As the premiere date for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire approaches, The Daily Beast has Martin Scorsese give us an annotated list of his 15 favorite gangster movies. (Before I even look at the list, I can tell you my list will be different from Marty’s by listing Casino, Goodfellas and The Departed). Scorsese writes:
Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film. They excited me, provoked me, and in one way or another, they had the ring of truth.
I stopped before the ‘70s because we’re talking about influence here, and I was looking at movies in a different way after I started making my own pictures. There are many gangster films I’ve admired in the last 40 years—Performance, the Godfather saga, Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, The Long Good Friday, Sexy Beast, John Woo’s Hong Kong films. The films below I saw when I was young, open, impressionable.
(His notes here are abbreviated. You can click through the expanded list with clips at the source.)
- The Public Enemy (1931) — this picture led the way for all of us.
- Scarface (1932) — so fluid, so funny, and so excitingly expressionistic
- Blood Money (1933) — tough, sardonic… the ending is unforgettable
- The Roaring Twenties (1939) — epic scale… the template for GoodFellas and Casino
- Force of Evil (1948) — had as great an impact on me as Citizen Kane or On the Waterfront
- White Heat (1949) — the level of ferocity and sustained energy is breathtaking
- Night and the City (1950) — desperation, no holds barred
- Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954) — elegant and understated, an aura of weariness and mortality
- The Phenix City Story (1955) — shot in 10 days! Fast, furious, and unflinching
- Pete Kelly‚Äôs Blues (1955) — a beautifully made picture, in glorious color and Scope
- Murder by Contract (1958) — a lesson in movie-making, for me, an inspiration
- Al Capone (1959) — Rod Steiger is brilliant as Capone‚Äîcharming, boorish, brutal, ambitious
- Le Doulos (1962) — extremely elegant, intricate, and lovingly crafted gangster picture
- Mafioso (1962) — by the end you‚Äôll find the laughs catching in your throat
- Point Blank (1967) — gave us a sense of how the genre could pulse with the energy of a new era
I’ll steer clear of the turf Marty has staked out and name 20 of my own favorite gangster movies of the last 10 years.
- Sexy Beast (2000)
- Road to Perdition (2002)
- Infernal Affairs (2002)
- Gangs of New York (2002)
- City of God (2003)
- I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003)
- Election & Triad Election (2005, 2007)
- A History of Violence (2005)
- Inside Man (2006)
- The Departed (2006)
- Exiled (2006)
- American Gangster (2007)
- Eastern Promises (2007)
- The Dark Knight (2008)
- In Bruges (2008)
- Gomorrah (2008)
- Mesrine I & II (2008)
- Sin nombre (2009)
- A Prophet (2009)
