her 2023 song "Taco Truck x VB".