The Essential Gangster/Crime Film List

[Jimmy]

Miller's Crossing is easily one of my favourite Coen films, and I'm not sure I could even tell you why. Great suggestion.

[OGpistolpete]

Anyone watch A Most Violent Year yet? Heard good things about it but so, so disappointed. Oscar Isaac did a great job but the film itself wasn't easy to invest yourself in.

[Benjamin]

Man, the Untouchables was such an amazing film. Might be De Niro's best performance ever, outside of Taxi Driver and maybe Raging Bull. The scenes in Union Station and Ness' apartment are just unbelievable.

Is Rififi considered a gangster film? That one is fucking great too.

[Jimmy]

Man, the Untouchables was such an amazing film. Might be De Niro's best performance ever, outside of Taxi Driver and maybe Raging Bull. The scenes in Union Station and Ness' apartment are just unbelievable.

Is Rififi considered a gangster film? That one is fucking great too.

If you haven't seen it, you need to see The King of Comedy, possibly my favourite DeNiro performance, but there's a lot of competition.

[Benjamin]

Anyone watch A Most Violent Year yet? Heard good things about it but so, so disappointed. Oscar Isaac did a great job but the film itself wasn't easy to invest yourself in.

Yeah, A Most Violent Year is a movie that could be so much more than it was. Some really good moments, but a bit bland overall.

[Benjamin]

Man, the Untouchables was such an amazing film. Might be De Niro's best performance ever, outside of Taxi Driver and maybe Raging Bull. The scenes in Union Station and Ness' apartment are just unbelievable.

Is Rififi considered a gangster film? That one is fucking great too.

If you haven't seen it, you need to see The King of Comedy, possibly my favourite DeNiro performance, but there's a lot of competition.

It's been on my watchlist forever. I'm having a hard time thinking what could be my favorite De Niro performance, I just said Taxi Driver and Raging Bull off the top of my head. It's probably the Deer Hunter, but that could be just because I love that one so much. His portrayal of Capone was damn good, though, even if I'm partial to Stephen Graham now

[LL!]

Also, I didn't mention In Bruges because it doesn't really fit the mold of the other movies on this list, but it IS a crime movie and is one of my all time faves.

[Colly]

If we're veering from gangsters to general crimeyness Ronin is amazing.

Also, I like Godfather 3.

[VerbalPuke]

Mean Streets, early Deniro and Scorsese film.

The Pope Of Greenwich Village. Mickey Rourke when he wasn't ugly.

[OGpistolpete]

Just picked up Casino and Killing Them Softly. Dissapointed my video store didn't have the Godfather in stock, but I will find it at some point.

[Benjamin]

There's still a video store in business?

[OGpistolpete]

There's still a video store in business?

Yep, and it's the tits! Got both movies for $4 a pop. They have a huge selection of titles. DVD box sets. Blu-Rays. Video games, new and old. They actually seem to do decent business to. Every time I go in there are about five or six other customers in at once. Better than renting movies on the internet for $4 or buying digital copies of them for $10.

Edited February 10, 2015 by OGpistolpete

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

The Town is amazing. I would say that and The Departed are the best of the genre in the past 20 or so years.

[GhostMachine]

A few I\d recommend have already been mentioned (Casino, Angels With Dirty Faces and White Heat especially), but I'll toss out these suggestions (and pardon if they've already been mentioned, as I haven't read every post):

The Public Enemy (James Cagney movie from 1931)

Scarface (1932 movie starring Paul Muni, not the more famous Al Pacino film)

Scarface (the Al Pacino film : )

Little Caesar

Road To Perdition

The Big Shot

Gangster #1

[apsham]

As far as the Godfather goes, it's worth it to grab the Sofia Coppola Restoration pack anyways.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Only one suggestion of The Departed? Jesus, EWB.

Also: Goodfellas is glorious. I fucking love that film. Joe Pesci steals every scene.

Well I DID suggest Infernal Affairs which was the original.

[TroutMaskReplica]

Drug War and the two Election films by Johnnie To.

Like Infernal Affairs.

[Benjamin]

Drug War is awesome, I really need to watch that shit again.

[OGpistolpete]

So Casino was fucking great. A little long, but well worth it. Sharon Stone did an absolutely phenomenal job as Ginger, and when she starts going downhill she definitely turns Pacino into a complete victim of love. I kind of felt bad for Pacino's character to in that all he wanted to do was run the casino with no problem, and just keep the status quo, but at the same time he wouldn't be in the position he was in if it wasn't for the heavy amounts of illicit activity he was committing, as well as the crimes that go in hand with his New York mob-lifestyle. Pesci was great too, but god damn was his character fucking brutal. The violence was pretty heavy, but I like that it tried to hammer in the fact that the life these guys live is super fucked up and in the end they are shitty people.

Killing Them Softly, on the other hand, didn't have me invested at all. I enjoy movies that don't really clue you into what's really happening until deeper into the movie, because the payoff should be part of the experience, but this one just did not do it for me. It just kind of felt like the whole premise was: alright these two fuckheads are gonna rob Ray Liotta and try to frame him, but you can't feel bad for Liotta because he's just a scumbag too. After that, Brad Pitt is gonna be hired to hunt them down by some guy named Dillon (who I never figured out was), and you're gonna watch him kill these guys in super slow-motion and then he's gonna say that everyone in America fights to survive and fuck unity; but where did this whole unity theme come into play earlier? It was clearly already every man for themselves. The only parts I really enjoyed were the Gandolfini scenes, and how they eerily spoke to his eventual death in real life. I'll probably end up watching it again though, because I'm sure I missed some stuff that puts it all together better.

Just borrowed the Godfather trilogy from my roommate, so I'm gonna look to finish those up next, but with those comments said, what's next for me EWB?

[Colly]

Much as I agree that it's brilliant, Al Casino definitely wasn't in Pacino. Or similar.