10 Best Gangster Movies About Revenge

1 week ago 6

Published Jun 16, 2026, 5:42 PM EDT

Jeremy has more than 2600 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.
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Sure, there are plenty of great gangster movies that aren’t strictly about revenge, and some where people might want to strike back in vengeance against someone, but can’t. Goodfellas is a good example of this, regarding one murder that happens and affects some of the characters, but that’s a grounded look at life in the mafia, and those despondent about something they see as a personal tragedy kind of just have to sit by and take it.

There are also other gangster movies that have more of a focus on internal conflict, and have lives falling apart because of personal faults, with revenge not necessarily a focus (see The Godfather trilogy and probably also Scarface). As for great gangster movies that are about revenge? You’ve got the following ones. They're not the only ones, by any metric, but they're all very good gangster movies (or films that are largely about organized crime in one way or another), and all films that have revenge playing a fairly central role in the main narrative.

10 'Dead Man's Shoes' (2004)

Paddy Considine as Richard and Toby Kebbell as Anthony leaning on a fence Dead Man's Shoes

Dead Man’s Shoes lacks in cheeriness and then some, the way you'd probably expect from a movie with such a title. It really does go the extra mile, though, perhaps being more of a downbeat psychological thriller than it is a gangster movie in the traditional sense, though the people the central character is pursuing are gangsters, or at least members of a gang of organized criminals, so it counts for present purposes.

Those gangsters have been treating the main character’s brother poorly, which motivates him to sort them out in violent ways, which leads to a whole slippery slope – and overall remarkably messy – situation. Dead Man’s Shoes is a real feel-bad movie, and one of the more intense British gangster films out there… maybe one of the better ones, too, so long as you don’t mind watching something that’ll probably ruin your day, should you be having a more or less good one before sitting down to watch a film.

9 'The Sting' (1973)

Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) pretends to read a newspaper as he spies around a train station while Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) peers at him from behind in 'The Sting' (1973).

On the other side of things to Dead Man’s Shoes, The Sting is actually probably about as fun and “lightweight” as a gangster movie about revenge can be. Also, you do have to squint a little if you want to count it as a gangster film, since the main characters aren’t really wrapped up in that kind of lifestyle, and it’s more the case that they're going after a mob boss, having a creative way to make him pay for a particular murder that hit too close to home.

They're con men, sure, but they're up against more ruthless criminals who have proper mob/gangster ties, so the protagonists of The Sting look particularly heroic in comparison (and their motivation is understandable). The revenge pursued here also differs from the majority of crime movies about vengeance, since the con they want this mobster to fall into involves making him suffer in ways that don’t necessarily involve further violent acts.

8 'Get Carter' (1971)

Get Carter is an early Michael Caine movie, being one of his defining roles overall, playing the titular Jack Carter, who’s out for revenge after the murder of his brother. He’s a gangster as well, and so he already knows the sorts of leads to follow when it comes to tracking down the people responsible for his brother’s death, though that journey ends up being a complicated one, the way quests for vengeance so often do in movies like this (and just movies generally, really).

It could be a surprise to watch it if you're more used to Caine’s gentler 21st-century roles, since he’s given plenty of opportunities to be quite intimidating here.

It ends up being pretty tough and brutal for a film of its age, working well as a thriller on top of being a gangster film. Get Carter also utilizes Michael Caine rather perfectly, though it could be a surprise to watch it if you're more used to Caine’s gentler 21st-century roles, since he’s given plenty of opportunities to be quite intimidating here. Undoubtedly, he more than rises to the occasion, in this regard.

7 'The Big Heat' (1953)

Glenn Ford looking at Gloria Grahame sitting in The Big Heat.

A classic and overall pretty great film noir movie about organized crime and – to some extent – revenge, The Big Heat is solid stuff for a movie of its age, and does indeed move well pacing-wise (the 90-minute runtime helps, in this regard). Basically, it’s about a police officer who takes on the monumental task of fighting back against a very powerful criminal organization, motivated more to do so because he believes they might be responsible for the recent death of another officer.

It’s got a fight-fire-with-fire narrative that’s compelling on a moral front, since it does a little more to break down the barrier between organized crime and the “right” side of the law than plenty of other crime-related movies from around the time. Being a film noir, there is still some inevitability to parts of The Big Heat, and certain ways the movie sort of “has” to play out, based on how movies were made back then. Still, it keeps the suspense high regardless, and can count itself among the best films Fritz Lang directed after he left Germany and started making English-language productions in the U.S.

6 'Road to Perdition' (2002)

John Rooney (Paul Newman) stands wearing a hat and suit in the pouring rain as he stands by a car in 'Road to Perdition' (2002)

Technically, Road to Perdition could count itself as a comic book movie, since it’s a film adaptation of a graphic novel series, albeit it’s one of the more intense and non-comic book-y of all the comic book movies. It’s about a mob enforcer seeking vengeance for the murder of two of his family members, which he does alongside his one surviving son, with his target being another mobster.

There’s also a cycle of revenge going on here, with violent acts motivating further violent acts, and very little seemingly getting solved all the while. It’s grim stuff, but it’s also compelling, thanks to how well it’s shot and acted. Road to Perdition ends up being effortlessly intense for much of its runtime, and also more emotionally resonant and impactful overall than your average gangster movie.

5 'Gangs of New York' (2002)

Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio share a close conversation in Gangs of New York

Another 2002 release (and there’s going to be one more later on, since it was apparently a weirdly good year for gangster movies about revenge), here’s Gangs of New York, which is one of a handful of Martin Scorsese films about organized crime. It might also be his most epic gangster film, at least in the traditional sense, since there’s even more by way of extravagant production design and ambition than you get in (the admittedly longer) likes of The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Since it’s an epic, there is more going on here than just one man’s quest to avenge his murdered father, but that is the central narrative in Gangs of New York. And it thankfully makes for a mostly compelling one, largely thanks to Daniel Day-Lewis making for such a great antagonist. Beyond that, plenty of the things going on more in the background are interesting as well, with a rather remarkable cast given plenty to do across a runtime that nears three hours all up.

4 'Point Blank' (1967)

Lee Marvin as Walker holding a gun and looking down at something in the film Point Blank

If you ask most film fans about the 1970s, and how the decade was for cinema, you're probably going to hear mostly positive things. That was the time of the New Hollywood movement, though it did very much get underway in the back half of the 1960s, with 1967 being an especially impactful year for American movies. Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate tend to get the most attention, but Point Blank definitely deserves some, too.

Point Blank revolves around a man being double-crossed, and then setting out to right the wrongs committed against him, and take back a large amount of cash that was stolen from him. This conflict involves organized crime, also kicking off on Alcatraz Island, quite memorably, and then gets steadily messier and more violent the longer it goes on, because of course it does. All the while, Point Blank remains very stylish, not to mention bold and offbeat for a film of its time (except for those other boundary-pushing movies that also came out in 1967, admittedly).

3 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover' (1989)

Of the four people alluded to in the title of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, three are primarily wrapped up in some kind of cycle of revenge. The one who isn't, the cook, oversees the restaurant where much of the movie takes place, and he is eventually used by one person for some elaborate revenge. But before then, it’s mostly about the thief, his wife, and her lover.

The thief is more of a gangster, and he’s an absolutely horrible one, subjecting just about everyone at the restaurant to various kinds of torment, but his wife gets the worst treatment, so she strikes out at him by having an affair. Things get messy when he finds out, which gets violent, and then there’s further violence to repay some of his violence. It’s a disturbing nightmare of a movie, in the end, but also an incredibly compelling one, so long as you’ve got a sufficiently strong stomach.

2 'Gangs of Wasseypur' (2012)

10 years on from City of God, Gangs of Wasseypur proved to be another gangster movie largely about revenge that also happened to feel epic, but here, the runtime was genuinely epic-length. There are two parts to Gangs of Wasseypur, with both of them being over 2.5 hours long, so you get a film that’s close to 5.5 hours all up, with both parts being essential to understand the whole wild story (and since both parts were released in 2012, Gangs of Wasseypur is being considered as the one film here).

It takes place over a handful of generations, and approximately 70 years all up, with the story mostly concerning two crime families who are engaged in a drawn-out and bloody conflict, with the family given the most attention (don’t call them heroes) being the severe underdogs. It’s an absolutely relentless, sometimes darkly funny, and almost always unpredictable gangster epic that gleefully leaps around between various genres, and really might well be one of the absolute best gangster movies of the century so far.

1 'City of God' (2002)

Two Black men with guns in City of God - 2002

While it doesn’t have the most epic of runtimes, clocking in at a bit over two hours, City of God still has the feel of an epic movie, just because of how much it covers time-wise and also when it comes to various characters. Things do jump around a lot, but never in a way that feels confusing. The pacing here is excellent, and anything that feels a bit jarring or sudden in the moment is eventually given sufficient context, and revealed to meaningfully add up to the overall whole that is this movie.

It’s about various people living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, with some thriving in the system of organized crime that dominates life there, some falling victim to all the crime around them, and others trying to escape that kind of lifestyle. A good deal of City of God deals with revenge, since there are many deaths and people wanting to avenge such deaths, and a good deal of the chaotic jumping around between different characters ultimately highlights a complex, confusing, and tragic cycle of violence/vengeance.