The best gangster films of all time - Film -Specials - FilmStarts.de

Since its origins in the early 1930s, as "the little Caesar", "The public enemy" and "The scar face" their spectators with criminal protagonists as fascinated, the gangster film attracts with two contradictory stimuli.On the one hand, we are feverish with the social outsiders and are euphorized by their steep criminal careers, on the other hand we are also disgusted by their unscrupulous methods and wish you the righteous punishment on your neck.

While the genre of the film Noir in the 40s and New Hollywood continued to refine in the 1960s, the Yakuza film in Japan and the Nouvelle Vague in France also made shaping developments that shaped outside of the United States.After all, it was a US director, namely Francis Ford Coppola, who provided the biggest boom in gangster cinema in the 1970s with his "the godfather" films.

As a result, numerous filmmakers tried to copy the Magnum Opus Coppolas or - which mostly succeeded - to enrich the gangster film with new perspectives (such as Brian de Palma with "Scarface" and Martin Scorsese with "Goodfellas").Ultimately, however, it was probably Quentin Tarantino who, with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction", ensured the last major upheaval in the genre to date.From now on, gangsters were no longer just unscrupulous, power -greedy shotsals, but also humorous, which were just to do their jobs and talked about Madonna or Cheeseburger during their breaks.

Whether as a manic manifestations of the American Dream, as a still-stoic contract killer or as an invented Bible-off "Bad Motherfucker": The fascination for the criminals in the cinema continues to this day.In our opinion, we collected the best gangster films for you in this film start ranking:

A city drawn by the decay.A business drawn by the decay.New Orleans meets organized crimes.While the media are flooded by the election campaign between McCain and Obama, there is always a clear economic doldrums in the half -world: being gangsters in "Killing Them Softly" no longer means indulging in luxury.To be gangsters means that you have to work for your money.What Andrew Dominik formulates is an indictment.An indictment of a country in which people have to die on the long arm.

»" Killing Them Softly "at Amazon*

"Killing Them Softy" lives from an American image that was completely uprooted by its ideals;which was forced to consumption and performance orientation - and thereby driven into death.Led by big names such as Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini or Ray Liotta, Andrew Dominik puts a night -black song on the USA and its myths - and this means above all the gangsterism.That is no longer worth anything if even the mafioso is shortened the salary.

It doesn't always have to be the success story, sometimes it means to be just to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss.In "The Yellow Sea" there is no trace of "Goodfellas" glamor or "the godfather" romance.Here gray and need meets misery here.

»" The Yellow Sea "at Amazon*

Ku-Nam (Ha Jung-Woo) lives on the subsistence level, the couple of groschen who remain with him from his job as a taxi driver, he regularly gambles in gambling and has accumulated a mountain of debt, which he at the local godfather Myung-GA(Yun-Seok Kim) should work through.The unlucky bird should commit a murder on its behalf, but the job does not run smoothly for the bloody beginner, the events overturn and what has started as a cold and sober social study will soon become a slaughter in which felling life is worth a chanterelle.

"The Yellow Sea" does without beautifully painting, is dirty, archaic and resolutely.If the gangsters with axes, sticks and - in the absence of alternatives - worn -up beef legs maltreat their heads, then every blow can be felt.That is certainly not for a delicacy, but also has (black) humor, which is particularly revealed in the sometimes bizarre behaviors of his characters."The Yellow Sea" is full of originality, is admirable and a jewel of the South Korean gangster cinema.

Directed by John Boorman

With: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn

“I just want my money.”With anger in the stomach, rabid manners and the elegance of a shovel excavator, Walker (Lee Marvin) in“ Point Blank ”demands what he is entitled to.After a crooked thing, shot down from his partner and left it left behind, the linked berserk is now returning and plowing through the underworld with cunning and all necessary hardness.However, his share is now in the vaults of the outfit, an almighty syndicate that does not allow yourself to be negotiated.What follows is a private war in which no prisoners are made.

What initially looks like a crime variation of old Western myths from the struggle of the nameless stranger (even his wife only knows him as a walker), who pulls alone against everyone and moves into the vastness after work, is in John Boorans-keen-loving handsa bone -dry parabola on a modern sisyphos of the underworld, which holds its goal with brutal persistence and takes it on with the system itself.

»" Point Blank "at Amazon*

The outfit is not a hierarchical organization, but an abstract power structure that is ultimately directed and determined by the capital itself and only seems to be made of interchangeable, easy -to -replacement cardboard comrades.No matter how many decision -makers Walker liquidated, new item carriers always grow up, which continue the outfit.

At Boorman, the gangster film mutates into system criticism and is also a lot of fun, since the Vendendta is wrapped up in noisy bright colors here."Point Blank" also makes the psychedelic, highly associative assembly at times of psychedelic assembly..

"Baby Driver" is a film like a music video: when escape car driver baby (Ansel Elgort) plugs in its in-ear headphones, every groomer becomes a lively choreographed ballet made of adrenaline, tire smoke, police sirens and shotgun.Baby is the best in his job, but still wants to hang it up since he fell in love with the waiter Debora (Lily James).It's just stupid that his Boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) does not just let his child prodigy go and gives him one last order.The fact that not everything runs according to plan is due to the laws of the cinema-and Baby's batons completely unpredictable Gangster colleagues Bats (Jamie Foxx).

»" Baby Driver "at Amazon*

Director and author Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") delivers a craftsmanship virtuoso high-concept-heist movie, who puts his soundtrack as much as no other film beforehand.Just the introsure, in which the baby is only in his car and puts the snappy song "Bellbottoms" by The Spencer Blues explosion onto the ears, sprays with creative joke and a good mood.

In the course of "Baby Driver" there is also one or the other dramatic climax - violence and death are finally accompanied in the gangstermilieu - but primarily the Heistfilm by Edgar Wright is a cinetic tango in which image and sound are inMeet perfect harmony and dance in seductive unity on our audiovisual pleasure center.

As a hidden investigator, Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) returns to his home country after years, the New York workers' district of Hells Kitchen dominated by Irish.There he should go to cloth with his old youth friends and current underworld greats Jackie (in error in top form: Gary Oldman) and Frankie Flanny (Ed Harris) and demonstrate their murderous machinations.Soon, however, he will get into a conscience.

Instead of breaking down the old undercover scenario to a classic thriller based on a plot and suspension, "in the forage of hell" very soon develops into a bitter drama about loyalty, guilt, atonement, repression and self-abandon.In dark, steel blue shimmering colors, Phil Joanou describes the grinding stream of guilt and atonement, in which the antiheroes get caught up with every step until only death can clarify.

»" In the forecourt of Hell "at Amazon*

Especially in the second half, the fateful downward spiral is compacting to a crescendo extremely brutal murders, which culminates in an orgiastic brutal finale at Saint Patricks Day.If Massaker Tabula Rasa is made here in an ultra stylized slow motion, it presses the viewer in the seat.The fact that the film is told entirely without wink and distance only gives it even more weight."In the forecourt to hell" is a slightly forgotten, but nevertheless extremely intensive and emotionally mandatory classic of the modern gangster film.A very heavy chunk.

Worked on this special: Robert Cherkowski, Carsten Baumgardt, Felix Haenel, Julius Vietzen, Pascal Reis, Tobias Mayer and Markus Trutt.

We continue on the next page with places 30 to 26...

*The links to Amazon's offer are so-called affiliate links.When buying on these links, we receive a commission.