The 30 Greatest Gangster Movies
Mobsters, molls, heavies & hoods. An offer you can't refuse...
BY Jun 16th 2009 13:13PMFILED UNDER: Features
User Comments (8)
18. Casino (1995)
Even bigger and bolder than GoodFellas, Casino might be a bit long, but it has more swearing and a better tailor.
It’s the Shakespearean mirror-image to Scorsese’s mob masterwork, telling the giddy rise-and-fall tale of ultra-smooth mafia apparatchik Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein (Robert De Niro), parachuted in as the new boss of Vegas’ Tangiers casino only to be undone by psycho mates (Joe Pesci, inevitably) and slutty wife (Sharon Stone).
“We wanted to show the end of the old way,” mused Marty. A chilling portrait of how gangsterism and business are one and the same in Sin City.
Killer Scene: Pesci’s pen-stabbing lesson to “some motherfucker” who disrespects Ace.
17. City Of God (2002)
Ferociously kinetic, Fernando Meirelles and co-director Kátia Lund’s adap of Paolo Lins’ non-fiction epic is also propelled by a righteous social agenda.
“I don’t believe in conventional actors,” Lund argued. “I wanted to give the same sensation as the first time I went into a favela. That all of this is going on and no one is doing anything about it.”
City rips through three decades of urban deterioration and criminal expansion in the Rio favelas: starting with a blackly comic catch-that-chicken scene, flipping to the ’60s and then forward to the ’80s via turf wars and the drug-terror territorialism of one mean cat, L’il Ze.
Meirelles and Lund spin mood on a dime, orchestrating the action around a moral void. God, you suspect, is dead.
Killer Scene: “A little bit frightening”: a disco showdown set sans irony to ‘Kung Fu Fighting’.
16. Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
“They’re young. They’re in love. And they kill people!” So proclaimed the tagline to Arthur Penn’s blistering lovers-on-the-lam epic, a sexy, red-blooded riposte to the languid, supercool tales of guns and girls making new waves from across the pond.
Watching the film feels like bearing witness to the bitter demise of ’60s idealism, grafted onto the story of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway’s eponymous natural born killers cheerily pillaging their way across sun-dappled, Depression-era America.
A unique fuck-you to the film establishment of the time – with very cool hats.
Killer Scene: The bullet-riddled finale – for all its cinematic excess, it’s desperately tragic.
Total Film Issue 157 On Sale Now!
Like this feature? Read the extended version in the latest issue of Total Film Magazine (157), which also includes an exclusive Johnny Depp interview on Public Enemies.
Next: Breathless, Le Samourai, Salvatore Giuliano...
Print Comments (8)
1: ebrown2112 says
I disagree about the exclusion of The Departed, but I agree about Goodfellas at #1.
Posted: Jun 23rd 2009 // 2:04PMAlert a moderator
2: weirdr0b0t says
i had forgotten about the departed, and i agree that should have been in there!!
What about Road to Perdition as well!! That movie should definitely be in there!!
Posted: Jun 23rd 2009 // 6:53PMAlert a moderator
3: adammiller2k says
forget the departed, infernal affairs is so much better! and having both in the list would have been stupid. great list though. i know i might get hounded for this, but if you had room for only 1 new wave "gangster movie" i'd replace breathless with truffaut's "shoot the pianist" that's a stonking good movie.
do the vengance triology not count as gangster movies? i know they are revenge tragedies, but then so is get carter (what a movie).
ps tokyo drifter rocks!
Posted: Jun 24th 2009 // 1:43AMAlert a moderator
4: Desperation says
I think Carlito's Way should have been higher.
Posted: Jun 24th 2009 // 11:39AMAlert a moderator
5: weirdr0b0t says
and you figure s****h or lock Stock or even RocknRolla would have got a mention!!
Posted: Jun 24th 2009 // 6:38PMAlert a moderator
6: Film2517 says
a pretty accurate list but Gomorrah is the most notable exclusion on it.
Posted: Jun 25th 2009 // 3:26PMAlert a moderator
7: SUPERmovieFREAK says
Okay this isn't that bad a list. You've definitely got some all time classics in there like the Godfather Part 1 & 2, Mean Streets, Goodfellas etc, etc. I disagree with Goodfellas being number 1, The Godfather is the greatest movie and greatest gangster movie EVER made (but okay I can deal with Goodfellas being Number 1).
But there are some films in there I've never even heard of. What the hell is Casque D'or, never heard of it. Or The Killing, never heard of it. The Big Heat, never heard of it.
Instead the complete shmucks you are, you’ve gone and missed major classics out like The Untouchables. How could you forget that? It’s got a small but classic role by Robert DeNiro and the legendary Sean Connery.
Plus like people have said above you’ve also missed out major modern classics like The Departed, Gommorah, Road To Perdition and Rock ‘n’ Rolla.
AND WHAT THE HELL ABOUT Eastern Promises and A History Of Violence. Two great movies by a great director and I still can’t believe you missed them out.
If I was a Don and I saw that list I’d have you all whacked you shmucks.
Posted: Jun 25th 2009 // 5:25PMAlert a moderator
8: Hip2thabone says
Seriously this list is totally f****d up.
How can u have pulp fiction higher than donnie brasco or infernal affairs?
What about a movie called "SHOTTAS"?
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