Our Favorite Gangster Movies Currently Streaming
We're making you some recommendations you can't refuse...
Ever since The Godfather hit theaters in 1972, the gangster genre has been fertile soil for filmmakers looking to explore big themes while they tell a gripping story. After that classic mafia tale, we got Scarface, Goodfellas, Miller’s Crossing, Mean Streets, and many, many more. These movies were full of morally ambivalent characters, complex plotting, and stylish action. They also told stories about greed, ambition, family, and making it in America.
That’s what we love about gangster films. They are incredibly adept at getting you to care about deeply flawed characters, making you think about the larger ideas at play, and simply entertaining you to no end.
They can also expand beyond the Corleone-type Italian-American mob story. In our recommendations below, you’ll find different kinds of organized crime stories, like British, Russian, and even Brazilian. Here’s our favorite gangster movies that are currently streaming.
Billy recommends…
The Departed (streaming on Netflix)
Drew and I might have to do a Martin Scorsese Week once The Irishman hits Netflix later this year, but it is my pleasure to award The Departed with another accolade. A spot in our gangster edition of Do You Like Apples.
Ensemble movies are so tough to pull off. Typically these movies consist of A-list talent and giving them memorable screen time is a tough task. Marty navigates through those egos brilliantly. Each actor gets to have their memorable moment. Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jack Nicholson get more than their moment to shine in this one. Their interactions and the relationships they build are what give this movie such a great pace.
That is what is so memorable about this movie: the pace. Every Scorsese movie is going to take you on a memorable, but incredibly long ride. The Departed is 2 hours and 31 minutes long, but it feels like an hour. Through all the violence and cursing (237 F-bombs) we get one of Scorsese’s funniest movies. The funny is brought the hardest by our best living over-actor, Mark Wahlberg.
Wahlberg can’t be in more than 10 scenes, but he is the most memorable part of this movie for me. From the get-go he is the bad cop in the good cop/bad cop routine and he plays it brilliantly. All the way to an Oscar nomination. My favorite line of his comes from him asking who set up the cameras poorly during a business deal. The guy says, “Who the f*** are you!?” and Wahlberg replies with an enthusiastic, “I’m the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy!” Absolutely brilliant. I imagine most of you have seen this one, so give it another shot. If not, pardon my french, what the f*** are you waiting for?
Layer Cake (streaming on Netflix)
Without Layer Cake we would not have Daniel Craig’s James Bond movies. For that alone we owe Layer Cake a watch. Craig in this one is not the confident James Bond type we know him as. Instead he is the level headed one of this rag-tag group of drug dealers. He is the face of the organization while everyone else gets their hands dirty. A rare turn for Craig in that regards. We get to seem him much more subdued for most of this movie and that was a pleasant surprise.
Now the star of this one is not Craig, but the director, Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass, X-Men: First Class). Man, this guy is a generational talent. Every single one of his movies is memorable because of how much fun his movies are. Layer Cake was his directorial debut, which is mind-boggling.
Vaughn has the same task in this one that Scorsese had in The Departed. He had to navigate through an ensemble. This is a unique ensemble film where we have smaller actors making up most of the characters. The cast consists of Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, and Michael Gambon. Craig was not yet Bond. Hardy was not yet Bane. Gambon made his first appearance as Dumbledore just one week before Layer Cake came out. It’s pretty clear why this movie is so great.
Despite such an amazing cast it seems that this movie has been missed by most. Seeing Craig and Hardy get this opportunity to show their acting chops before they made it big was such a joy. Have some fun on this Easter Weekend and give this one a watch.
Drew recommends…
City of God (streaming on Netflix)
If your experience with foreign films has caused you to doze off in the past, this one will smash that assumption. Essentially a Scorsese movie set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, City of God is an exhilarating and shocking view of rival gangs competing for supremacy throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. We see the events unfold through the eyes of Rocket, a sensitive photographer that wants to avoid a life of violence. Over the years, we are introduced to several charismatic and dangerous characters as the gangs wreak havoc on the Brazilian favelas.
Nominated for four Academy Awards in 2002 (an extreme rarity for a foreign-language film), City of God feels all too real, dropping you smack in the middle of the action with a subjective lens. The film uses rapid editing and swift camerawork to disorient and give you a sense of the brutality of this environment. This makes for a thrilling and uncomfortable watch -- the fast-paced action keeps you engaged, but the savage violence and blatant corruption leaves you stunned.
Ultimately, City of God is just as impactful as the mafia-centered gangster stories you’ve seen. The crime may not be as “organized” (the gangsters don’t wear suits and hits are carried out in broad daylight on the street), but the damage to the community is the same. City of God does what the best gangster movies do: tell a stylish and entertaining story without letting you forget the destructive consequences.
Eastern Promises (streaming on Hulu)
Eastern Promises’ plot concerns Russian gangsters, a sex trafficking ring, and it features a graphic knife fight in a Turkish bathhouse. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
Dark, gritty, and unpredictable, Eastern Promises has to be one of the most underrated gangster movies in recent memory. Viggo Mortensen plays Nikolai, a driver for a brutal London-based Russian crime family. He meets a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts), who delivers the baby of a prostitute and finds out about the criminal organization’s sex trafficking ring. As Anna digs deeper, Nikolai finds it difficult to protect her and his own life.
Eastern Promises is enhanced greatly by its sensational acting. Both Mortensen and Watts deliver some of their best work, as does Vincent Cassel as the mafia head’s son. Together with these performances, director David Cronenberg shows us an unflinching look at a criminal underbelly. Even with surprisingly few guns on screen, Eastern Promises is so full of ruthless menace that you expect violence to break out at every turn. And there’s a reveal near the end that changes how we see everything that just unfolded. If you love dark and well-told crime stories, this isn’t one to miss.
Streaming TV Corner
What we’re watching this week
Drew: Game of Thrones (streaming on HBO Now)
Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been posted up like Bran watching the entire series in preparation for the final season. Not since the end of Breaking Bad has there been a show that has captivated almost everyone I know. I’m ready for anything over the last few episodes. I wish you all good fortune in the wars to come.
The Office Episode of the Week
Billy: “The Return” (S3 E14)
Pretty much any episode of The Office that we recommend already has “classic” status. “The Return” brings us the first episode where Andy really annoys his co-workers. His constant need of approval annoys Jim and Pam so much that they decide to pull a prank on him. They put his cell phone that has a catchy, new, self-produced acapella ringtone into the ceiling and continuously call it. The hilarity of the prank leads to our first classic angry Andy moment, which is what solidified Ed Helms as a perfect addition to this already stacked cast.
Links to get you hyped
Star Wars Episode IX has a title and a teaser trailer. Let the speculation begin.
According to HBO, the Game of Thrones season 8 premiere drew 17.4 million viewers. Wow.
Big Little Lies is back on June 9th, this time with Meryl effing Streep.
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