10 Gangster Masterpieces That Redefined Crime Cinema

10. White Heat (1949)

• Directed by: Raoul Walsh
• Written by: Ivan Goff & Ben Roberts
• Cinematography by: Sidney Hickox

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" James Cagney gives a performance that is nothing short of nuclear. I love this movie so much. The cinematography is so modern and so interesting. And the performances and direction are all timers.

Cagney creates one of the most unhinged and unforgettable villains in cinema history, full of Freudian psychosis and explosive rage.

9. A Prophet (Un Prophète) (2009)

• Directed by: Jacques Audiard
• Written by: Thomas Bidegain & Jacques Audiard
• Cinematography by: Stéphane Fontaine

This French masterpiece is a raw look at the making of a modern gangster. It's a gangster movie and a prison movie. We follow Malik El Djebena, a young Franco-Arab man, as he enters lock-up and learns to navigate the hierarchies of Corsican and Muslim gangs. Director Jacques Audiard uses a documentary-like style to immerse us in the prison system. We get a firsthand look at Malik's transformation from a scared kid to a formidable kingpin.

8. The Public Enemy (1931)

• Directed by: William A. Wellman
• Written by: Kubec Glasmon & John Bright
• Cinematography by: Devereaux Jennings

This is the pre-Code movie that made James Cagney a star. It also probably brought the entire world the first gangster character. Cagney’s Tom Powers is a live wire, a charismatic thug whose rise and fall is swift and violent. The film is famous for its shocking moments—most notably the grapefruit scene. It laid a blueprint for virtually every gangster film that followed. And many actors were inspired and did their own riffs on Cagney here as well.

7. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

• Directed by: Sergio Leone
• Written by: Sergio Leone, et al.
• Cinematography by: Tonino Delli Colli

Sergio Leone’s final film is a sprawling, melancholic epic that lasts like four hours (don't watch the butchered American cut) and is told in a non-linear structure of flashbacks and flash-forwards. The movie chronicles the lives of a group of Jewish ghetto kids in New York who become ruthless bootleggers and then seasoned criminals. Robert De Niro’s "Noodles" is one of the great tragic figures of the genre.

6. The Long Good Friday (1980)

• Directed by: John Mackenzie
• Written by: Barrie Keeffe
• Cinematography by: Phil Méheux

I saw this movie for the first time a couple of years ago and can't stop thinking about it. Bob Hoskins delivers a career-defining performance as Harold Shand, a London crime boss on the verge of going legitimate. All he wants is to get out, but all they do is pull him back. It’s a taut, paranoid thriller.

5. Scarface (1983)

• Directed by: Brian De Palma
• Written by: Oliver Stone
• Cinematography by: John A. Alonzo

You know how much I love Brian De Palma's cinema of excess. And this movie has it all: violence, money, sex, glossy stills, and tracking shots. Al Pacino’s Tony Montana is a coked-out, chainsaw-wielding force of nature. The vibrant, neon-soaked production design, Giorgio Moroder’s pulsating synth score, and the operatic violence all combine to create a film that is as intoxicating as it is horrifying. It’s the American Dream as a psychosexual nightmare.

4. City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002)

• Directed by: Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund
• Written by: Bráulio Mantovani
• Cinematography by: César Charlone

This is one of the best movies of all time. City of God tells the story of two boys growing up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. One becomes a photographer, the other a terrifyingly psychopathic drug lord. Each could have taken a different path. But they chose these ones. The film plunges you directly into the chaos and beauty of its world. And it never lets you go.

3. Goodfellas (1990)

• Directed by: Martin Scorsese
• Written by: Nicholas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese
• Cinematography by: Michael Ballhaus

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." With that line, Scorsese yanks us into the seductive, adrenaline-fueled world of the mob. And guess what? We also want to be gangsters here, too. Told from the perspective of real-life mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Goodfellas uses every tool in the cinematic arsenal—whip pans, freeze frames, a killer soundtrack, and that legendary Copacabana Steadicam shot—to make us understand the appeal of this life. And we totally get it, even when things get bad, we understand why being a gangster might have been better than whatever we are right now.

2. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

• Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
• Written by: Francis Ford Coppola & Mario Puzo
• Cinematography by: Gordon Willis

How do you follow up a masterpiece? By making another one that deepens and darkens the original. Really, either of these could be #1, but I did them in order. Part II is a feat of narrative engineering, brilliantly cross-cutting between two timelines: Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) consolidation of power in the 1950s and his father Vito's (Robert De Niro) humble origins in Sicily and New York. The whole saga is a Greek tragedy about how the pursuit of power rots a man's soul.

1. The Godfather (1972)

• Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
• Written by: Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola
• Cinematography by: Gordon Willis

Was there ever any doubt? The Godfather is a perfectly crafted story of a family's dark transformation. One that feels inevitable for that only kid who got out and made something of himself. Every single element is flawless, but the true genius lies in its visual language. Cinematographer Gordon Willis, "The Prince of Darkness," using his revolutionary top-lighting to create pools of black that told you everything you needed to know about these characters.

Summing It All Up 

I love a gangster movie, and I hope the genre makes a comeback. There are lots of reasons these movies work all over the world. They really showcase something inside us that is both alluring and terrifying.

And these movies bring out some of the best work from everyone involved to go deep and to really say something about power and money and excess.