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Some of the greatest gangster movies of all time can’t exactly be called underrated, because the best of the best also happen to get included among the best films (of any genre) of all time. Think titles along the lines of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, as well as any number of Martin Scorsese crime films, including the likes of Goodfellas, Casino, Mean Streets, and The Irishman.
Those movies and various others could be counted as perfect, but there are also some less well-known, more overlooked, or otherwise underrated gangster movies that either achieve perfection, or at least feel near-perfect for what they are. Some of these are included below. Certain ones are decently well-known and deserving of more love, while others are more obscure and just flat-out deserve more recognition, owing to their undeniable quality.
15 'Menace II Society' (1993)
Directed by Allen Hughes and Albert Hughes
Image via New Line Cinema
Menace II Society can be defined as a coming-of-age movie, albeit an exceptionally gritty, downbeat, and emotionally intense one. It follows a young man and those close to him trying to survive a difficult life on the streets of Los Angeles, with some longing for a different kind of life while others make the best of a bad situation, right where they find themselves.
It’s not a film that shies away, by any means, especially when it comes to the level of profanity and the graphicness of its violence. Menace II Society does shock, sure, but it does it with a purpose, all intending to highlight a certain way of life, even if it’s potentially heightened due to it being a movie. There is still a level of authenticity and grit here, and though it’s not an easy watch, it is, ultimately, an important 1990s movie about gang-related crime.
Menace II Society
Release Date May 26, 1993
Director Albert Hughes
Runtime 97 minutes
14 'State of Grace' (1990)
Directed by Phil Joanou
Image via Orion Pictures
Though somewhat obscure, as far as gangster movies go, State of Grace boasts an undeniably impressive cast, including stars like Ed Harris, Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright, and John Turturro. Regarding the last of those, he had a particularly good 1990, as far as crime movies went, given he also had a supporting in Miller’s Crossing (directed by the Coen Brothers).
As for State of Grace, it’s not revolutionary as far as its story goes, but it’s still relatively compelling, being an in-your-face crime drama about a young man returning to where he grew up, and falling in with some criminals after reconnecting with a childhood friend. State of Grace goes big, and perhaps even veers close to melodrama at points, but the committed cast members persistently give it their all, and the film, at its best, does prove to be equal parts moving and intense.
Release Date September 14, 1990
Director Phil Joanou
Runtime 135 Minutes
13 'A Prophet' (2009)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
While a good many prison movies center around escape, A Prophet sticks out for being more focused on simply surviving life inside prison. Further, it’s a movie that goes to great lengths to show how certain rules and ways of life for criminals outside prison walls continue to exist, in varying ways, for life inside a prison, too.
Namely, this comes across through the way in which gang warfare, in some capacity, continues to be waged inside the prison complex, furthering the idea that life inside remains as dangerous as it can be outside. This also means A Prophet feels quite unique, as far as gangster movies go, and though it runs for a fairly lengthy 155 minutes, it’s paced well and tells a continually absorbing character-focused story throughout.
12 'Sexy Beast' (2000)
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Image via Fox Searchlight Pictures
Thoroughly un-erotic for a movie with the word “Sexy” in its title, Sexy Beast is thankfully so bold and well-acted a gangster film that even those misled by the title shouldn’t come away too disappointed. It's a British crime film that nevertheless largely has a Spanish setting, revolving around a retired safecracker who’s bothered by a gruff and violent associate who wants to pull him back into a life of crime.
With this premise, Sexy Beast manages to find plenty of opportunities to be darkly hilarious, even if much of the film is also quite tense and uncomfortable. Ben Kingsley gives a bombastic and career-best performance here that needs to be seen to be believed, and the other cast members – namely, Ray Winstone and Ian McShane – are also excellent. It’s a strange and hard-to-categorize movie, all in all, but an honestly pretty great one regardless.
Sexy Beast
Release Date January 1, 2001
Director Jonathan Glazer
Runtime 89 minutes
11 'Animal Kingdom' (2010)
Directed by David Michôd
Image Via Madman Entertainment
Before it was a successful drama series that aired six seasons between 2016 and 2022, Animal Kingdom was a movie, and one of the best crime/gangster films of its decade, too. It follows a whole heap of conflict and drama within a family unit, some of the members within having ties to criminal activities and gangs. Think the blending of family and crime-related drama in The Godfather, but with more betrayal and grit, not to mention an Australian setting.
That might be hyping Animal Kingdom up a little too much, but it really is excellently made, unpredictably plotted, and extremely well-acted. It wastes very little and properly develops a large number of characters in a runtime that clocks in at under two hours, making it a worthwhile viewing experience regardless of how much one usually likes movies that revolve around organized crime.
Animal Kingdom
Release Date June 3, 2010
Director David Michôd
Runtime 112 minutes
10 'The Asphalt Jungle' (1950)
Directed by John Huston
Image via Loew's Inc.
There’s a little overlap between the heist genre and the gangster genre sometimes. Both kinds of movies can be definable as crime films, and heists often – though not always – involve a gang of criminals working together, often being, or trying to be, organized. So it’s organized crime in a sense, at least sometimes, which is why The Asphalt Jungle is worth mentioning here.
It follows one criminal assembling a bunch of others so they can try and pull off a jewel heist, a premise that’s very familiar but executed well enough here that it never feels formulaic in a bad way. The Asphalt Jungle is no-nonsense and admirably tough by the standards of the 1950s, and if it being a gangster/heist film isn't enough, you might be pleased to know that it also counts as a film noir movie, too.
Release Date May 12, 1950
Runtime 112 Minutes
9 'Carlito's Way' (1993)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Image via Universal Pictures
Pretty much everyone knows about Brian De Palma’s Scarface, which is perhaps one of the greatest remakes of all time and also one of the most legendary gangster films ever made. Less well-known, however, is Carlito’s Way, which was a less bombastic and more down-to-earth gangster movie De Palma directed 10 years on from Scarface, once more with Al Pacino in the starring role.
Carlito’s Way is about a former gangster trying to make his way through life after an extended stay in prison, but finding that easier said than done, with a past that continually threatens to keep catching up with him. It’s not the flashiest or most explosive gangster movie, but it works extremely well as a more realistic and drama-heavy take on the genre, making for a fascinating – and different – spiritual sequel of sorts to Scarface.
Carlito's Way
Release Date November 10, 1993
Director Brian De Palma
Runtime 144 minutes
8 'A Colt Is My Passport' (1967)
Directed by Takashi Nomura
Image via Nikkatsu
The gangster genre is already something of a sub-genre to the broad crime genre, but a further sub-genre of gangster movies would be yakuza films. These deal with organized crime in Japan, and thereby tend to be Japanese productions that usually only have cult followings (at best) outside Japan, making most yakuza movies worthy of being called underrated to some degree.
Enter A Colt Is My Passport, which is a lean and consistently engaging yakuza movie about a hitman...
Enter A Colt Is My Passport, which is a lean and consistently engaging yakuza movie about a hitman who’s thrust into a gang war, with the leader of one gang hiring him to kill the leader of another. It was one of many gangster movies Jō Shishido starred in, a Japanese star who seemed able to get through movies like this in effortlessly cool ways without breaking a sweat. The movie as a whole is also stylish and very entertaining, not to mention wonderfully snappy with a runtime that clocks in at under 90 minutes.
7 'The Yakuza' (1974)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Image via Warner Bros.
A rare yakuza movie that was made by an American director (Sydney Pollack) and featuring an American star (Robert Mitchum), The Yakuza nonetheless still ranks as one of the best yakuza-related movies ever made. And of course, it’s about said gangsters, what with that title and all, with its premise centering on an American who goes to Japan to rescue a friend’s daughter from some gang members.
The Yakuza is patiently paced but effective in its slow build toward a tense and explosive climax. It’s a movie that explores the differences in culture between the U.S. and Japan, specifically as it relates to organized crime in each country. It’s very 1970s stylistically and cinematically, but it really works and generally holds up very well, even if there are some things that would probably be (perhaps understandably) different if it were made today.
The Yakuza
Release Date March 19, 1975
Director Sydney Pollack
Actors Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Brian Keith
Run Time 112 Minutes
6 'Killing Them Softly' (2012)
Directed by Andrew Dominik
Image via The Weinstein CompanyAndrew Dominik has made a grim Western (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), a grim biographical film (Blonde), and a grim gangster movie, with the stark and cynical Killing Them Softly. It’s about chaos unfolding within a criminal underworld, principally concerning the fallout from an event that involved three people stealing from a card game that was mob-protected.
Brad Pitt’s character is sent to clean up the whole messy affair, and he does so ruthlessly, with Killing Them Softly indeed having a good deal of killing… the “soft” part might refer to the movie’s at times slow and methodical pace. But Killing Them Softly is never boring, and it works as a somewhat offbeat and unapologetically dark gangster film that, in some ways, effectively deconstructs what some might expect from the genre.
Release Date December 13, 2012
Director Andrew Dominik
Runtime 97minutes
5 'Pusher' (1996)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Image via Magnolia Pictures
Pusher is up there among the best gangster movies of the 1990s, and also undoubtedly one of the most underrated of the decade, too. Narratively, it’s very simple, but it’s more how the story’s told than what the story involves specifically. Still, in a sense, it’s about a man involved in drug dealing who finds himself struggling after a deal goes wrong, owing to how much money he now owes a fearsome drug lord.
It's the style and intense grittiness of Pusher that makes it special, with the unrelenting approach cinematically making this simple story (that has been told, more or less, in other movies before) strangely gripping. It’s kind of hypnotic and also very much a feel-bad film, but it’s striking stuff, and succeeds in feeling uncomfortably real throughout.
Release Date August 30, 1996
Director Nicolas Winding Refn
Runtime 105 Minutes
4 'Miller's Crossing' (1990)
Directed by Joel Coen
Image via 20th Century Studios
The Prohibition era was probably a pain to live through for those who liked the odd drink every now and then, but a silver lining is that it led to the creation of many great crime movies with period settings. Admittedly, they sometimes took decades to come out following the end of Prohibition, but at least such films – Miller’s Crossing very much included – can be enjoyed now.
This one was an early Coen Brothers movie that saw them firing on all cylinders for arguably the first time, perhaps being their earliest truly great (or at least almost flawless) movie. It’s about a gang war playing out at the end of the 1920s, with various characters clashing in different ways, but never in a fashion that feels muddled or convoluted. Miller’s Crossing juggles genres and different emotions well throughout, being dark, exciting, moving, and sometimes darkly funny.
Miller's Crossing
Release Date September 21, 1990
Director Joel Coen , Ethan Coen
Runtime 115 Minutes
3 'Rififi' (1955)
Directed by Jules Dassin
Image via Pathé
Rififi is another movie that, like The Asphalt Jungle, might technically be more of a heist movie than it is a gangster flick, but it can still fit into the latter genre, particularly if you squint a little. It’s also just too perfect of a heist movie to overlook gushing about whenever the chance arises, because it is kind of the ideal take on the genre structurally and stylistically.
A master thief plans an ambitious heist while clashing with some gangsters, and the whole thing is riveting and timelessly cool. Rififi is most celebrated for its lengthy heist sequence, which is understandable, but similarly great is the build-up to said set piece, and the exploration of its aftermath. It’s a winning movie all around, and one that can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of how one usually feels about older movies.
Release Date June 5, 1956
Director Jules Dassin
Cast Jean Servais , Carl Möhner , Robert Manuel , Janine Darcey , Pierre Grasset , Robert Hossein , Marcel Lupovici , Dominique Maurin
Runtime 118 Minutes
2 'Road to Perdition' (2002)
Directed by Sam Mendes
Image courtesy via DreamWorks Pictures
Standing as one of the best movies of its year, Road to Perdition might be a little more popular overall than some of the aforementioned gangster movies, but it still doesn’t quite get appreciated as much as it should. It is one of the finest gangster films of the 21st century so far and, like Miller’s Crossing, one that perfectly brings to life a story about gangster-related conflict during the Prohibition era.
Most notably, Road to Perdition sees Tom Hanks playing a much darker character than he usually does, and it’s an undoubtedly beautiful movie visually, too. There’s an emotional story about the complicated bond between a father and son, thematically dealing with sacrifice and the nature of violence throughout. It’s a bold movie and a painfully moving one at times, but such things just make it all the more impactful and admirable, in the end.
Road to Perdition
Release Date July 12, 2002
Runtime 117 minutes
1 'Battles Without Honor and Humanity' (1973)
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Image via Toei
There are numerous movies in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, but the best probably remains the one that kicked it all off, the 1973 film simply known as Battles Without Honor and Humanity. This is really as good as it gets when it comes to yakuza movies, and the whole thing might well be one of the most explosive, dizzying, chaotic, and wild crime movies ever made.
The narrative, in a traditional sense, is impossible to summarize, with Battles Without Honor and Humanity simply being about an exceedingly messy gang war where no one seems to know what’s going on, and things like double crosses and/or murders of significant characters can occur out of the blue. It’s sometimes confusing and often overwhelming, but by design, and in a manner that proves captivating more so than frustrating.
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