The 20 greatest gangster movies of all time, ranked
To mark the 40th anniversary of Scarface, we're counting down the most powerful and popular gangster films ever made
Film Features Gangster
Gangster movies are loaded with inherently alluring qualities: the vicarious thrill of watching an antihero buck the establishment and take what they want with impunity; the glamorous trappings as a funhouse mirror version of the American Dream; the familial metaphors of dynastic crime families; the antisocial buzz of viscerally violent acts; even the straight-and-narrow validation of watching an amoral figure fall from ill-gotten grace.
With such rich territory to mine, it’s no wonder that the genre has entranced some of Hollywood’s most accomplished filmmakers, or that the films created by these talented directors and actors stand among the most powerful and enduringly popular titles of all time. The 40th anniversary of Brian De Palma’s over-the-top, hyper-violent Scarface—released on December 9, 1983—seems like an apt moment for a broader appreciation of these films, which have resonated with viewers for nearly 100 years. From groundbreaking projects like The Public Enemy and Little Caesar to modern-day classics like The Departed, The A.V. Club is sizing up the 20 greatest gangster films of all time.
126 Comments
A Bronx Tale deserves a spot on this list.
awesome
Aww, come on. Gettin’ Square should be on this list for David Wenham’s court testimony.
How is this outta the greys?
What the Hell! No “Bugsy Malone”. All the Whipped Cream gun mayhem…
Came down here to say exactly that. One of my favourite films of all time.“Three cheers for Dandy Dan!”
I hadn’t heard of that film before so I had to look it up, and now I know I need to see it before I die. It sounds goofy and weird in all the right ways.
Plus it has some of the best songs in movie history. And a bunch of kids having a go at acting while Jodie Foster shows them how acting is really done.
I can never talk enough about THE ICE HARVEST, which in addition to being the dark Xmas movie Die Hard only wishes it could be, is also a great view inside Midwest townie Mafia life. Everyone in this movie is seedy af: John Cusack’s mob lawyer (one of his best performances)Billy Bob Thornton and Connie Nielsen as porn merchant bottom feeders Mike Starr (who deserves some kind of Mob Guy Lifetime Achievement Award) as an enforcerand a pre-psychotic break Randy Quaid as the Boss. All careening into each other Coen Brothers-style on the black ice of the most miserable Christmas Eve ever. It’s possibly the only Christmas Mob movie.
I watch it ever December. Such a unknown film.
Oh look, another AV Club ranking where what should be #1 is listed as #2.
Probably above 2023 AV Club’s payscale, but something from Japan would play well here. Tokyo Drifter or Minbo are obvious choices.
Did I miss “Casino” somewhere?
Casino is top ten easily. List is ridiculous without it.
There is also no planet where Bugsy is a better movie than Miller’s Crossing.
They’re givin’ the high hat.
It is physically impossible for me to eat a hot dog with mustard without thinking, “A hot dog. With mustard.”
Bugsy Malone, on the other hand…
This one really surprised me. Bugsy isn’t that great; it’s mostly just Warren Beatty playing himself, which he did in every film since Reds. Miller’s Crossing is a stone-cold top 10 lock.
Yes, that is correct.
Casino and A Bronx Tale are terrible misses, unforgiveable. There are many others too that would go over several on this list in my opinion but those 2 alone are enough.
Carlito’s Way belongs on this list also.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a dark movie. It’s very good but sooo dark. Robert Mitchum is great in it it and Peter Boyle almost steals the show.
Thanks for putting in the pre-code films. If people haven’t seen them, they are depriving themselves.Good call on the Godfather I and II. They are really one movie. III was the greatest cinematic disappointment of all time until The Phantom Menace. You can skip it.
Hot take. The DePalma Scarface is not good. It’s so over the top it’s really a comedy. Intentional or not. Worth a watch for its goofiness.
Have to give AV Club credit for including Eddie Coyle, it’s such an unsentimental gem. I read some of the dialogue was taken directly from the book, which was adapted directly from wire taps. I’m never really sure what to think of DePalma’s Scarface – if you take it on face value, it’s high camp – it isn’t Michael Mann’s Miami. But the over-the-top nature of it kind of represents the era and its excesses. I’m not sure that makes it a good movie (I think it’s not very good), and it endures only thanks to dorm room posters. I’d probably have put Carlito’s Way on the list over it.
I am repeating myself as I have posted this before. 20 years ago I was looking for where I could find “the Friends of Eddie Coyle.” Found some number on the internet of some place in LA. The following was our conversation, which reads like it was written by George V. Higgins himself:Me: Yeah, I’m looking for a DVD of the Friends of Eddie Coyle.Video Guy: (sounding gruff, like he just finished a smoke): Mitchem, right?Me: Yeah.VG: Never been released on VHS or DVD. (pause) I can get it for you, though.Me: Great! How much?VG: Fifty bucks.I got it a week later and it was perfect. Couple years later, Criterion re-released it. It is an amazing movie.
Carlito’s Way is a better film. At least a more realistic one.The most glaring problem with both of these films is Pacino’s accent. I don’t buy it.
For “Scarface,” Pacino was tutored on his accent by his Cuban-American co-star, Steven Bauer, who played Manny.
Absolutely on GF 1 and 2. I never differentiate. Ever seen the Legacy cut, where both are told as one long chronological film? It’s interesting from an anthropological standpoint, and contains some cut stuff (Vito telling Tom he would’ve risen higher if he were Italian, et al).I saw 3 in the theater, and we in the audience knew quickly that something wasn’t right. There’s still grandeur in some of the sequences (particularly the opera finale), but oh man. I don’t consider it a hot take: Scarface is a mess. Oliver Stone wrote it while he was gacking rails off strippers’ backs, and it’s one of Al’s worst performances (Scent of a Woman and Heat are minimalism compared it it). It’s a guilty pleasure but, but grimy and actually kinda silly.
Never really liked Mitchum until I saw that movie one late night.Kinda hated him before that.
I think Mitchum rates as one of the greatest film actors ever.His performance in The Night of the Hunter is enough for that.
Yeah, great movie. One of the creepiest performances ever, and that underwater scene was one of the most beautiful and haunting shots ever.I saw it after, or I’m sure it would’ve changed my mind too.Then I started watching Noir Alley, and became a fan.
I was just reading Mitchum’s IMDB page. I don’t know if he said them all but the quotes attributed to him are pretty funny.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000053/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Agree with your hot take on Scarface. It is entertaining but doesn’t belong anywhere near most of the other films on this list.My hot take? the Untouchables kind of blows. Frank Nitti killed himself. Racine is pronounced “Ray-seen” and what the fuck are they doing riding horses?
I never felt that The Untouchables was going for realism. It was a continuation and modernization of the television show with a touch of Dick Tracy, the comic not the later film, thrown in. Entertaining, especially Connery, not a classic.Costner is an enigma to me. He’s made good films and been in good films. He’s not good.
I’d agree that realism wasn’t the goal with The Untouchables. It’s essentially an opera without the music. Everything is deliberately heightened and Chicago has almost of a feeling of classical Greece or Rome. It all works for me, even Kevin Costner’s weird declamatory deliver of Mamet’s not-something-a-human-would-actually-say dialogue, but it’s definitely a big swing.
Tough, but fair. Andy Garcia’s mispronouncing “Racine,” notwithstanding.
Carlito’s Way is the good BDP gangster flick
Scarface is not a film I ever want to sit down and watch.
Glad to see Donnie Brasco on here. Taking note of Miller’s Crossing was welcome but not surprising, but I wasn’t expecting to see Brasco. That was Pacino’s best performance in a long time.
I think Brasco was underseen because everyone I know who has, thinks it’s tremendous (me included).
Depp wasn’t a star at that point (I don’t think), people were kinda sick of the “Hoo ha!” Pacino, and Depp and Heche weren’t a convincing couple at all, so it was probably a tough sell.I loaned my DVD to a co-worker who had worked with the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms and he couldn’t finish watching it because of all the swearing.
I remember Pacino’s quiet performance being commented on in reviews at the time, because otherwise I would have been skeptical. He’d come off a run of pretty flamboyant outings (Glengarry, Scent of a HOO-ah woman, Heat, Devil’s Advocate).
It’s interesting to me when an actor makes conscious decisions to go a certain way or if a director just kinda sits on them. I remember being knocked out when I saw Jack Nicholson in The Pledge or About Schmidt…. do directors say, “no, I don’t want the standard Nicholson (or Pacino or Sandler) thing?”
Good question. I assumed they still have to addition even with that star status?
Depp wasn’t a star at that point Lol. That’s precious young man.
Ah yes, I remember that terrible Boston mob boss Whitey Bolger.
Yeah, poor slob. Couldn’t dance well enough to break into the family business.
Scarface is super overrated and way too high on this list.
Carlito’s Way is far superior.
You forgot Massacre Mafia Style!!
What the…?! Jesus Chris lol. Must watch.
It’s flush with violence…and music!
Casino???????
Were is Gomorrah, City of God or Sonatine and Oscar?
Great calls.
City of God is a masterpiece.
Mesrine too?
Oooh yes. They were amazing.
Okay, White Heat being in the top 10 makes up for the lack of Casino. But I was worried they would skip it, wonderful movie. Casino is for sure top 20 though.
Not sure I buy “Boyz N the Hood” as a gangster movie. If you wanted something from that era, “New Jack City” is a better fit. “American Gangster” from a few years later was solid, if a little formulaic.
Also, “King of New York” is a goddamn masterpiece.
New Jack is exactly what I was expecting to see deeper into the list once Boyz turned up. It’s actually about a gangster. Boyz is just about stupid kids fucking around and finding out, and the fallout for the people around them.
I had the same feeling when I saw it and wondered if they were confusing it with Menace 2 Society. I don’t consider either of them gangster movies, really, but M2S comes closer to fitting the bill than Boyz.
I submitted a very similar comment before I saw yours but couldn’t agree more.
It’s also a terrible fucking movie. If they wanted to lean into an urban crime drama from that period, they could have gone with Menace 2 Society, Straight Outta Brooklyn, New Jersey Drive, New Jack City, King of New York, South Central, Sugar Hill, Juice, Set It Off, etc. None of those probably merit mention in a top 20 gangster movies list, but every single one is way better than that tacky afterschool special. Shit, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central is a way better gangster movie than fucking Boyz N the Hood. That movie is godawful.
While your view is a little exaggerated I’d say, on Boyz N the Hood I also think it is overrated, though in my view, slightly. Basically, there’s too much on-screen literal preaching, like literally delivering the message not just with images but with actors actually delivering sermons to the audience. But I think the subject may have warranted, in the years when it was made and released. Oh, and great mentioning South Central, a film that it seems nobody remembers know it exists, with a great performance from Glenn Plummer and a more inside-view of gangs and hood violence. BNtH is a little too-polished.
We need a Gangsta movie list…
It’s also a terrible fucking movie. Yikes. Opinions vary, I guess.
“But Catholic girls are supposed to be some of the biggest hoochies!”No shade at a few very talented actors in the film (including Ice Cube at his best), but that screenplay is so, so, so terrible. When it isn’t being cartoonishly didactic and on the nose, it’s just laughably out of touch.Don’t Be a Menace, itself far from a great film, generated a lot of laughs by just redoing some of those early Tre/Furious scenes with only minimal changes, because they were already completely ridiculous.Rosewood is the only movie Singleton directed that isn’t real, real bad, and that’s largely because he didn’t write that script.Boyz is dire. It’s the nadir of a genre in which even the best films aren’t particularly good.
How about some comedies? Johnny Dangerously? Married to the Mob, My Blue Heaven? Yes I’m showing my age.
My s.o. hates gangster films and won’t sit through even five minutes of Goodfellas or The Godfather, but she loved My Blue Heaven when I got her to watch it earlier this year. You just have to be vaguely aware of the tropes to get the gangster-related jokes, and everything else plays well enough on its own. A great but largely-forgotten comedy from that era.
Next time you’re in the grocery store, reminder how dangerous it is for her to be in the frozen food aisle. Because she could melt all this stuff.
I sold her on watching it by telling her that Nora Ephron wrote it (she’s a big fan of Ephron’s romantic comedies), then I had to double-check to make sure that I was right. I was, but I forgot the best part: Ephron was married to Nicholas Pileggi. Pileggi, of course, wrote the screenplay for Goodfellas, based on his book Wiseguy about Henry Hill. Ephron based Vinnie in My Blue Heaven also on Hill, and based the film around the same info that she and Pileggi got from Hill during their interview sessions with him. The two films were even released a month apart from each other.
Now that is a whole lot of stuff I had never heard before, starting with Ephron being married to Pileggi.
She was also married to Carl Bernstein (of Woodward-Bernstein Watergate reporting fame). Not particularly relevant except again not the sort of person you’d expect a famous rom-com writer to marry.
I’ve often thought that My Blue Heaven is basically if Goodfellas continued after the noodles with ketchup line , but as a comedy with Steve Martin, and its good to know I was actually sort of right.
Responding to myself because I somehow omitted Get Shorty, one of my favorite 90s flicks.Is LA Confidential gangster?
I wouldn’t classify LA Confidential as exactly a gangster movie, even though Mickey Cohen and Johnny Stompanato are both part of the story. It doesn’t feel like gangsters are the focus so much as citywide corruption and institutional rot.
Yeah, having read the LA Quartet the story is mostly about the cops, not the gangsters (to the extent there’s a difference).
How about The Freshman (1990) not (1925). With Mathew Broderick and Marlon Brando (basically doing a parody of his Godfather role)?
Good one – that movie’s a lot of fun. Penelope Ann Miller in tiny leather miniskirt. Rowr.
I think Goodfellas is better than the Godfathers. It’s one of the very few films where, if I’m flicking through the channels late at night and I see it, I know I will be watching it until the end.
A pure judgment call there obviously, but Godfather separates itself by probably being the most influential mobster movie ever made – to the extent it affected the way real Mafioso behaved and saw themselves. Whereas most “organized” criminals are dim violent psychos with self-control issues who end up dead or in prison.
I used to put Goodfellas above The Godfather, but they’re really good as bookends. Godfather is more about the family/legacy aspect, while Goodfellas is more about how “the life” is a catch basin for dumb, violent goons who weren’t going to make a living any other way.
The reason I put Goodfellas and Casino above the others is because they go over the nuts and bolts in an entertaining way. I need to know who the capos are at least.
I tend to agree with you. Goodfellas is, if nothing else, a more entertaining and stylish film that feels more realistic to what life in the mob is actually like than the pulpy, romantic Godfather films—and I’m not using either of those descriptors as a pejorative.
I think that comes down to the source material – a pulp novel versus a memoir.
Goodfellas is great but I don’t know what it is about The Godfather 1&2 but they’re just so powerful that I really cannot NOT put them at number 1&2 (2 is the superior film easy and one the smartest movies made)
Goodfellas at number 1. Now go home and get your shine box
The omission of “King of New York” is the biggest crime here.
I need to watch that. I have the VHS in the office.
New Jack City and Eastern Promises*For me, these are two big ommissions.*I get that this is focused on American gangsters (“the glamorous trappings as a funhouse mirror version of the American Dream”), but come on.
Goddamnit Eastern Promises is sooo good.
Such a fantastic film.
Yes, came looking for New Jack City. Should have been listed.
Eastern Promises is incredible. A surprising omission from the Gangster movie list.
Wankers made this list.
Where exactly was Jack City which presumably New Jack City was named after?
You left of Johnny Dangerously, so all I can say to that is.
I love that Bobby De Niro dominates this list. But honestly, there are so many gangster films not mentioned here that it’s just hard to take seriously.
Where is “Angels with Filthy Souls”, ya filthy animals?
No Casino, no Bronx Tale. This list is whack.
Scarface is a joke, a mobster cartoon. It was ridiculous then and worse now. Think of the kind of people who still think it’s funny to yell out “Say hello to my little friend” and that tells you all you need to know about this clownish, brainless attempt at a mob movie. I wouldn’t belong on a top 50 list.
Someday a deepfake expert will fix the shoddy de-aging in THE IRISHMAN (and maybe officially change the title to “I Heard You Paint Houses”), and that masterpiece will assume its rightful position here.
“Brighton Rock” w/ Richard Attenborough
“Key Largo” w/ Humphrey Bogart
“Le Samouraï” w/ Alain Delon
“Sonatine” w/ Takeshi Kitano
Watched Mean Streets recently. It is very much Scorsese in the raw, just a slice of life with minimal narrative, a tragic ending that seems more like just another dangerous day than a climax, and some random lions. The nearest comparison I can think of is probably Kids. Interesting to see Boyz n the Hood here. An important movie, to an extent I’m not sure people understand nowadays, but I would think Menace II Society fits better on this list. It’s more of a crime movie, it’s modeled after Goodfellas, it was also very influential, and at least I remember it as being very good.
What about Heat ?Or is that on the outside of the “gangster” genre ?
needs more dick tracy
the only reason neither the original Scarface, Public Enemy number one or The Roaring Twenties are not in the first positions is illiteracy. Really, they are on another level. Way above all those 70s and 90s titles you all talk about, technically and dramatically.
I’m in my 50s and I only vaguely know about those movies (and mostly from the discontinued Great Movie Ride at Disney). There’s no way the twenty-somethings who write on this site know about them.
I started at 1 going backwards to find King of New York. No New Jack City either.
Hopkins? Hopkins?!?
Get a competent editor.
Boyz N the Hood is not a gangster movie. Come on now.It is a gangsta movie. As in “gangsta” rap. As said by others; New Jack City is an actual Gangster movie. They have a criminal enterprise they are running.Also, no Casino? List is invalid.
Donnie Brasco deserves more love. There is no better snapshot of how pathetic “the life” actually is, on a day-to-day basis.
Pacino trying to break into parking meter heads in order to make his monthly nut is perfection. These guys are too stupid and uncreative to even make it as outlaws.
Almost full agreement, but I would’ve added Road to Perdition to top 20 and Casino to top 5, which for me would be: 1. The Godfather2. The Godfather Part II3. Goodfellas4. Scarface5. Casino
Weird that Casino isn’t on this list (I put it above Goodfellas, sorry). And The Long Good Friday ought to be way up in ranking – it’s perfect.I never thought of Bonnie and Clyde as a gangster movie, but it’s certainly good.And… no argument on the Godfather movies being at the top, but Friends of Eddie Coyle should be number two.
Not a single Asian gangster movie worthy of making the list? I mean, The Departed was adaptation of Infernal Affairs FFS…
Would’ve liked to have seen some love for Road to Perdition, which I think is a wildly underrated movie that most people have simply forgotten about. It got nominated for 6 Oscars!
So, still not ready to admit that the Godfather movies are overrated
Likely a not-particularly-beloved take, but: “The Departed” was every single trope from every other gangster/cop movie that came before it, just with a metric TON of star-power and all the tropes turned up to “Scorsese” on the dial.It was fine, but it was not especially memorable and not at all the holy relic that always seems to get held aloft in lists like these.Qualifications: a) I have not watched it in over a decade, b) I *love* much of Mr. Scorsese’s other work, and c) I love most all of the actors involved, some to an unhealthy level.But this movie – to me – was just overwrought and overdone. /shrugs(Am I completely bugfuck insane? The possibility exists…)Alsoalso: seconding the votes for “New Jack City” and “King of New York”.
The Pusher trilogy should be on here as well as the Yakuza Papers series
Perhaps I’m twisting his words, but it’s shocking that they just had a Catholic priest talk about how he loved a six-year-old boy in that Angels With Dirty Faces trailer.
I know the ‘bat scene’ , the ‘knife to a gunfight’ or the stairway shootout get all the love in The Untouchables, but my favorite moment will always be Kevin Costner yelling “didn’t you hear what I said?” at the guy he had to shoot, because the guy wouldn’t stop and forced him to shoot him. Still one of Costner’s best roles.
1. Godfather Trilogy2. Goodfellas3. Miller’s Crossing
I’d rather stare into an unflushed toilet than ever watch Goodfellas again.