Martin Scorsese's 15 Most Influential Gangster Films

"Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film. They excited me, provoked me, and in one way or another, they had the ring of truth.

I stopped before the ‘70s because we’re talking about influence here, and I was looking at movies in a different way after I started making my own pictures. There are many gangster films I’ve admired in the last 40 years—Performance, the Godfather saga, Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, The Long Good Friday, Sexy Beast, John Woo’s Hong Kong films.

The films below I saw when I was young, open, impressionable."

• The Public Enemy (1931)
• Scarface (1932)
• Blood Money (1933)
• The Roaring Twenties (1939)
• Force of Evil (1948)
• White Heat (1949)
• Night and the City (1950)
• Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954)
• The Phenix City Story (1955)
• Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
• Murder by Contract (1958)
• Al Capone (1959)
• Le Doulos (1962)
• Mafioso (1962)
• Point Blank (1967)