When you think about mafia movies, it’s likely that the first to come to mind is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic of classics, The Godfather, and the two ensuing films that make up one of the most famous and talked about trilogies of all time. The first two films are based on Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel, and Puzo worked with Coppola on the third installment as well.
But there are a wealth of mafia films that took their storylines directly from the headlines, adding that extra edge of grit and realism to the stories. Here are 20 mafia movies that only had to open a newspaper to find their source material.
20 Goodfellas (1990)
Once you get past The Godfather, another main contender for the most famous mafia movie ever made is Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film Goodfellas. It was based on Nicholas Pileggi’s 1985, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, a biography of turncoat Henry Hill, a one-time gangster with the Lucchese crime family. He was with the Lucchese family for nearly thirty years, enjoying everything that being part of a notorious mafia family had to offer, until a drug bust turned him into an FBI informant and things started to truly go off the rails.
He was played to perfection by the late Ray Liotta, and we watch Hill’s involvement with the mafia from his youth in the fifties, his rise through the ranks, and inevitable downfall. The cast didn’t have a chance to meet Hill until after the film was made, but Hill told Liotta that he loved it.
19 Gomorrah (2008)
Mateo Garrone’s 2008 film was based on Roberto Saviano’s explosive 2006 book of investigative journalism, for which he has lived both in hiding and under police protection ever since. The book delved deep into the secrets of the Camorra, the mafia-like group operating predominantly in Naples since the 17th century. At this point, the Camorra have their hands in a far-reaching number of pots: from protection rackets and knock-off designer clothing to a stranglehold on garbage collection which caused a trash crisis.
The film focused on a number of disparate characters, showing how organized crime affects their lives, whether or not they’re criminals. A television show followed the film’s success, and both casts included non-professional actors whose real-life Camorra involvement saw them arrested for various crimes, including at least one murder rap.
18 Donnie Brasco (1997)
Al Pacino and Johnny Depp chewed some serious scenery in Mike Newell’s 1997 mafia film, inspired by Joseph D. Pistone’s 1988 memoir, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. Depp played Pistone/Brasco, an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a jewel thief under the tutelage of Lefty Ruggiero (Pacino), an enforcer for the Bonanno family.
Over the course of six years, being undercover for so long causes family complications for Pistone, as well as conflicting feelings for Ruggiero, but Pistone ended up being pulled by the FBI before he became a made man for the Bonannos. To this day, Pistone and his family live at an undisclosed location, while continuing to use his expertise in organized crime to aid international law enforcement, and testifying in court cases.
17 Black Mass (2015)
2015’s Black Mass jumped into the story of Whitey Bulger practically as it was still unfolding. Johnny Depp starred as Bulger, a notorious Boston mobster who led the Winter Hill Gang.
The film follows Bulger’s ruthless reign in South Boston starting in 1975, and was filmed only two years after Bulger’s arrest after nearly 20 years as a fugitive. (The movie was largely based on the 2001 book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal, so it doesn’t get the chance to go into Bulger’s fugitive years, not to mention his violent death in prison in 2018.) Bulger reportedly refused to watch the film, even with a blockbuster cast that included Kevin Bacon, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jesse Plemons.
16 The Untouchables (1987)
If you’re looking for a historically accurate recounting of Eliot Ness and his quest to take down Al Capone in the days of Prohibition, you might want to look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for historically inspired entertainment with Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, and Robert De Niro, you’ve come to the right place.
Brian De Palma’s 1987 movie was written by playwright David Mamet, and loosely based on the real Eliot Ness’ 1957 memoir (which itself was questioned for historical accuracy). Much of the action in the film is fictional, but with high drama scenes like Sean Connery’s operatic death (he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role) and the Battleship Potemkin Odessa Steps sequence at the train station, it’s hard to complain.
15 The French Connection (1971)
Two years before he directed The Exorcist, WIlliam Friedkin took on the story of real NYPD detectives Eddy Egan and Sonny Grosso, using Robin Moore’s 1969 book to transform their story into that of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), hot on the trail of a French heroin smuggler through the streets of New York.
Not only was the film praised for sticking to the true story, it features one of the best car chases in screen history, with Popeye careening through the streets of Bensonhurst, trying to catch up with an elevated train. The subsequent sequel, The French Connection II, cut ties with the actual story.
14 The General (1998)
The true story of Irish crime lord Martin Cahill (Brendan Gleeson) was written by Irish journalist Paul Williams, and John Boorman used it as the basis for his 1998 film. Cahill pulled a number of notorious heists before falling afoul of the police and the Irish Republican Army, eventually being assassinated in 1994 by still unknown assailants.
Cahill’s unorthodox family life also upped his intrigue: he had five children with his wife Frances, but the word was that he had a further four children with Frances’ sister Tina, who lived with them. The meta true-life twist is that Cahill actually robbed Boorman once, stealing the gold record he’d won for the soundtrack of Deliverance.
13 Bugsy (1991)
Warren Beatty was at his suave, lady-killing best as notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel, who, along with associates Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Charlie “Lucky” Luciano (Bill Graham), left New York behind to try and break into the California and Las Vegas gambling markets, and the film also details his affair with showgirl Virginia Hill, who was played by Annette Bening, who Beatty married the next year.
Harvey Keitel makes an appearance as Mickey Cohen, an up-and-coming gangster who impresses Bugsy with a robbery, and Elliott Gould is Harry Greenberg is an old friend of Bugsy’s who has fallen on hard times, and Bugsy has no choice but to take him out. Beatty and screenwriter James Toback had been working on a screenplay for years, and ended up landing Barry Levinson to direct the 1991 film, which ended with Bugsy’s still-unsolved murder.
12 On the Waterfront (1954)
While not wholly based on specific true-life characters, Elia Kazan’s 1954 drama starring Marlon Brando was inspired by a series of articles in The New York Sun about longshoremen, for which journalist Malcolm Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize.
The article series centered on union corruption and violence on the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, and was titled Crime on the Waterfront. Brando played Terry Malloy, a dockworker and former boxer who unwittingly lures a friend to his death at the behest of a union boss, and in the ensuing fallout falls for the friend’s sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint in her debut role). Karl Malden (who helped get Brando into the career-defining role) co-stars as a local priest trying to get the dockworkers to resist corruption.
11 The Sicilian Girl (2007)
Rita Atria grew up in Sicily, and by the age of 17, having already lost her mafia-connected father and brother, inspired her to testify against the mafia to the police. She ended up being kicked out by her mother, losing family and friends, and eventually committing suicide after the prosecuting judge to whom she had grown close was killed by a car bomb.
Marco Amenta first used her story as the basis of a 1997 documentary, and then as a 2007 film inspired by the story, starring Veronica D’Agostino as a character based on Rita. The real-life Rita’s testimony (along with that of her widowed sister-in-law) did lead to a number of mafia arrests.
10 Il divo (2008)
Paolo Sorrentino’s 2008 biopic tackled the divisive character of seven-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, played by Toni Servillo, who also starred in Sorrentino’s award-winning The Great Beauty and Gomorrah (see above). Andreotti’s career was plagued by rumors (many of them proven) of connections to the Sicilian mafia, and widespread corruption.
He was tried for his associations with the mafia, for bribery scandals, and his involvement in the murder of journalist Mino Pecorelli, but he was acquitted again and again. Servillo’s portrayal of the enigmatic public figure is fascinating.
9 The Irishman (2019)
Martin Scorsese’s 2019 gangster epic got its story from I Heard You Paint Houses, a 2004 book written by former prosecutor and defense attorney Charles Brandt, regarding Frank Sheeran, a self-confessed hitman for the Bufalino family whose confession to killing Jimmy Hoffa has not been proven.
The role of Sheeran was played by Robert De Niro and costars Joe Pesci as head of the Bufalino family and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, along with the usual cast of Scorsese luminaries including Harvey Keitel, Stephen Graham, and Bobby Cannavale. The Irishman buys into Sheeran’s claims of killing Hoffa, and is notable for digitally de-aging the three lead actors for earlier scenes.
8 Casino
Nicholas Pileggi (see Black Mass, above) wrote the 1995 book, Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas for this Scorsese-directed film. Pileggi collaborated with Scorsese on the screenplay, and the book ended up being released just a month before the movie. Scorsese regular Robert De Niro played Sam “Ace” Rothstein (based on Lefty Rosenthal), a gambling handicapper in the '70s put in charge of the (fictional) Tangiers Casino in Vegas.
The movie co-stars Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone, and follows Rothstein’s move from Chicago to Vegas, and how his mafia entanglements over the years affect him both in his professional and personal life.
7 Public Enemies
Michael Mann took on the true story of John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp) in this 2009 crime drama, basing the movie on a book by Bryan Burrough entitled Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934.
Public Enemiesbegins with Dillinger busting his gang out of jail and the pursuit that ensued, led by FBI Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), until his eventual death in a shootout at the hands of Purvis and his colleagues. As for the screenplay written from his book, Burrough noted, “It’s not 100 percent historically accurate. But it’s by far the closest thing to fact Hollywood has attempted.”
6 American Gangster (2007)
Frank Lucas himself, on whom Ridley Scott’s 2007 film was based, admitted that only a small part of the dramatic events was really true. Lucas was a North Carolina-born heroin smuggler operating out of Harlem, and in the film, he’s played by Denzel Washington. Lucas is incredibly successful, and it’s that success that drew the eye of Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe).
The plot of American Gangster is complicated by drugs being run by soldiers in Vietnam, corrupt cops, and local competition for the drug market. Lucas ends up sentenced to 70 years in jail, but in an odd turn of events, is represented by Roberts, who has become a lawyer, and only serves a portion of the sentence.
5 Legend (2015)
Tom Hardy took on double roles as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who were twin gangsters that terrorized London nightlife in the 1960s.
The 2015 film was based on John Pearson’s The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, and focused on their rise in the underworld, with Reggie constantly having to keep tabs on Ronnie, who, along with a tendency towards violence like his brother, was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and the two wrought murder and mayhem on the city for much of the decade. Despite Hardy’s impressive performances, reviews for the film overall were mixed.
4 The Valachi Papers (1972)
This 1972 film starred Charles Bronson as Joseph Valachi, who informed on the mafia after years with the Genovese family. We meet the older Valachi in jail for heroin smuggling, and after he kills a fellow prisoner he mistook for an assassin, he’s roped into the informant game by a federal agent named Ryan.
Valachi tells the story of his life to Ryan through a series of flashbacks, and eventually testifies before the Senate, where he became known for popularizing the term Cosa Nostra, as well as being the first mafia member to break omertà. The film had the misfortune to come out the same year as The Godfather, and suffered from the inevitable comparisons.
3 Kill the Irishman (2011)
Not to be confused with Scorsese’s The Irishman, Jonathan Hensleigh’s 2011 film is based on a different true story, the life of Irish-American Danny Greene, played by Ray Stevenson. Greene started out as a longshoreman, and ended up working for the unions and then the Cleveland mafia.
As in many of these stories, after an arrest, Greene turned FBI informant, and thus began the road that led to his death by car bomb. A stellar cast including Christopher Walken, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Val Kilmer elevate what could have become the sort of story we’ve heard before, although it suffered unfavorably when compared to Goodfellas.
2 Hoffa (1992)
One of modern American history’s prevailing mysteries is ‘who shot Jimmy Hoffa?’ (see The Irishman, above), and Danny DeVito’s 1992 film doesn’t claim to know the answer. But it does star Jack Nicholson as the famously murdered Teamster, even if it’s admittedly not particularly accurate in terms of history. DeVito plays a Hoffa associate who is a mishmash of several people that Hoffa worked with over the years.
We watch Hoffa’s shady business dealings (racketeering, embezzlement, violence) over the years, as well as his governmental entanglements. Although the film is most often praised for Nicholson’s performance, it’s generally considered that De Vito’s direction was a little too starry-eyed in its portrayal of a definite criminal.
1 The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)
Roger Corman took a stab at a docu-drama style film in 1967, rehashing the events of the famous 1929 Chicago gangland killing that saw Al Capone order a massacre, resulting in the deaths of seven members of the North Side gang, although it’s technically still an unsolved case.
Jason Robards was somewhat miscast as a thin Al Capone, George Segal as a vicious hitman, and Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson both had small roles early in their careers. Roger Ebert panned the film, summing it up with these delightful sentences: “At the end of this nonsense, to be sure, there is a massacre to brighten things up a little. But then the pall sets in again.”
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