<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" >10: 'Queen of Bandits' 1994</h1>
The Robber Queen tells the true story of Plantaway, who rises from india's slums to become the leader of a powerful gang. Movie cover
It's hard to exaggerate the madness of Life in Planvey. The closest analogy is the trajectory of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Both were child brides-in-law sold to unknown husbands, and then they rose to leadership roles with their steely will and cunning wisdom.
But there are a few key differences: first of all, Devi's story is true. Second: The Robber Queen, also known as Devi, did not begin her life as a princess. She was an impoverished, illiterate 11-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh, India, when she was torn out of her mother's arms and married to a rapist in her 20s. Devi continued to endure unimaginable horrors until she was kidnapped by bandits.
Her abduction was actually a rare stroke of luck, and the young woman took full advantage of it, eventually winning her place as the leader of the gang. Devi's saga spread throughout the subcontinent, and when her power reached its peak in the 1990s, she became so famous that little girls in India cherished their "Devi Dolls."
The Robber Queen is a film version of Prandwe's life, starring Sima Biswas and directed by Shehar Kapoor. It was released in 1995 and received critical acclaim and commercial success. A stunning, extremely realistic film, not for the faint of heart.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >9: 'Bonnie and Clyde' 1967</h1>
Warren Beatty and Fei Donnevey played the crime mania duo Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 film of the same name. Movie cover
When Warren Beatty tried to persuade Warner Bros. to make a film of the short and brutal lives of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the studio hesitated. It may be a true story, but the story of two homicidal hooligans and their gang rampage through the Great Depression doesn't sound very good. In the end, however, Beatty prevailed, and in 1967 the film, directed by Arthur Penn, won two Oscars.
Beatty, who played Clyde and Fei Donnevey, was considered by some to be one of the most influential films of the era. Sex, violence and black humor were groundbreaking at the time. But what really makes Bonnie and Clyde always modern is its depiction of two charming, charismatic, media-hungry psychopaths that bring a new celebrity killer brand to the United States.
Bonnie and Clyde's fame is no accident. They recorded themselves with a camera, a portable high-tech device of the time. Before Instagram appeared, the two mailed their photos to the newspaper along with ballads written by Bonnie. They held guns, cigars and smiled at the cops they had caught.
The film isn't so exaggerated for our own gun-loving, media-saturated era, which is rife with social media celebrities who go the extra mile to be famous. We all slipped down the rabbit hole that Bonnie and Clyde dug nearly a century ago.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" >8: City of God, 2002</h1>
When City of God was released in 2002, it shocked critics and audiences with its gripping depiction of crime in Rio de Janeiro. YOUTUBE screenshot/HOWSTUFFWORKS
In most cities, the higher you walk, the richer the occupants become. Whether on the hillside or in the penthouse of the building, the landscape comes with a price tag. But not in Rio de Janeiro. There, for historical reasons, impoverished areas of the city known as slums often inhabit steep slopes above affluent areas close to the coastline.
But in "City of God," no one in the eponymous community has time to enjoy the view — they're busy surviving a vicious gang war waged by teenagers. The reason none of the gang members matured to adulthood was because they died too early.
The film's protagonist, a boy named Rocket, does not carry a gun, but picks up a camera and begins to document the tragic violence around him. Rocket survived, and his art became his ticket out of the slums.
Directed by Fernando Meirelles and based on true events, City of God shocked critics and audiences with its soft storytelling and vivid, vicious depictions of street life in Rio's forgotten shantytowns.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" >7: 'Mothola' 2009</h1>
"Gomorrah" explores the heartland of Naples, Italy, where a mafia called Camorra has a stranglehold at every corner of the town. Movie cover
A mob movie with frequent lamentations about the problem is a habit they have the potential to make gangster life look funny. There's so much money to start with. Then there are often considerable doses of sex. In the end, violence often seems exciting, even fascinating. Falling in the hail of bullets like Sonny Corleone in The Godfather may be tragic, but it's also epic and memorable.
When Gomorrah was released in 2009, audiences and critics alike hailed it as a one-of-a-kind gangster movie because it revealed the dirty, stressful and horrible life in a gangster-infested city.
According to the nonfiction book of the same name, "Gomorrah" explores the heartland of Naples, Italy, where a mafia named Camorra has tentacled restraints in every corner of town. The Camorra family has no honor code, no likable psychosis, no charisma. It's a story about how greed and corruption are small, devastating, and tragic for everyone involved.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" >6: "Good Guys" 1990</h1>
"I've wanted to be a gangster for as long as I can remember," is the opening line of the legend. Movie cover
Tough, gorgeous, funny, cinematic gold, "Good Guys" is Martin Scorsese's brilliant gangster movie. The stylish, superb filmmaking features Scorsese's freeze frame and slow motion, as well as controversial Steadicam footage, following Reliotta and Lorraine Braco through the streets, through the back doors, down stairs, through the kitchens and into the restaurants of the Copacabana nightclub.
In addition to its status as one of the longest single shots in the history of American cinema, it is a brave scene that brilliantly demonstrates the glamorous charm of being a man. This is just one of the many film jewels offered to the audience in a film full of unforgettable scenes and wonderful performances. Robert DeNiro came out on top in his game as the mild-mannered but ruthless Jimmy Conway and Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito, who showed how to balance laughter and fear on a sharp blade.
Scorsese is based on The Good Guys from The Wise, a description of the evil career of Nicholas Pileggi of Henry Hill (played by Liotta in the film), who from an early age wanted to join the mob life. "I've wanted to be a gangster for as long as I can remember," is the opening line of the legend. In three scarred decades, this desire inevitably waned until our anti-hero had to make a life-and-death decision between survival and betrayal.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" >5: 'Meslin' 2008</h1>
Vincent Cassell's brilliant portrayal of Jacques Mesrine earned him rave reviews and helped establish the biopic as an instant classic of the gangster genre.
Some gangsters like to work in the shadows; others gain fame. Jacques Mesrine belongs to the latter group. Unlike most criminals, Mesrine came from a middle-class background and was a decent student in her youth, even if destructive.
But a trip as a French soldier during the Franco-Afghan War seemed to have plunged him into a life of crime. France's conflict with Algeria was at least as horrific as the Vietnam War, and Merlin later claimed he was accused of being a decisive prisoner. After retiring from the army, Meslin tried some traditional life, but soon transitioned to the career of France's most notorious bank robber, kidnapper, murderer and fugitive artist, eventually earning the title of France's first public enemy.
Between venturing out of multiple prisons, including France's so-called escape-proof La Santé, he wrote his own life story, so much so that it was so difficult to know where real life ended and where the legend began. But there's no doubt that mesrine had amassed an extraordinary criminal resume before being shot by paris police in 1979.
Such a grand life could not have been squeezed into a film, so director Jean-François Richet told it in two parts. Vincent Cassel's brilliant depiction of the Crime Master earned him rave reviews and helped establish the biopic as an instant classic of the gangster genre.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" >4: "Pigs and Battleships" 1961</h1>
Pigs and Battleships has long been considered a rogue genre classic because it hovers between a slapstick drama and stubborn realism.
Gangsters. The name of Japan's notorious mafia is reminiscent of the super cool gangster image depicted in movies like Sonata. But the hood in One of the first gangster movies ever made, Pigs and Battleships, isn't cool at all. They were a bunch of clumsy, rude, greedy, greedy people trying to make money in postwar Japan.
Ridiculing the relationship between the U.S. naval base and the ordinary Japanese trying to survive around it, "Pigs and Battleships" has long been considered a classic of the rogue genre. But few films like this have done so well between a farce and stubborn realism.
For example, a major plot point revolves around the fact that sewage is taken from a naval base to feed black market pigs. However, the narrative of this farce is gorgeously filmed in rich black and white and framed as if it were a Hollywood epic of the 50s. The sharp contrast between form and content is part of what makes director Masahira Imamura's masterpiece unique.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="40" >3: 'El Giuliano'</h1>
The film's breathtaking vistas and tense scenes make up a beautiful work.
Salvatore Giuliano is absent in the film that bears his name, only in the form of a handsome corpse. From the moment his body is found, the film moves back and forth in time to explore the events surrounding his rise and fall as one of Sicily's most notorious bandits.
After the Allied invasion of Sicily during World War II, Giuliano was arrested for black market trading. The truth is that without the black market, no one would have survived Sicily in that era. But Giuliano soon began a full-fledged life as a bandit, robbing and kidnapping the rich while maintaining a close alliance with the peasants he came from. There is also some evidence that he did dirty work for local politicians.
Is he a real Robin Hood and will he do everything he can to help poor Sicilians? Or are they the lackeys of the establishment, employed to sustain the rising left movement? Director Francesco Rosi's sweeping realist filmmaking journey never answers that question, but makes it central to the entire narrative turn.
The film's breathtaking vistas and tense sets make up a fine work that infuses the gangster genre with a passionate artistic and exploratory political analysis.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="46" >2: 'General' 1998</h1>
Starring in the movie "The General" is the great Brandon Gleason's groundbreaking performance as the general himself.
Martin Cahill, aka "The General", was an Irish gangster who enjoyed cult status for his astonishing feats of theft, including looting the police station's arsenal. In addition to the usual costs of bank robberies and jewelry store break-ins, Cahill had an appreciation for fine art and was known for stealing some of the most expensive paintings in the world, including Vermeer, the only one in a private collection.
Cahill is also not against violence. When Dr James O'Donovan made complex forensic science and technology standard practice for Irish law enforcement, Cahill bombarded him with cars. Odonovan survived but was disabled for life.
Cahill likes to break into the houses of the rich, and in one such burglary he stole an award from a famous film director. Directed by the Englishman John Bulman, the award was awarded to his most famous work, Deliverance. Cahill is unlikely to suspect that years after being shot by an unknown killer in 1994, he put himself on Boorman's radar to ensure he would immortalize himself in the film.
Boorman, a renowned director of Point Blank, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, and of course Deliverance, reinvigorated his career with a vibrant, beautiful black-and-white biopic of Cahill. The film's anchor was the great Brendan Gleeson as a breakthrough performance by the General himself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="52" >1: 'white hot' 1949</h1>
Under the direction of Raoul Walsh, James Cagney burned the screen as a doomed villain, Cody Jarrett. Movie cover
Mabak is believed to be the matriarch of the Buck Gang, a collection of notorious thieves, kidnappers, and murderers in the American Midwest, many of whom happen to be her sons. After police besieged their hiding place, she died next to one of them.
When Hollywood began commemorating the story with celluloid, they condensed her offspring into a single, fiery, Oedipal, psychopath, renamed Cody Jarrett. Then it's just a matter of convincing an actor who can treat the role fairly to join. Jimmy Cagney has long since left the gangster movies that made him famous. In fact, the same is true of Hollywood. The suffocating production code and waning audience interest more or less suppressed the genre.
But in 1949, it seemed like a good time to restart. And Cagney, whose star is fading, needs a blow. It turned out to be the perfect match. Under the direction of Raoul Walsh, Cagney burns the screen as a doomed villain. The great Margaret Wycherly, who played "Margaret Wycherly," helped build White Hot, one of the greatest gangster movies.