10 Best Gangster Movies in Film History

Image via Warner Bros. Published Aug 13, 2026, 5:09 PM EDT Jeremy has more than 2700 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows. His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings). When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account. He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas. Sign in to your Collider account It’s neat to realize just how many of the best movies of all time happen to belong to the gangster genre. The “crime” genre, broadly speaking, might well be the best-represented genre if you're looking at a fairly safe and straightforward “X Best Movies of All Time” ranking, and then of those crime movies, a particularly large number seem to focus on organized crime in one way or another. So, looking at the whole range of gangster movies from the history of film, you’ve got a lot of good ones to pick from, and any attempt to select a handful of the very best will lead to some omissions. There will be omissions below, but then at the same time, quite a few that are commonly regarded as the best gangster movies of all time… plenty of non-surprises. But, to start with, maybe a few that are either a little underrated or lesser-known in general. 10 'Miller's Crossing' (1990) Image via 20th Century Fox To start off with something a bit underrated, here’s Miller’s Crossing, though it is admittedly the kind of film where just about all the people who have checked it out have unanimously positive things to say. It’s also picked up a bit more steam popularity-wise since 1990, because it potentially got overshadowed by some other more high-profile gangster-ish movies that happened to come out that year. The one about the fellas who are good will be mentioned later, while 1990 also saw the release of The Godfather Part III, King of New York, and Boiling Point, among others. With Miller’s Crossing, it’s about the escalation of a personal conflict that’s also part of a larger gang war, with a fair few interesting characters juggled throughout, and some typically great writing and directing from the Coen Brothers pretty much in their prime (or at least very close to it). 9 'White Heat' (1949) Image via Warner Bros. Pictures White Heat feels about as intense and heavy-going as a movie could get in 1949, since you could only push boundaries when it came to violence and other things so far, at that time (at least in America). This was also a time when gangster movies were surprisingly popular, with a few from the previous decade technically being pre-Hays Code, but most of them throughout the 1930s – and then all during the 1940s – were restricted by the rules attached to that code. Again, though, White Heat goes right up to the line, and carries with it a certain ferocity that still packs at least a bit of a punch all these decades later. As such, it’s worth highlighting as the best of the best classic/old-school gangster movies, and it was perhaps the best crime movie of its kind until New Hollywood rolled around and a fair few gangster movies of that whole era ended up pushing the sub-genre further still. 8 'Battles Without Honor and Humanity' (1973) Image via Toei The most obscure gangster movie here will be Battles Without Honor and Humanity, which kicked off the series of the same name, and technically stands as a yakuza movie, if you want to define that as something separate from other gangster movies. But the yakuza is to Japan what the mafia is to… uh, other countries that the mafia operates in. It’s hard to pin down the mafia to one area. It's best just experienced as something visceral or emotional rather than completely followable the way a more traditional movie might be. Anyway, Battles Without Honor and Humanity is the first and best movie in the series of the same name, and is a massively chaotic film that just throws you in the deep end and challenges you to keep up with the complicated gang war being fought throughout. No one’s safe at any point, and it’s best just experienced as something visceral or emotional rather than completely followable the way a more traditional movie might be. It’s like a roller-coaster that’s guaranteed to mess up your neck and/or lower back at some point, owing to how fast and jerky it is, but in a good way. 7 'Scarface' (1983) Image via Universal Pictures Few movies from the 1980s feel like they exemplify the decade in question quite like Scarface, which is so heightened and stylized, but in a way that really fits what the movie’s going for narratively and emotionally. It pushes the rise-and-fall narratives found in old-school gangster movies to the limit (heh), being almost three hours long and therefore dedicating a lot of time to the rise before going all out in depicting a rather explosive fall. You’ve got Brian De Palma at his least restrained, Al Pacino at his most over-the-top, and Oliver Stone at his least subtle, plus everyone else giving the thing at least 110%, so Scarface does feel sufficiently huge. It’s almost too much, or too exhausting, but goes right up to the line and gleefully dances on it without ever quite crossing it. It’s just great. 6 'Pulp Fiction' (1994) Image via Miramax Films Pulp Fiction does feel like a borderline gangster movie, because it’s more about people who are tied to a gangster named Marsellus Wallace, who’s a supporting character, and the way his whole organization is run isn't really the focus. Instead, it’s about two hitmen who have a job spiral out of control, one of those same hitmen taking Wallace’s wife out for one night that spirals out of control, and a boxer betraying Wallace and having his life – you guessed it – spiral out of control. The chaos here is a good deal of fun, thanks to Pulp Fiction also being a very strong dark comedy, and it’s also admirable just how unpredictable it’s willing to get throughout its runtime. Part of that’s thanks to the non-chronological storytelling, which Quentin Tarantino has done in other movies of his, sure, but probably never quite as effectively, nor as interestingly, as he did that sort of thing here, in Pulp Fiction. 5 'City of God' (2002) Image via Lumière With a focus on younger characters, City of God works as a coming-of-age movie, at least at first, with it then shifting to more of a gangster film after its first act or so. Plenty of the main characters are kids at first, and they still find their lives shaped by organized crime in some ways, but things intensify when the movie jumps forward some years, and those kids are now teenagers/young adults. City of God is about different people feeling different ways about the environment they're within, at the risk of oversimplifying things. Some endeavor to become fearsome gangsters, while others try to leave that kind of life behind them, even if escaping from the titular “city of God” proves challenging. All the while, everything is very fast-paced and unpredictable, though chaotic in a way that never fully spirals out of control, or becomes too messy. 4 'Once Upon a Time in America' (1984) Image via Warner Bros. Once Upon a Time in America is an even bigger and more ambitious gangster epic from the 1980s than Scarface, though the tone here is very different, and it’s overall darker. Scarface is very dark in its own way, but with some bombast and style that makes it fun, even if it’s a tragedy in the classic sense, while Once Upon a Time in America is a more challenging and genuinely confronting kind of sad/despairing. The characters here do unspeakable things, and unlike some other dark gangster movies, there isn't even really much by way of a code for the criminals to abide by. No honor among the non-criminals, and not much honor among the criminals/thieves, either. Somehow, Once Upon a Time in America is also beautiful, at least in terms of how it’s shot and scored, but thematically, it is an intentionally ugly and oftentimes haunting watch. 3 'The Godfather' (1972) Image via Paramount Pictures As warned about before, things are going to get very predictable with this top 3 now, if you didn’t already think the top 7 was filled with usual suspects. With that acknowledged and reiterated, here is The Godfather, which is one of those almost clichéd picks for “best movie of all time,” though it really is good enough to be a contender, and there’s probably only one other epic-length gangster movie that tops it. More on that one shortly. For now, though, The Godfather, you know? What a movie. What endless praise it’s received. What an already very good novel it somehow improved upon. What a huge number of rankings you’ve probably seen it near the top of. It endures, and does not insist upon itself, contrary to popular belief. It’s the be-all and end-all when it comes to gangster movies, or potentially would be, were it not for two other gangster movies. Speaking of… 2 'The Godfather Part II' (1974) The one approximately three-hour-long gangster movie that possibly tops The Godfather is, of course, The Godfather Part II. Here, it’s being singled out as better because it’s easier to talk about after The Godfather has been talked about. Yeah, the fence is being sat on. These movies are actually equally good, though The Godfather Part II is admittedly more complex, with the way it continues Michael’s story while also exploring Vito’s past. It’s a slower film than The Godfather, but the way the past is contrasted with the film’s present is undeniably effective, and you feel the weight of the whole saga immensely by the time The Godfather Part II concludes. Technically, the whole saga is continued in The Godfather Part III, yet that one is not as essential as the first two. It honestly ain’t too bad, though. Just had insurmountably big shoes to fill, given the reputation the first two movies both have. 1 'Goodfellas' (1990) Image via Warner Bros. Pictures 1990 returns, because here’s Goodfellas, which isn't just the best crime movie of a year that was unusually strong for crime movies, but it might well be the best crime movie ever. Wait, if that’s hyperbolic, how about this: it’s the best gangster movie ever. It is even better than the first two Godfather movies, and that is not something that can be said lightly. It’s a different sort of gangster movie, it has to be acknowledged, since it takes a more grounded look at life in the mafia, and it’s through the perspective of someone who’ll never be a true “made man,” whereas The Godfather movies look at life at the top, so to speak. It’s a very thrilling and always exciting watch, and of the many gangster and/or crime movies Martin Scorsese has directed (like, plenty of his efforts in this whole area are all-timers), none are quite as good as Goodfellas. Goodfellas Release Date September 19, 1990 Runtime 145 minutes