The Godfather
The Godfather is a 10 years span review that follows the story of the ascension, downfall and comeback of the Corleone family from New York, during the period that the boss of the Family, Don Vito Corleone, initiates his young son, Michael, in the traditions of the mafia, preparing him to take over the power. Winner of 9 Oscar awards, this masterpiece of cinematography is considered by many critics and directors as one of the best movie ever created. The Godfather and the two sequels of the movie are describing, very precisely, the life of mobsters of the biggest New York family.
Gomorra
Gomorra is a portrait movie, that contains five episodes with six main characters, who act inside or are connected to Camorra, the Napoli Mafia: Don Ciro, a man between ages, who runs errands for the mobsters that are in jail; Toto, a 13 years old boy that enters a drug trafficking gang; Roberto, a student which, because he didn’t had money, has to work for a mobster that is involved in the garbage business; Pasquale, a talented man that works with a team of chinese workers hunted by the Mafia; Marco and Ciro, two teenagers that like Mafia movies and who dream of becoming gangsters, but eventually they die after they bother a real mobster.
The Untouchables
Placed during the Prohibition years, in Chicago, the action of the movie follows the efforts of the famous Eliot Ness ( Costner ) and his small team of incorruptible cops to catch the just as famous gangster Al Capone ( De Niro ). Permanently harassed by Capone’s men, who first tries to bribe him, then threatens his family and eventually attacks his team, killing Oscar Wallace and Jimmy Malone ( Connery ), Ness manages to finally arrest Al Capone.
The Departed
Francis “Frank” Costello ( Jack Nicholson ) the big Irish mob boss of Boston, infiltrates young Colin Sullivan ( Matt Damon ) inside the Massachusetts state police, in the same time the chief of police gives an undercover mission to young Billy Costigan Jr ( DiCaprio ) who infiltrates Costello’s gang. At some point, each side realize that there is a mole and starts a life or death hunt to discover the truth. Costello dies following an ambush started by Sullivan, Costigan is killed by another cop, and Sullivan is unmasked and taken out by a former Chief of the Undercover missions department.
Public Enemies
In the 30′s, during the great Recession, John Dilinger ( Depp ), a former inmate, gets associated with many mobsters and killers that worked for Al Capone and starts the biggest series of robberies int he history of the United States. The murders and robberies committed by the gang of Dilinger play an important role in the transformation of a tiny US government organization, The Investigation Bureau into the FBI. To track Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, sends special agent Melvin Purvis ( Christian Bale ) who eventually manages to take down the bad guys.
Donnie Brasco
At the end of the 70′s, undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone ( Depp ) assumes the identity of Donnie Brasco and makes friends with Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero ( Pacino ) a second rate gangster and infiltrates the organization lead by Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano ( Madsen ), of the Bonanno family ( one of the famous New York Five Families ). Although he is never promoted to the rank of “associate”, Brasco is accepted by the members of the family and he starts to build a case against them. The climax of the movie comes with Pistone starts to get confused about his real identity and purpose.
Scarface
Scarface is the story of a man from Cuba, Tony Montana ( Al Pacino ) who at the beginning of the 80′s was working with his best friend, Manny Ribera ( Bauer ) and they enter the organized crime of Miami and builds a huge cocaine empire. Thanks to his special business skills, from a poor immigrant and petty thief Montana becomes the drug lord of Miami, and a position that brings him everything he ever wanted: women, money, power and influence! His down fall is just as dramatic and fast and his ascension – Montana finds his end shot to death, collapsing in a pool, in front of a statue written with the motto: “The world is yours”.
Road to Perdition
During the 30′s, in Chicago, during the Great Recession, Mike Sullivan ( Tom Hanks ) hitmen for the John Rooney Irish mobster ( Newman ) tries to save his son, who involuntarily witnesses a murder committed by Conner, Rooney’s son, from the revenge of the mafia clan that already killed his wife and other son. Another hitmen is sent to hunt them down, Harlen Maguire ( Law ). The two manage to get away, then Sullivan takes his revenge by killing Rooney and all his men, but he dies in the final confrontation against Maguire.
Good Fellas
The movie is a review of the New York mafia during the 60′s – 70′s, said from the perspective of three gangsters, childhood friends: Henry Hill ( Liotta ), Jimmy Conway ( De Niro ) and Tommy DeVito ( Peschi ) who climb up the organized crime ladder through murders, robberies and drug trafficking. Eventually, after 30 years in the Mob, Hill becomes an informant for the FBI and joints the witness protection program.
American Gangster
In 1968, after the death of the black Mafia in Harlem, Ellsworth Raymond “Bumpy” Johnson, his former driver, Frank Lucas ( Denzel Washington ) takes over the business and becomes the biggest heroin distributor in the United States, thanks to an ingenious network of drug distribution from Vietnam, with the help of the US Army planes involved in the war, and from Thailand directly from the sources, without middlemen. Richie Roberts ( Russel Crowe ), a detective without scruples, eventually manages to take down Lucas’s empire.