The 30 Greatest Gangster Movies

Mobsters, molls, heavies & hoods. An offer you can't refuse...

BY Total Film Jun 16th 2009 13:13PMFILED UNDER: Features

User Comments (8)

• << previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• next >>

9. Scarface (1983)

Scorsese and De Niro had long wanted to upgrade Howard Hawks’ 1932 crime classic Scarface. They just couldn’t figure out how. Turns out, you had to go all the way.

Oliver Stone hung out with gangsters to write the script. Brian De Palma dunked Miami Vice headfirst in blood, cocaine and style. Al Pacino became Michael Corleone’s monstrous id made flesh.

Following Cuban refugee Tony Montana’s (Pacino) roaring rise from dishwasher to druglord, Scarface is a terrifying black comedy of lust, wealth, power, destruction and – most of all – excess. Nothing exceeds like it.

De Palma’s first ever gangster film combines arty flourishes (watch the darkening colour of Montana’s suits trace the rot of his soul) and  berserker violence (even if the motel chainsaw massacre is off screen) in a way even Marty wouldn’t have dared to.

Killer Scene: Coke, blood incestuous rage and our leetle friend... Finales don’t get better.

8. Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Sergio Leone turned down The Godfather to make this epic tale of a Jewish gangster (Robert De Niro) who journeys from ghetto to exile in Prohibition-era New York.

The resulting masterpiece, alas, was too much for Warner Bros, who criminally removed 90 minutes from his four-hour version. (“Such
a stupid move,” sighed co-star James Woods.)

Seek out the original, then, to appreciate this elaborate saga, even if it does feature two graphic rape scenes and a persistent opium den motif that convinced some the whole movie is one long, drug-induced hallucination.

Killer Scene: For sheer audacity, the opening scene with its endlessly ringing phone.

7. Miller's Crossing (1990)

Rapid-fire chit-chat and machine-gun violence pepper the Coens’ ’30s-set, Dashiell Hammett-inspired gangster flick, which its DoP Barry
Sonnenfeld described as “a handsome movie about men in hats” – no bad pitch for many well-upholstered crime movies.

The plot thickens fast, but suffice to say that Gabriel Byrne’s adviser to Albert Finney’s mob boss gets caught up in a lovers’ triangle and a two-way gang tangle over “friendship, character and ethics”.

The story is pastiche, perhaps, but the directors immaculately tailor the trappings of fast-talking fatalism and sharp-dressed doom.

Killer Scene: “Look into your heart!” John Turturro pleads for his life.

Next: Reservoir Dogs, Heat, The Godfather...

• << previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• next >>

Print