30 Best Gangster And Mob Movies Of All Time, Ranked
30. Snatch (2000)
Guy Ritchie’s Snatch is a delirious whirl of cockney slang, stolen diamonds, and bare-knuckle brawls. Jason Statham’s boxing promoter gets entangled in a match-fixing fiasco, while an incomprehensible Brad Pitt steals the film as a gypsy fighter with knockout power. Fueled by razor-sharp editing and a gallery of eccentric crooks, Snatch is both hilarious and chaotic—a gangster romp where bullets and belly laughs fly with equal force. It’s Ritchie’s masterpiece of organized mayhem.
29. Dead or Alive (1999)
Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive explodes onto the screen with one of the most chaotic prologues in gangster cinema—drug busts, murders, and debauchery cut at machine-gun pace. The film follows a Chinese gang clashing with a relentless Japanese cop, but Miike never plays by genre rules. Equal parts crime flick, surreal nightmare, and gonzo fever dream, it’s a bold rejection of gangster clichés. By its jaw-dropping finale, Dead or Alive proves anarchy can be cinematic art.
28. Casino (1995)
Martin Scorsese’s Casino glitters with the seduction of Vegas even as it descends into mob-inflicted ruin. Robert De Niro plays Ace Rothstein, a meticulous casino manager whose empire crumbles under greed, betrayal, and Joe Pesci’s unhinged violence. Sharon Stone dazzles as Ace’s self-destructive wife, a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination. Casino essentially reveals the American dream as a rigged gamble, where power and loyalty are always lost to corruption’s inevitable toll.
27. Widows (2018)
Steve McQueen’s Widows flips the gangster genre on its head. When their husbands’ botched heist leaves them dead, four women—led by Viola Davis in a powerhouse performance—band together to pull off a robbery of their own. The film blends political corruption, gender dynamics, and high-stakes crime into a searing thriller. With Daniel Kaluuya’s chilling villain and heart-pounding set pieces, Widows is a bold reinvention of the mobster film, bristling with urgency.
26. The Sting (1973)
Paul Newman and Robert Redford reunited in The Sting, a dazzling con-artist caper brimming with charm and danger. Set in Depression-era Chicago, two grifters plot to outsmart a ruthless Irish mob boss, weaving scams within scams until nothing is certain. Oozing with ragtime melodies and exquisite period detail, we got a crime film that’s both stylish and endlessly rewatchable. Surely, The Sting makes deception look irresistible.
25. American Gangster (2007)
Ridley Scott’s American Gangster chronicles the rise of Harlem kingpin Frank Lucas, played with icy precision by Denzel Washington. Smuggling heroin into the U.S. using military planes during the Vietnam War, Lucas builds an empire defined by discipline and secrecy. Russell Crowe co-stars as the dogged detective on his trail. Stylish, sprawling, and deeply engrossing, the film captures both the intoxicating allure and the destructive consequences of power.
24. The Long Good Friday (1980)
Bob Hoskins delivers a career-defining performance in The Long Good Friday, playing Harold Shand, a ruthless London mob boss with dreams of legitimacy. When mysterious forces sabotage his empire, Shand’s swagger gives way to paranoia and fury. Helen Mirren brings poise and steel as his elegant partner, but it’s Hoskins’ volcanic final close-up that sears into memory. Brutal, stylish, and politically charged, the film is a gripping vision of criminal power grappling with a changing world.
23. Tokyo Drifter (1966)
Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter is gangster cinema as pop-art hallucination. When his boss retires, loyal yakuza Tetsu becomes a hunted man, wandering through surreal landscapes of color and chaos. With its bold visual style, jazzy energy, and unforgettable theme song, the film transforms a standard mob tale into avant-garde spectacle. Dismissed as “incomprehensible” by its studio, it’s since been celebrated as a cult masterpiece. Tokyo Drifter proves gangster films can be as dazzling as they are deadly.
22. Donnie Brasco (1997)
Johnny Depp and Al Pacino electrify Donnie Brasco, a true story of infiltration and betrayal. Depp plays FBI agent Joe Pistone, who goes undercover as “Donnie Brasco” to penetrate the Mafia, while Pacino gives a heartbreaking turn as aging gangster Lefty, who takes him under his wing. Their bond becomes the film’s tragic soul, as loyalty and duty collide. Tense, intimate, and devastating, Donnie Brasco is a gangster movie about friendship poisoned by lies.
21. Election (2005)
Election strips gangster politics down to their bare bones: power is everything, and trust is nothing. Chronicling the bloody succession battle for leadership of a Hong Kong triad, the film avoids flashy gunfights for quiet menace, sudden brutality, and shocking betrayals. Loaded with political allegory about postcolonial Hong Kong, it resonates beyond its underworld setting. Ruthless and precise, Election is a gangster film of chilling restraint.
20. The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorsese remade Infernal Affairs into The Departed, a Boston-set gangster epic that finally won him his long-overdue Oscar. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a tormented undercover cop, while Matt Damon stars as a mob mole inside the police force—both circling around Jack Nicholson’s feral mob boss Frank Costello. Brimming with tension, betrayal, and shocking violence, The Departed is a masterwork of paranoia. With its blistering cast and explosive finale, it’s gangster cinema at its most combustible.
19. The French Connection (1971)
The French Connection is a raw, unpolished dive into cops and criminals, stripped of glamour and drenched in grit. Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle is a relentless NYPD detective chasing a heroin smuggling ring, while Roy Scheider supports with quiet intensity. Famous for its nerve-shredding car chase under elevated trains, the film fuses documentary realism with thriller urgency. It’s not just a gangster story, it’s a portrait of obsession, corruption, and a city teetering on chaos.
18. Get Carter (1971)
Michael Caine has never been colder than in Get Carter. As London gangster Jack Carter, he returns home to Newcastle to investigate his brother’s suspicious death, unleashing a brutal spree of vengeance. Stark, uncompromising, and dripping with menace, the film portrays crime without glamour, only grim inevitability. The noir direction and Caine’s icy performance make Get Carter a cornerstone of British gangster cinema where every smile hides a knife and every vendetta ends in blood.
17. The Irishman (2019)
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman is a somber requiem for the gangster genre he helped define. Robert De Niro stars as Frank Sheeran, a hitman reflecting on a life of loyalty, betrayal, and moral decay—culminating in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Joe Pesci delivers a career-best performance as a quiet yet terrifying mob boss. Long, meditative, and mournful, The Irishman trades gangster glamour for the chilling weight of regret. It’s Scorsese’s final word on mob life.
16. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood reframed the gangster narrative for a new generation, setting its story in South Central Los Angeles. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Tre, a young man struggling to escape the violence consuming his community, guided by his father (Laurence Fishburne). But his friends are pulled into gang rivalries with devastating consequences. Mixing personal drama with urgent social commentary, Singleton’s debut is both a coming-of-age tale and a searing indictment of systemic violence.
15. The Untouchables (1987)
Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables is a grand opera of justice clashing with corruption. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, it chronicles Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) assembling his righteous crew to dismantle Al Capone’s empire, embodied with chilling charisma by Robert De Niro. With Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning turn and De Palma’s flair for stylish violence, this isn’t just cops versus gangsters, it’s more like mythmaking.
14. The Killers (1946)
The Killers is pure, uncut noir—a fatalistic tale of betrayal, greed, and violence. Burt Lancaster made his screen debut as a doomed boxer gunned down in cold blood, while Ava Gardner smoldered with lethal allure. Based on Ernest Hemingway’s short story, the film earned the rare praise of the author himself. Dark, intricate, and razor-sharp, it’s a labyrinthine crime mystery whose shadowy aesthetic and moral bleakness earned it the moniker “the Citizen Kane of noir.”
13. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction detonated like dynamite in the 1990s, rewriting the gangster playbook. Hitmen, gangsters, robbers, and boxers collide in a hypnotic spectacle of violence, dark comedy, and bizarre chance encounters. The dialogue, nonlinear storytelling, and pop-culture-soaked style turned the underworld into a surreal playground. Today, Pulp Fiction is revered as a cultural earthquake that permanently shifted how crime could be depicted on screen.
12. Mean Streets (1973)
Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is where modern gangster cinema found its raw, bleeding heart. Set in New York’s Little Italy, it follows Charlie (Harvey Keitel), torn between ambition, faith, and loyalty to his volatile friend Johnny Boy (a fiery Robert De Niro). Catholic guilt collides with mob violence in a gritty portrait of crime’s corrosive grip. In a nutshell, Mean Streets is a baptism in blood and betrayal.
11. Eastern Promises (2007)
David Cronenberg trades body horror for moral terror in Eastern Promises, a ruthless tale of London’s Russian mob. Viggo Mortensen’s mesmerizing turn as a driver with secrets simmers with menace and quiet dignity. Naomi Watts’s midwife is pulled into the darkness when she uncovers the fate of a trafficked girl. Brutal, haunting, and anchored by the unforgettable bathhouse fight, Eastern Promises is a chilling descent into crime’s cold, unflinching heart. Few modern gangster films cut this deep.
10. Infernal Affairs (2002)
Before The Departed, there was Infernal Affairs—the Hong Kong thriller that inspired Scorsese’s Oscar-winner. Tony Leung plays a cop deep undercover in the Triads, while Andy Lau is a gangster embedded within the police. What follows is a duel of deception and paranoia. More lean and tragic than its American remake, Infernal Affairs blends gangster grit with existential dread. It’s a psychological thriller that’s also a meditation on identity, loyalty, and the crushing cost of duplicity.
9. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
The Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing is a symphony of betrayal, blood, and booze-soaked honor. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan, a sharp consigliere caught in a Prohibition-era gang war between Irish and Italian factions. With shadow-drenched cinematography and John Turturro’s unforgettable plea—“Look in your heart!”—the film transcends gangster tropes, weaving a tale of shifting loyalties and moral compromise. Equal parts cerebral and brutal, Miller’s Crossing is a brooding masterpiece of noir fatalism wrapped in classic wit.
8. City of God (2002)
Explosive, relentless, and heartbreaking, City of God hurls viewers into the violent favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Spanning decades, it charts the rise of ruthless drug lords and the shattered innocence of those trapped in poverty’s grip. The film is both a blistering gangster saga and a searing social critique. Violence here isn’t stylish; it’s survival. Few crime epics burn with this much urgency, despair, and cinematic bravado.
7. Scarface (1983)
Brian De Palma’s Scarface isn’t subtle…it’s a volcanic eruption of excess, ambition, and annihilation. Al Pacino’s Tony Montana claws his way from Cuban refugee to Miami’s cocaine kingpin, living and dying by the mantra “The World Is Yours.” Fueled by paranoia, violence, and operatic flair, it’s a cautionary tale disguised as a gangster fantasy. Reviled at first but reborn as pop culture gospel, Scarface endures as both a glittering dream and a blood-soaked nightmare.
6. On the Waterfront (1954)
Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront transcends the gangster genre, but its themes of mob control and corruption make it a towering entry. Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy—once a boxer, now a broken dockworker—faces down a brutal union boss in a fight for redemption. With blistering performances, the classic film is a moral showdown of conscience versus corruption. Winner of eight Oscars, this crime story is a timeless howl for justice, integrity, and dignity.
5. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs, a bloody chamber piece of betrayal and mistrust. A simple heist gone wrong becomes a claustrophobic study of paranoia as jewel thieves, known only by colors, turn on each other in a warehouse soaked with suspicion and blood. Brutal, witty, and bristling with razor-edged dialogue, Tarantino’s debut redefined indie cinema. Well, Reservoir Dogs is a gangster film stripped bare—stylized violence and moral rot, boiled down to its explosive core.
4. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Sergio Leone’s swan song, Once Upon a Time in America, is a haunting elegy to friendship, betrayal, and lost innocence. Following Jewish gangsters Noodles (Robert De Niro) and Max (James Woods) from boyhood to old age, it spans decades of crime and regret. Initially butchered on release, its restored version reveals an operatic masterpiece—dreamlike, mournful, and unflinchingly tragic. Leone turns the gangster saga into myth, a grand, aching meditation on memory, ambition, and the cost of loyalty.
3. The Godfather Part II (1974)
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II expands the saga with a breathtaking dual narrative: young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) rises in early 20th-century New York, while his son Michael (Al Pacino) consolidates power decades later. The result is both prequel and sequel, a tragic cycle of ambition and betrayal. Cinematic grandeur collides with intimate devastation, painting the Corleone dynasty as both empire and tomb. It’s certainly more than a follow up, The Godfather Part II is one of the greatest films ever made.
2. Goodfellas (1990)
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” With that line, Scorsese’s Goodfellas grips us and never lets go. Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill narrates a whirlwind rise through the Mafia, alongside Joe Pesci’s explosive volatility and Robert De Niro’s icy menace. From glamor to collapse, it’s a kinetic portrait of crime’s seduction and ruin. Scorsese directs with furious energy, birthing a film as influential as The Godfather yet uniquely street-level in grit.
1. The Godfather (1972)
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a cultural cornerstone. Charting the Corleone family’s empire, it transforms crime into Shakespearean tragedy. Marlon Brando’s weary Vito and Al Pacino’s chilling Michael create an operatic tale of power, family, and corruption. It changed Hollywood forever, elevating the gangster film into high art. More than half a century later, The Godfather remains untouchable: the ultimate gangster movie, and perhaps the greatest film ever made.
