Top 40 Gangster Movies of All Time, Ranked
As far back as we can remember, people have always loved gangster movies. The genre has thrived on our screens from the 1930s all the way through to today — and it's spawned more classics than even we could list. But which mob masterpiece climbed through the ranks to become the king of crime? Well, finding that out is an offer we can't refuse...
To create our list of the greatest gangster flicks of all time, we first curated a list of mob movies that have had at least 100,000 votes on IMDb. But we also wanted a good mix of public and critical opinions. So we've combined the IMDb, Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and Rotten Tomatoes audience scores for each gangster film — having multiplied the IMDb figure by ten to make the math work — and arrived at an average for all of them. The one with the highest average is the head of the family.
40. Gangs of New York
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
Why we love it
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.
39. Snatch
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
Why we love it
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.
