Road to Perdition
and any notable Edward G. Robinson performance
1. La Haine
2. City of God
3. Scarface 83
4. Once Upon a Time in America
5. Godfather
6. Dead Presidents
7. Warriors
8. Gomorrah
9. The Long Good Friday
10. American Gangster
Nice choice Vincente, especailly like the inclusion of The Warriors. However, I would have to include your number 4 as my number 1!
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
Once upon a Time in America
Yes it`s a close call in this genre .. but la haine resonates more deeply within what i have experienced ..
Earlier posts referring to ‘Batman movie never finding its way to Criterion Collection’ or supposed mediocrity of American films like ‘Godfather’ and ‘Goodfellas’, shows exactly the type of audience who is only aimed at impressing others with their would-be knowledge, rather than appreciating the craft of cinema.
This is PUREST NONSENSE.
I’m not talking about specifically ‘Dark Knight’ or ‘Godfather’. I am talking about generalizing things. For your information, film scholars around the world consider ‘The Dark Knight’ to be grand achievement of genre filmmaking.
I am not even going to start with Coppola’s and Scorcese’s masterpieces – it’s like giving ‘thumbs up’ review – to Mona Lisa. They are right there with Hitchcock, Melville, Welles, Kurosawa and Peckinpah.
The worst thing in art discussion could be slapping labels at things.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Mafioso,a 1960s Italian film I just recently saw, a bit of a farce on the Sicilian mob, but quite chilling, and another film I always think is underrated: Donny Brasco. Depp and Pacino are both excellent in their roles; Pacino is so against type as the failed low-level guy.
I always liked Carlito’s Way too – it’s a good story, and again, Pacino is good in yet another variation on the theme of being unable to leave the Mob. Sean Penn is fantastic in that film – you forget it’s him.
As much as I love Cagney in White Heat nd Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces is the real deal.
Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya and Company
2 notable Indian films in the gangster genre, based on real people, real incidents.
Maniratnam’s Nayakan which figured on Time magazine’s Top 100 Greatest films of the Century list fades a little in comparison to the above films.
Gomorra has yet to be topped. I’m not necessarily anti-romanticism, but the mafia movie is in trouble, getting worse, fast. Garrone took the fluff out of organized crime, saved the mafia movie and brought back neorealism. Who better to do this than an Italian filmmaker? It’s the greatest crime film I’ve ever seen simply in the fact that there is not a single other like it.
I second Andrew Kay on Le Samourai. Highly recommended.
By the way, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight may be excellent films, which they are, but the day two blockbuster movies distributed by Warner Brothers are entered into the Criterion Collection is the day I boycot the Criterion Collection. Which is never. The purpose of Criterion, for the most part, is to bring movies to and preserve on DVD that don’t have a chance at ample distribution. Begins and Knight are doing just fine on their own, meanwhile Stalker is still only available from Kino and RUSCICO.
whatever they are, gomorrah sure aint one of ’em
Most of these are more general crime films than mafia, but yeah …
Hard Eight
The Asphalt Jungle
Le Samourai
The Element of Crime
Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Point Blank
Mr. Arkadin
Love is Colder Than Death
Some other interesting ones:
The Yakuza
Le Doulos
Croupier
The Parallax View
Audiard’s A prohet is a great recent addition to the genre.
Le Samourai
Asphalt Jungle
The Big Heat
The Big Sleep
Chinatown
The Maltese Falcon
Some Like it Hot
There are so many more….wish my brain were working better at the moment so I could come up with more
De Palma’s “Wise Guys”
“By the way, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight may be excellent films, which they are, but the day two blockbuster movies distributed by Warner Brothers are entered into the Criterion Collection is the day I boycot the Criterion Collection. Which is never. The purpose of Criterion, for the most part, is to bring movies to and preserve on DVD that don’t have a chance at ample distribution. Begins and Knight are doing just fine on their own, meanwhile Stalker is still only available from Kino and RUSCICO.”
“Hollywood Blockbuster”
http://www.criterion.com/films/649
http://www.criterion.com/films/578
“is to bring movies to and preserve on DVD that don’t have a chance at ample distribution.”
http://www.criterion.com/films/1584
http://www.criterion.com/films/314
And I’m not trying to be argumentative, it just seems that with some titles Criterion has stumped everyone. Are the first two movies really important staples in film? Are they somehow more important to their genre than TDK was? Were the second two movies really going to fail on DVD if it weren’t for Criterion? Were they really helping them out? What about Wes Anderson films? I can understand one, or maybe even two…but all of them? Bottle Rocket? Really? How about RoboCop (one of my all time favorite movies)? Was RocoCop really in need of a Criterion the same way If… was?
Plus, if the argument is that they want to bring movies to DVD and preserve them…why do they go out of print? Do you know how much I want Spinal Tap and RoboCop on Criterion DVD? But I can’t unless I want to pay a ridiculous amount of money to buy a used copy. Thanks for preserving those DVDs for me.
Let me just say that I in no way think any Batman movie should get or ever will get a Criterion…but if The Dark Knight got one I wouldn’t be anymore surprised than when I saw Chasing Amy.
How about some Korean gangster films… A Dirty Carnival, The Show Must Go On & A Bittersweet Life, just to name a few.
John Flynn’s forgotten masterpiece The Outfit (1973) is one of te greatest crimes films I’ve seen (that are not mentioned here) and one that really needs a great dvd release. 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974) by John Frankenheimer is another great example of the crime genre.
A lot of the high brow films mentioned already have decent editions by their respective studios. I concur that Criterion needs to stick with mostly forgotten or yet great undistributed films. I would like to see Matthieu Kassovitz’s Assassin(s).
The Outfit by John Flynn (of Rolling Thunder fame) and John Frankenheimer’s 99 and 44% Dead mentioned above by Johnny K (another John) are a good example.
Criterion has after all rediscovered Blast of Silence, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, La Haine, Mamet’s Homicide and a ton of Melville work. They have a great number of crime films under their belt.
Goodfellas. Its one of my favorite movies.
Pusher Trilogy
good to see “friends of eddie coyle” refered here ,its certainly a very moody piece ,also if u can check india cinema ,there is a movie COMPANY by ram gopal varma ,he is an indian film maker well known for his work in gangster genre ,he is not well knows outside india
there is another indian gangster movie PARINDA by vidhu vinod chopra ,try checking this stuff
i love melville’s le deuxieme souffle and jacques becker’s touchez pas au grisbi as well as those mentioned above.
andrew kay
Le Samourai, Les Doulos, The Naked Kiss and The Hit are all on Criterion dvd… soon on Blu-Ray, no doubt, but release dates TBA.