Since the early days of cinema, filmmakers have been fascinated with gangsters, crooks, and the generally criminal-minded. Whether trying to humanize violent criminals or simply indulging in humanity's morbid fascination for true crime, films about career criminals have always resonated with audiences.

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The 1970s saw a drastic change in Hollywood. The Golden Age had ended and in its place, a new generation of filmmakers was emerging, bringing with them new ideas and a refreshed sense of creativity spurred on by technological and ideological advancements in society.

'The French Connection'

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For all the things that William Friedkin's The French Connection will be remembered for, from its fast-paced police investigation plot, to its three-dimensional albeit morally warped protagonist, or even that just that it features one of the most thrilling car chases ever committed to film, it will no doubt be revered for decades to come for being one of the tightest and most confidently produced crime films of the 70s.

Front and center here is Gene Hackman in an Oscar-winning turn as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle. A brazenly confident and suitably unhinged performance befitting a breakneck, race against time police narrative.

'The Sting'

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Part heist flick, part revenge narrative, part buddy movie, The Sting is a classic crime caper through and through. Featuring the faultless pairing of Hollywood legends Paul Newman and Robert Redford and directed by George Roy Hill, this great depression-set film paved the way for pretty much every heist and con man film to come with its twisting caper narrative and the unmistakable chemistry of its charming leads.

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The Sting is a flashy film. Everything from its 30s inspired cinematography and production design to its anachronistic re-purposing of early 1900s ragtime music coalesces into one of the best movies in the genre, period.

'Chinatown'

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Take a classic film noir mystery, set it in sunny Los Angeles and pull it off with all the style and confidence you'd expect from director Roman Polanski and you have Chinatown. Widely regarded as one of the best films of all time, Chinatown takes the well-worn private-investigator-in-way-over-their-head storyline and updates it with the benefit of several decades of technical and creative filmmaking evolution. As a result, Chinatown feels truly timeless.

Jack Nicholson shines as deeply-flawed P.I. Jake Gittes, whose obsessive, often antisocial personality gets him into increasingly hotter water as the expertly tight narrative unfolds.

'Mean Streets'

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One of the early films by a then unknown Martin Scorsese, Mean Streets is a raw and confronting boots-on-the-ground look at life in New York's Little Italy as inspired by Scorsese's own experiences.

It's a grounded film both in its story and its execution. There's a certain sense of realism that is often side-stepped in gangster films. Its protagonists are lacking in any particular ambition, unlike the main characters in other typical gangster films. This is not a cautionary tale about the pursuit of power so much as a story of being consumed by your surroundings.

'The Warriors'

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Cult films are often characterized as films that didn't make a splash during their initial theatrical run, but that have ultimately left their mark after the fact. The Warriors, directed by Walter Hill, certainly fit that mold. Even though the film was considered a box office success, critically, it was divisive, to say the least. Caught up in controversy concerning real-life violence and vandalism allegedly perpetrated by fans of the film, The Warriors would long be considered amoral, critically underappreciated, and to an extent, forgotten.

A violent, dystopian, and exaggerated look at inter-gang conflict set against the backdrop of a near-future New York. The Warriors present a version of the city effectively run by dozens of gangs, each with their own unique (and often delightfully silly and clichéd) aesthetic gimmick. The Warriors won't be remembered for its script, direction, or performances, but its campy, over-the-top execution.

'Get Carter'

Michael Caine as Jack Carter pointing a gun in Get Carter
Image via MGM-EMI Distributors

This list is overflowing with tales of American gangsters, but to not include at least one British gangster film on this list would be criminal. Naturally, Mike Hodges's Get Carter appears to kick the door in to announce its candidacy.

The inimitable Michael Caine stars here as Jack Carter, a ticking time bomb of steadily increasing, well-dressed violence. This is a bleak and aggressive revenge film, with a particularly English sensibility to its brutality. Caine plays Carter as a rage-filled man living in a world of dangerous people, and the one man dangerous enough himself to take them on.

'Shaft'

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There have been a few attempts to revitalize the character of Shaft over the years, but the character truly is symbolic of a particular time and place, that time and place being 1970s Harlem. As the titular John Shaft, actor Richard Roundtree took the role of a private detective, a character archetype historically portrayed by sarcastic Caucasian men, and crafted him as a charming, badass, and distinctively African-American character (the original novel features Shaft as a black man, but early drafts of the screenplay adaptation were set to whitewash the character).

Shaft, with director and photgrapher Gordon Parks at the helm, is credited with largely helping to popularize the blaxploitation genre. The film's box office success was indicative of the turnout of a large portion of the American audience previously lacking on-screen representation, heralding a huge wave of blaxploitation films throughout the remainder of the 70s.

'Bugsy Malone'

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Juxtaposed with the other entries on this list, Bugsy Malone, directed by Alan Parker, sticks out like a sore thumb. For one, it's a musical and an arguably satirical one at that. It's also effectively a kids' film, starring child actors exclusively (among them a very young Jodie Foster). Its violent elements are playfully substituted for child-friendly ones (no blood and death here, folks, only whipped cream and shame).

What's astounding here is the clear love for and understanding of the gangster genre. Costume and production design befitting classic gangster films of the 30s and 40s with the stylized direction and cinematography to back it up: this film isn't just a childish pastiche.

'Assault On Precinct 13'

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Before John Carpenter became a horror icon with such films as Halloween and The Thing, he made Assault On Precinct 13. Holed up in a soon-to-be-abandoned police precinct building, the station's remaining police officers reluctantly join forces with a group of prisoners to fend off a seemingly endless horde of vengeance-seeking gang members.

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The film is, amongst other things, an intriguing genre mashup taking influence from Howard Hawks' 1951 western Rio Bravo and re-contextualizing its defend-the-ranch-from-invaders storyline as a 70s urban action thriller.

The Godfather Parts 1 & 2

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It might be cheating to amalgamate two films here, but there won't be many readers who will argue against the notion that these two films (and to a lesser extent, the maligned Part III) deserve to be treated as a whole. The Godfather saga is the quintessential Italian Mafia story. Its themes of familial loyalty, conflict of duty, and the migrant experience resonate even outside the context of its early 20th-century gangster story.

The choices made by director Francis Ford Coppola in making The Godfather films have had a lasting influence on the genre. So much about these films has permeated future crime stories and informed the way filmmakers characterize gangsters. It's not a stretch in the slightest to call The Godfather the greatest gangster film of all time.

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