This August will see the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic crime drama The Godfather. The picture and its 1974 sequel raised the cinematic depiction of The Mob from being crowd-pleasing shoot ‘em ups to a subject worthy of serious filmmakers and subsequent movies in the genre made explicit comparisons between organised crime and wider society, specifically government.
Indeed, thanks to The Godfather, the mobster movie has become a permanent Hollywood fixture – a genre that top directors seek to reference, if not wholeheartedly embrace, at some point in their careers. 2022 is no exception: this month sees the release of Graham Moore’s The Outfit. Mark Rylance plays an English tailor who finds himself making suits for a notorious family of Chicago gangsters.
Here are ten more motion pictures about crime families in the US and further afield:
The Godfather (1972) NOW, Amazon Rent/Buy
The first two Godfather films are (in my eyes) amongst the finest movies ever produced, both possessing a wealth of detail that makes them eminently re-watchable.
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