Top 40 Gangster Movies of All Time, Ranked

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jim Broadbent

Release Date: 2002

Box Office: $77.81M

IMDb Score: 7.5

Metacritic Score: 72

RT Tomatometer: 72

RT Audience Score: 81

Final Score: 75

No ranking of gangster films would be complete without an entry or two from director Martin Scorsese — and our list won't disappoint. Gangs of New York was a passion project for Scorsese, with the beloved filmmaker first attempting to make this gangland epic back in the 1970s. He finally got it made 30 years later, with the final film costing around $103 million — including $7 million of his and star Leonardo DiCaprio's own money. It was clearly worth the wait: Gangs of New York earned ten Oscar nods after its much-anticipated release.

Director: Guy Ritchie

Stars: Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham, Vinnie Jones

Release Date: 2000

Box Office: $30.33M

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 55

RT Tomatometer: 74

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 76

Guy Ritchie cashed in on his Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels success by bagging a bigger budget and bigger stars for his second gangland flick. This time around, Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro, and a host of other big-name actors have a ball in a violent, sweary, and hilarious frolic through London's dark underbelly. The critics were mixed on this one, but audiences have absolutely lapped it up. It's ranked as the 118th-best movie of all time by IMDb users.

Director: Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez

Stars: Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba

Release Date: 2005

Box Office: $74.10M

IMDb Score: 8

Metacritic Score: 74

RT Tomatometer: 77

RT Audience Score: 78

Our Score: 77.25

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller went to extreme lengths to bring Miller's down-and-dirty graphic novels to the big screen. Rodriguez even resigned from his union so that he could share credit with his comic-creator co-director. And it seems that audiences were thrilled with their efforts. People have certainly embraced this noir-inflected telling of four inter-connected stories — its impressive 8.0 rating on IMDb is proof of that — and critics liked it, too. Roger Ebert even called it “brilliant” and awarded it top marks.

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Stars: Daniel Craig, Sienna Miller, Michael Gambon, Tom Hardy

Release Date: 2004

Box Office: $2.34M

IMDb Score: 7.3

Metacritic Score: 73

RT Tomatometer: 80

RT Audience Score: 84

Our Score: 77.5

Would Daniel Craig have become James Bond without Layer Cake? It seems not. Casino Royale director Martin Campbell opted for Craig after the actor “showed such terrific charm in [Layer Cake], it convinced [him] he should get the part.” But over and above Craig's suave performance, this stylized crime movie has been lauded by critics. Newspaper the Houston Chronicle even said it “ranks with the best of the genre.”

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen

Release Date: 2003

Box Office: $70.10M

IMDb Score: 8.1

Metacritic Score: 69

RT Tomatometer: 85

RT Audience Score: 81

Our Score: 79

Quentin Tarantino knows a thing or two about movies, so it's not surprising that he has his own take on gangster films. “In almost all cases, gangster films were sort-of parodies of the American Dream,” he told the American Film Institute in 2009. “They’re the looking glass, the askew bizarre-o world of getting rich in business in America.” So while Kill Bill: Vol. 1 may not be a true-blue gangster flick, there's no denying its gangster credentials. Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii is a Yakuza crime boss, after all, and the film's iconic showdown involved Uma Thurman's The Bride against a horde of 88 Yakuza footmen.

Director: Guy Ritchie

Stars: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham

Release Date: 1998

Box Office: $3.90M

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 66

RT Tomatometer: 75

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 79

We have Tom Cruise to thank for bringing Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to the world's attention. According to producer Matthew Vaughn, the filmmakers managed to persuade Cruise to watch the movie at a buyers' screening. “At the end, Tom got up in front of everyone and said, ‘This is the best movie I’ve seen in years, you guys would be fools not to buy it,’” Vaughn told The Business of Film in 2016. The film then found a distributor, became a hit, and is still much-admired to this day.

Director: Brian De Palma

Stars: Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo

Release Date: 1993

Box Office: $36.95M

IMDb Score: 7.9

Metacritic Score: 65

RT Tomatometer: 81

RT Audience Score: 91

Our Score: 79

People didn't warm to Carlito’s Way when it first came out. It was derided by critics for being a retread of familiar gangster material — particularly as director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino had previously given the world Scarface. But these opinions changed with time, and as early as 2000 Cahiers du Cinema was calling the film one of the best of the 1990s. These days, Carlito’s Way holds its rightful place among the greats of the genre.

Director: Sam Mendes

Stars: Tom Hanks, Tyler Hoechlin, Rob Maxey, Liam Aiken

Release Date: 2002

Box Office: $104.45M

IMDb Score: 7.7

Metacritic Score: 72

RT Tomatometer: 81

RT Audience Score: 86

Our Score: 79

Director Sam Mendes told British newspaper The Guardian in 2002 that Road to Perdition "isn't a conventional gangster story." And it seems this was important for star Tom Hanks as well. "The gangster genre has become the stuff of parody," he said. So the pair wanted to find out whether you could "take out all the iconographic images" of the gangster movie and still have "the genre really stand on its own." The result? An emotionally resonant, carefully considered gangster picture that is beautiful to look at.

Director: David Cronenberg

Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt

Release Date: 2005

Box Office: $31.49M

IMDb Score: 7.4

Metacritic Score: 81

RT Tomatometer: 87

RT Audience Score: 76

Our Score: 79.5

Star Viggo Mortensen certainly likes A History of Violence a lot. “If not the best, it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever been in,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “There’s no such thing as a perfect movie, but in the way that that script was handled, the way it was shot … it’s a perfect film noir movie, or it’s close to perfect I should say.” The critics agreed. Rolling Stone magazine named it the fourth-best movie of the 2000s.

Director: Gareth Evans

Stars: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra, Oka Antara

Release Date: 2014

Box Office: $2.63M

IMDb Score: 7.9

Metacritic Score: 71

RT Tomatometer: 82

RT Audience Score: 87

Our Score: 79.75

Director Gareth Evans wanted to take everything that was great about The Raid: Redemption and take it out "in the streets." The second film in the franchise is bigger and more ambitious — but its action scenes are just as intense. Magazine Total Film said the action-gangster-martial-arts movie hybrid was "unparalleled in recent memory," and its review summed the film up perfectly as "brutal, beautiful, and brilliant." Evans hasn't strayed far from the gangster genre since, either. He co-created the series Gangs of London, currently in its second season on AMC.

Director: Brian De Palma

Stars: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

Release Date: 1983

Box Office: $45.60M

IMDb Score: 8.3

Metacritic Score: 65

RT Tomatometer: 81

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 80.5

"Say hello to my little friend!" "Don't get high on your own supply." "Every dog has his day." "The world, chico, and everything in it." Scarface gave us all of these iconic quotes — and many more that are unfit to print here. It is in many ways a quintessentially 1980s movie, but its incredible style and Al Pacino's bravura lead performance made it extremely influential. Expect some celebrations when the movie turns 40 years old in 2023.

Director: Ridley Scott

Stars: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Josh Brolin

Release Date: 2007

Box Office: $130.16M

IMDb Score: 7.8

Metacritic Score: 76

RT Tomatometer: 80

RT Audience Score: 89

Our Score: 80.75

It took seven years to get American Gangster made — and even then producer Brian Grazer called it "a miracle." This is, after all, a throwback gangster movie that cost $100 million to make. Director Ridley Scott told Entertainment Weekly, "It's like a 2007 French Connection in a way, with a little bit of The Godfather rolled in." The main appeal, though, is seeing Hollywood heavyweights Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe going head-to-head as men on opposite sides of the law. They don't disappoint.

Director: Gareth Evans

Stars: Iko Uwais, Ananda George, Ray Sahetapy, Donny Alamsyah

Release Date: 2011

Box Office: $4.11M

IMDb Score: 7.6

Metacritic Score: 73

RT Tomatometer: 87

RT Audience Score: 87

Our Score: 80.75

Roger Ebert didn't think much of The Raid: Redemption — calling it "a visualized video game" in his one-star review. But the movie's fans instantly pushed back against his take, so much so that Ebert later wrote a defense of his feelings about the flick. The critic admitted that he was "out of step" with everybody — and that is undeniably true. Others praised the movie as a "superb martial arts film," and audiences couldn't get enough of it. Both movies in the Raid franchise feature on this list, after all.

Director: Clint Eastwood

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley, Ahney Her

Release Date: 2008

Box Office: $148.10M

IMDb Score: 8.1

Metacritic Score: 72

RT Tomatometer: 81

RT Audience Score: 90

Our Score: 81

It tells you something about the power of a movie when 774,000 people rate it on IMDB to give it an astounding 8.1 score. That puts Gran Torino as the 169th-best movie of all time, according to the site's users. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is similarly high at 90 percent — a full 9 percentage points higher than the critics' score. It's probably not surprising, then, to learn that Gran Torino was a big hit. It earned $274 million at the worldwide box office — and a further $66 million in home video sales.

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro, Marcia Gay Harden

Release Date: 1990

Box Office: $5.08M

IMDb Score: 7.7

Metacritic Score: 66

RT Tomatometer: 93

RT Audience Score: 90

Our Score: 81.5

“You always see gangsters in the street, but you never see them in a forest.” This was the filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen's inspiration to make Miller’s Crossing. But it's fair to say that they took the image of "the incongruity of urban gangsters in a forest setting" to a whole new level of intrigue and excitement. But what everybody really wants to know is, what is the significance of the hat? “The hat doesn’t ‘represent’ anything,” Ethan told French movie magazine Positif in 1991. “It’s just a hat blown by the wind.” Yeah. Right.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods

Release Date: 1995

Box Office: $42.44M

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 73

RT Tomatometer: 79

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 81.75

Most people would argue that Casino — the other gangster film directed by Martin Scorsese, based on a true story, and starring Robert De Niro — is not as good as Goodfellas. But some have passionately argued that Casino is actually the better film... We'll leave you to decide which one you like better! What can't be debated, though, is that Casino is an epic crime movie fit to be named alongside all these other gangster classics.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks

Release Date: 2011

Box Office: $35.06M

IMDb Score: 7.8

Metacritic Score: 78

RT Tomatometer: 93

RT Audience Score: 79

Our Score: 82

Carey Mulligan said that her performance in Drive consisted of "staring longingly at Ryan Gosling for hours each day." And that's kind of what it's like to watch the finished film, too! But all those longing glances during Mulligan and Gosling's scenes in Drive are interspersed with thrilling action, devastating violence, and a high-stakes storyline involving cutthroat gangsters. It is, in short, a cult classic worthy of the genre.

Director: Brian De Palma

Stars: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Charles Martin Smith

Release Date: 1987

Box Office: $76.27M

IMDb Score: 7.9

Metacritic Score: 79

RT Tomatometer: 82

RT Audience Score: 89

Our Score: 82.25

Robert De Niro was so committed to the part of Al Capone in The Untouchables that he took the time to gain 30 pounds for the film. He did this by having a mountain of pancakes for breakfast every day. "He's very concerned about the shape of his face," director De Palma told newspaper the Chicago Tribune. Yet after the film came out, it was Sean Connery who walked away with the only acting Oscar. “The purity and truthfulness of the character itself made it stand out to me,” Connery told Entertainment Weekly of his role.

Director: Mike Newell

Stars: Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Michael Madsen, Bruno Kirby

Release Date: 1997

Box Office: $41.91M

IMDb Score: 7.7

Metacritic Score: 76

RT Tomatometer: 88

RT Audience Score: 89

Our Score: 82.5

In 2017 magazine Little White Lies argued that Donnie Brasco was the "last truly great mob flick." The magazine even claimed that the film "remains one of the finest gangster movies of its generation" and "deserves to sit alongside Goodfellas at the pinnacle of the genre." Not everybody agrees, of course — Goodfellas has notably not appeared so far in our ranking — but it's abundantly clear that Donnie Brasco is no fugazi.

Director: David Cronenberg

Stars: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Josef Altin

Release Date: 2007

Box Office: $17.11M

IMDb Score: 7.6

Metacritic Score: 82

RT Tomatometer: 89

RT Audience Score: 83

Our Score: 82.5

If anybody ever asked you to name the best naked fight scene in a movie, one eminently suitable answer is the brutal sequence in Eastern Promises. Roger Ebert said this bath house-set scuffle "will be referred to as a benchmark" for movie fights for years to come. Star Viggo Mortensen called it "slippery, painful, embarrassing," and "awkward and vulnerable." But then he did receive an Oscar nod for his performance, so we don't think he's complaining.

Director: Sergio Leone

Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams

Release Date: 1984

Box Office: $5.32M

IMDb Score: 8.3

Metacritic Score: 75

RT Tomatometer: 87

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 84.5

Gangster movies can be long and epic in scope — but Once Upon a Time in America is the longest and most epic of them all. The version you can currently watch on Showtime and Apple TV is a staggering 3 hours and 49 minutes long — but it wasn't always that way. When the film was first released in America, it had been cut to just 2 hours and 19 minutes by its nervous studio. The result was a critical and commercial failure, so an extended version was later put out and warmly received. But it took a staggering 30 years for director Sergio Leone's original version to find its way into our homes.

Director: Edgar Wright 

Stars: Ansel Elgort, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Eiza González

Release Date: 2017

Box Office: $107.83M

IMDb Score: 7.6

Metacritic Score: 86

RT Tomatometer: 92

RT Audience Score: 86

Our Score: 85

You wouldn't expect a film with the title Baby Driver to be included in a ranking of great gangster movies. The Guardian even argued that the movie sounded more like a sequel to the animated kids' film The Boss Baby than a heist flick. But while your mileage may vary on the title, Baby Driver is actually a unique "splicing of crime thriller and jukebox musical." It delivers action set-pieces galore and some incredible car chases — and really, what else could you ask for?

Director: Arthur Penn 

Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman

Release Date: 1967

Box Office: n/a

IMDb Score: 7.7

Metacritic Score: 86

RT Tomatometer: 89

RT Audience Score: 88

Our Score: 85

In some ways, Bonnie and Clyde marked a turning point in American cinema. Critics have argued that this gangster flick about outlaw bank robbers ushered in a new era of movie violence. Time magazine even put the movie on its cover in 1968 alongside the article, “The New Cinema: Violence ... Sex ... Art.” Audiences loved it at the time — it made $70 million at the worldwide box office — and it still packs a punch today.

Director: Michael Mann

Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight

Release Date: 1995

Box Office: $67.44M

IMDb Score: 8.3

Metacritic Score: 76

RT Tomatometer: 88

RT Audience Score: 94

Our Score: 85.25

Heat got a much-anticipated sequel in 2022 — albeit in book form. But fans of the movie — and there are a lot of them — need not despair, because director Michael Mann has announced that he's going to turn the book into a movie soon. One person we know will be very interested to hear this is the real-life French gangster Redoine Faid. The bank robber apparently watched Heat on repeat to learn how to go about stealing money. He once even told Mann, "You were my technical adviser."

Director: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

Stars: Andy Lau, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Eric Tsang

Release Date: 2002

Box Office: $0.17M

IMDb Score: 8

Metacritic Score: 75

RT Tomatometer: 94

RT Audience Score: 95

Our Score: 86

If you love The Departed but haven't seen Infernal Affairs, your weekend watchlist needs to be updated ASAP. Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime epic is a remake of Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs. And the makers of the original believe theirs is the movie you'll enjoy the most. "Of course, I think the version I made is better, but the Hollywood version is pretty good too," co-director Andrew Lau told Apple Daily in 2006. "[Scorsese] made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture." Shots fired.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn

Release Date: 1992

Box Office: $2.83M

IMDb Score: 8.3

Metacritic Score: 79

RT Tomatometer: 89

RT Audience Score: 94

Our Score: 86.25

Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut caused people to walk out of the theater during its original run. "It happens at every single screening," Tarantino told newspaper The Seatle Times in 1992. "For some people, the violence, or the rudeness of the language, is a mountain they can't climb." It's no surprise, then, that the movie has a long-lasting legacy. In fact, Reservoir Dogs is getting a full 4K restoration for its 30th anniversary in November 2022.

Director: Bryan Singer

Stars: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin

Release Date: 1995

Box Office: $23.34M

IMDb Score: 8.5

Metacritic Score: 77

RT Tomatometer: 89

RT Audience Score: 96

Our Score: 86.75

It's not easy to rewatch The Usual Suspects in 2022. The director and one of the main stars have both been accused of predatory conduct — and it's even been alleged that some of that behavior took place behind the scenes of this film. But if you can separate real life from entertainment, you will likely still find much to enjoy in this highly-praised crime saga. And people are not likely to forget the first time they saw that twisty ending.

Director: Robert De Niro

Stars: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Brancato, Francis Capra

Release Date: 1993

Box Office: $17.27M

IMDb Score: 7.8

Metacritic Score: 80

RT Tomatometer: 97

RT Audience Score: 93

Our Score: 87

Robert De Niro has only stepped behind the camera twice in his career so far. But it seems that when he got the chance to bring Chazz Palminteri's A Bronx Tale to the big screen, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. “This is one of the greatest one-man shows I’ve ever seen, if not the greatest,” he apparently told Palminteri after watching the play. He added, “This is a movie, this is an incredible movie.” And the critics agreed: Roger Ebert gave it the full four stars in his review.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson

Release Date: 1973

Box Office: $3.13M

IMDb Score: 7.2

Metacritic Score: 96

RT Tomatometer: 96

RT Audience Score: 84

Our Score: 87

Mean Streets only came out a year after The Godfather, yet its depictions of street-level gangsters couldn't be more different than the kind featured in Francis Ford Coppola's epic. The wise guys here don't have philosophies or grand ambitions — they're just out in their neighborhoods making their livings. And in its depictions of everyday gangsters, Mean Streets proved to be just as influential as its loftier counterpoint. Without it, you wouldn't get countless other TV shows and movies — including ones featured elsewhere on this list.

Director: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund

Stars: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Matheus Nachtergaele, Phellipe Haagensen

Release Date: 2002

Box Office: $7.56M

IMDb Score: 8.6

Metacritic Score: 79

RT Tomatometer: 91

RT Audience Score: 97

Our Score: 88.25

Directors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund strove for authenticity with City of God — and the result is on the screen for all to see. Most of the people in the movie were, for example, not actors but residents of the slum where the filmmakers shot. The crew even had to hire security guards from the community to ensure they were safe to make their ground-level gangster epic. "Sure, some of them were drug traffickers and whatnot, but nobody was carrying machine guns," actor Alice Braga told The Guardian in 2014.

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson

Release Date: 2007

Box Office: $74.28M

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 92

RT Tomatometer: 93

RT Audience Score: 86

Our Score: 88.25

No Country for Old Men may not sit comfortably inside the gangster genre — but then it doesn't sit comfortably in any genre. The Guardian described it as a "kind of a crime western noir horror comedy" and that is probably as close to right as you're going to get. The thing that really sets this flick apart, though, is the villain: Anton Chigurh. He kills people in such unusual ways — with a cattle prod and a bolt gun — that he is chilling and fascinating to behold. The movie walked away with four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel

Release Date: 2019

Box Office: $7.00M

IMDb Score: 7.8

Metacritic Score: 94

RT Tomatometer: 95

RT Audience Score: 86

Our Score: 88.25

The names Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino appear all over this ranking, but there's only one gangster movie involving all of them: The Irishman. It had been in development in some shape or form since the 1980s, but it finally got made — on an astounding $160 million+ budget — in 2019 thanks to Netflix. The streamer was the only studio in Hollywood willing to spend that kind of money to make a three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic. But the gamble paid off: the film is now regarded as one of the best in the genre.

Director: George Roy Hill

Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning

Release Date: 1973

Box Office: $159.60M

IMDb Score: 8.3

Metacritic Score: 83

RT Tomatometer: 92

RT Audience Score: 95

Our Score: 88.25

If you were ranking top gangster films by their adjusted box office totals, The Sting would be at number one. It raked in an outstanding $156 million in 1973 — $20 million more than even The Godfather— and that translates to $835 million in 2022 money. The movie did, after all, reunite director George Roy Hill with his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid stars, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and it was a critical hit, too. Variety particularly praised its “outstanding direction” and its “finely crafted story.”

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg

Release Date: 2006

Box Office: $132.38M

IMDb Score: 8.5

Metacritic Score: 85

RT Tomatometer: 90

RT Audience Score: 94

Our Score: 88.5

Martin Scorsese has been making movies since the 1960s, and everybody in the business was wondering when he was finally going to win an Oscar for Best Director. People have argued he should have got one for Taxi Driver or Raging Bull or Goodfellas or any number of his classic films. But of the nine Best Director nominations the filmmaker has earned, he's only ever walked away with the golden statuette once — for The Departed. Who knew the academy was just waiting for a cuss-filled, violent epic about the Irish mob?

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yôko Tsukasa

Release Date: 1961

Box Office: n/a

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 93

RT Tomatometer: 95

RT Audience Score: 96

Our Score: 91.5

Japanese director Akira Kurosawa is an international moviemaking icon. Seven Samurai is possibly his most famous film, but for our purposes, Yojimbo is the one to watch. The tale of a lone samurai wandering into town to get the better of rival gangs has influenced many movies since. You can feel it in Sergio Leone's renowned Spaghetti Westerns, in modern movies such as John Wick, and even in the Star Wars universe. But Yojimbo will always be the original — and the best.

Director: Billy Wilder

Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft

Release Date: 1959

Box Office: $25.00M

IMDb Score: 8.2

Metacritic Score: 98

RT Tomatometer: 94

RT Audience Score: 94

Our Score: 92

Who says gangster films can't be funny? The main characters in Some Like It Hot are, remember, on the run because they witness a gangland murder. There's even a whole sequence where mobsters chase our dragged-up duo through a hotel. But it is, of course, always going to be remembered for two things: being a near-perfect comedy and Marilyn Monroe. Oh, and maybe for that final line of dialog as well!

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco

Release Date: 1990

Box Office: $46.84M

IMDb Score: 8.7

Metacritic Score: 90

RT Tomatometer: 96

RT Audience Score: 97

Our Score: 92.5

Henry Hill in Goodfellas might have wanted to be a gangster ever since he could remember — but after watching this film, the audience would surely disagree. Goodfellas takes every movie myth about the glamor of the mafia and completely turns it on its head. Sure, the first half shows why someone might long for the life, but all that style and romance soon slips away. Goodfellas shows that violence is shocking, honor between thieves is non-existent, and the downfall of its heroes is inevitable. Funny how?

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Stars: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis

Release Date: 1994

Box Office: $107.93M

IMDb Score: 8.9

Metacritic Score: 94

RT Tomatometer: 92

RT Audience Score: 96

Our Score: 92.75

Movie director Howard Hawks apparently once said that a quality film is one that has “three good scenes” and “no bad scenes.” And by that definition, Pulp Fiction more than passes the test. Just think about the number of times you've talked about that dance-off in Jackrabbit Slim's, or that “royale with cheese” exchange or that “watch” monologue from Christopher Walken. There’s a reason Pulp Fiction influenced the direction of the film industry for years to come. It’s simply that good.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

Release Year: 1974

Box Office: $57.30M

IMDb Score: 9

Metacritic Score: 90

RT Tomatometer: 96

RT Audience Score: 97

Our Score: 93.25

It all comes down to that age-old debate: which is better, The Godfather or The Godfather: Part II? Well, if you believe director Francis Ford Coppola, it doesn't really matter because they're both parts of the same tale. He told newspaper the Los Angeles Times in 1974 that the makers were “amplifying” The Godfather and creating “a true continuation of the story” with Part II. The film certainly continued the success of its predecessor, earning six Oscars, a $57 million domestic box office haul, and delivering another slew of iconic lines.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton

Release Year: 1972

Box Office: $134.97M

IMDb Score: 9.2

Metacritic Score: 100

RT Tomatometer: 97

RT Audience Score: 98

Our Score: 96.75

There's no escaping it: The Godfather truly is the best movie in the gangster genre. There's really not much more to be said, is there? It’s generally agreed by both critics and audiences that The Godfather is probably the best American movie ever made — in any genre — and its influence is felt not only in Hollywood but in life itself. When it comes to mob pictures, every other flick sleeps with the fishes.