Crime & Gangster Movies, Ranked

Won Best Picture and is routinely ranked among the greatest films ever made; its portrait of the Corleone family redefined the gangster epic. Grossed record numbers and made Coppola, Pacino, and Brando's Don icons.

Scorsese's kinetic true story of Henry Hill set the template for the modern mob movie with its narration, needle-drops, and Copacabana tracking shot. Won Pesci a Supporting Actor Oscar and endlessly influenced TV and film.

The first sequel to win Best Picture, weaving young Vito's rise with Michael's moral collapse. De Niro won Supporting Actor for a role Brando originated.

Won the Palme d'Or and Best Original Screenplay, its nonlinear structure and dialogue reshaping 1990s cinema. Revived Travolta and cemented Tarantino as a generational voice.

A ferocious chronicle of gang life in Rio's favelas, earning four Oscar nominations including Director. Widely cited as one of the greatest films of the 21st century.

Pacino's Tony Montana became the definitive rags-to-ruin cocaine kingpin and a permanent pop-culture icon. Initially divisive, it grew into a genre cornerstone quoted endlessly in hip-hop.

Finally won Scorsese his Best Director Oscar plus Best Picture, its cat-and-mouse of moles in the Boston mob and police. Nicholson, DiCaprio, and Damon anchor a lethal ensemble.

Leone's sprawling, elegiac epic of Jewish gangsters across decades, gorgeously scored by Morricone. Butchered on US release but restored to masterpiece status.

Mann's crime saga staged the first onscreen Pacino-De Niro scene and a downtown LA shootout studied by filmmakers ever since. A defining cops-and-thieves procedural.

De Palma's slick Prohibition-era take on Eliot Ness versus Capone, with a bravura Union Station staircase sequence. Won Connery his only Oscar.

De Niro's directorial debut, a warm coming-of-age story of a boy torn between his father and a neighborhood mob boss. A beloved, quotable slice of Bronx life.

Depp's undercover FBI agent and Pacino's aging soldier ground a poignant true-story mob drama. Coined 'fuggedaboutit' for a generation.

Scorsese's Vegas epic reunited De Niro, Pesci, and Sharon Stone, who earned an Oscar nomination. Operatic and violent, if in Goodfellas' long shadow.

Scorsese's late-career, de-aged mob elegy about Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa, nominated for ten Oscars. Reflective and long, a fittingly somber capstone.

Ridley Scott's polished true story of Harlem heroin boss Frank Lucas versus a dogged detective. Washington and Crowe are strong, though it plays the beats safe.

A Pre-Code cornerstone that made Cagney a star and shocked audiences with the grapefruit scene. Historically vital and still fresh, preserved in the National Film Registry.

Tom Hardy plays both Kray twins in a stylish but shallow London gangster biopic. The dual performance impresses while the film around it stays thin.

John Travolta's mob biopic infamously holds a 0% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and won multiple Razzie nominations. A byword for a botched gangster picture.