"Ford Coppola's ""The Godfather"" was released. The epic story of the Corleone family, its generational transition from post-prohibition to post-war, its fratricidal intrigues, and its tapestry of mid-century America's criminal underworld became a huge critical and commercial success. It accounted for nearly 10% of gross proceeds for all films for the entire year. It won the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as the award for Best Actor for Marlon Brando and is widely considered one of the greatest American films of all time. Two years later, ""The Godfather Part II"" became the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year and garnered"
"II"" both by Francis Ford Coppola, 1983's ""Scarface"", a remake of the 1932 original, by Brian De Palma, and 1990's ""Goodfellas"" by Martin Scorsese. In the 1970s, as genre theory came to the focus of academic study and the creation of a more specific taxonomy of genres was defined, gangster film started being distinguished from other subgenres, especially that of western. The genre has been predominantly defined by its historical, ideological, and sociocultural context. Three main categories of gangster films can be distinguished, according to Martha Nochimson: films that follow the escapades of outlaw rebels, such as ""Bonnie and Clyde"","
"film with Pesci earning an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards in all, including Best Picture and Best Director, making ""Goodfellas"" one of the most critically acclaimed crime films of all time. Following their collaboration in ""Goodfellas"", Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci would team up again in 1995 with the film ""Casino"", based on Frank Rosenthal, an associate of the Chicago Outfit who ran multiple casinos in Las Vegas during the 1970s and 1980s. The film was De Niro's third mob film of the decade, following ""Goodfellas"" (1990) and"
"It was one of the most notable gangster films of the decade. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci also starred in the film with Pesci earning an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards in all, including Best Picture and Best Director, making ""Goodfellas"" one of the most critically acclaimed crime films of all time. Following their collaboration in ""Goodfellas"", Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci would team up again in 1995's ""Casino"", based on Frank Rosenthal, an associate of the Chicago Outfit, that ran multiple casinos in Las Vegas during"
"became more figurative, representing metaphors, as opposed to the more straight forward films produced earlier in the decade, showing an increasing interest in offering a thought provoking message about criminal character. In the 1970s there was a revival of mob films, notably with ""The Godfather"" (1972), based on the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. It was followed by two sequels: ""The Godfather Part II"" (1974) and ""The Godfather Part III"" (1990). It also inspired other mob films such as ""The Valachi Papers"", starring Charles Bronson. The 1983 remake of ""Scarface"" was not particularly well received at the"
"Zeppelin was the most successful musical act of the 1970s, having sold more than 300 million records since 1969. Oscar winners of the decade were ""Patton"" (1970), ""The French Connection"" (1971), ""The Godfather"" (1972), ""The Sting"" (1973), ""The Godfather Part II"" (1974), ""One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"" (1975), ""Rocky"" (1976), ""Annie Hall"" (1977), ""The Deer Hunter"" (1978), and ""Kramer vs. Kramer"" (1979). The top ten highest-grossing films of the decade are (in order from highest to lowest grossing): ""Star Wars"", ""Jaws"", ""Grease"", ""The Exorcist"", ""Close Encounters of the Third Kind"", ""Superman"", ""The Godfather"", ""Saturday Night Fever"", ""Rocky"", and ""Jaws"
"""The Godfather Part II"" (1974), also (partly) based on Puzo's novel, and yet another big winner at the Academy Awards, as well as films based on real Mafiosi like ""Honor Thy Father"" and ""Lucky Luciano"" (both in 1973) and ""Lepke"" and ""Capone"" (both in 1975). An ambitious 13-part miniseries by NBC called ""The Gangster Chronicles"" based on the rise of many major crime bosses of the 1920s and 1930s, aired in 1981. American Mafia The American Mafia (commonly referred to as the Mafia or the Mob, though ""the Mob"" can refer to other organized crime groups or organized crime in"
"Supporting Actress (Beatrice Straight), and Best Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). Thanks to a stellar cast, experienced director, and a poignant story, ""Network"" became one of the largest critical successes of 1976. Another film, ""Rocky"", about a clubhouse boxer (played by Sylvester Stallone) who is granted a world championship title fight won the Best Picture Academy Award that year. The film also became a major commercial success and spawned four sequels through the rest of the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout the 1970s, the horror film developed into a lucrative genre of film. It began in 1973 with the terrifying ""The Exorcist"", directed"
"Art Direction (Richard Day), Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gregg Toland) and Best Supporting Actress (Claire Trevor). In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Gangster Films list. The film was released on VHS and Beta in 1985 by Embassy Home Entertainment and on DVD on March 8, 2005 by MGM. Dead End (1937 film) Dead End is a 1937 crime drama film directed by William Wyler. It is an adaptation of the Sidney Kingsley 1935 Broadway play of the same name. It stars Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, and Humphrey Bogart. It was the first"
"law and order avengers like ""Dirty Harry"" (1971) and ""RoboCop"" (1987). In the 1970s, films portrayed fictitious and exaggerated characters, madmen ostensibly produced by the Vietnam War in films like ""Taxi Driver"" (1976) and ""Apocalypse Now"" (1979), while other films told stories of fictitious veterans who were supposedly victims of the war and in need of rehabilitation (""Coming Home"" and ""The Deer Hunter"", both 1978). Many action films continue to celebrate the gun toting hero in fantastical settings. At the same time, the negative role of the gun in fictionalized modern urban violence has been explored in films like ""Boyz"
"Gangster (film series) The ""Gangster"" film series is a Bollywood crime thriller film series written, directed and produced by Ram Gopal Varma. It is based on the Indian mafia organization D-Company, known to be run by Dawood Ibrahim. The first film came in 1998: the critically acclaimed ""Satya"", later followed by ""Company"" and then the prequel ""D"", with storylines based on the Mumbai underworld. ""Satya"" has won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film. In 2002 came his commercial as well as critical success, ""Company"", an example of parallel cinema, was based on the real-life underworld organization,"
"of seven sequels, starting with ""2 Fast 2 Furious"" in 2003. On the docks outside Los Angeles, a truck is loaded with electronics, and a dockside worker notifies an anonymous person about the shipment. On the road, the truck is approached by three modified Honda Civics with green underglow. The perpetrators then proceed to harpoon & board the truck, knock out the driver, and corral the semi allowing them to heist the electronics and escape into the night. The next day, undercover LAPD officer Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is assigned to find the gang responsible for the crimes. While visiting"
"Man Who Never Was"" (1955), ""I Was Monty's Double"" (1958), ""Battle of Britain"" (1969), ""Hanover Street"" (1979), ""Hope and Glory"" (1987), ""Shining Through"" (1992) and ""The End of the Affair"" (1999), as well as some low-budget Italian-made war films like ""Stukas Over London"" (1970) and ""From Hell to Victory"" (1979). The 1950s has been recreated in several films including ""84 Charing Cross Road"" (1987) and ""Shadowlands"" (1993). The 1960s has proved particularly popular with film makers in recent years, especially for crime films like ""Buster"" (1988), ""Scandal"" (1989), ""The Krays"" (1990), ""Honest"" (2000) and ""Gangster No. 1"" (2000). ""Withnail and"
"film's success led to two sequels, ""The Soul of Nigger Charley"" and ""Boss Nigger"". ""Black Caesar"" (1973): Tommy Gibbs, a tough kid who aspires to be a criminal after his leg is broken by a cop, takes his vengeance throughout the rest of the movie. He initiates a hit on a Mob contract, gaining the attention of the Mafia. As he is accepted into the Mob family, he eventually starts a gang war which he wins. Martin plays Reverend Rufus in the movie which spawned a sequel, ""Hell Up in Harlem"". ""Hammer"" (1972): B.J. Hammer is a boxer who rises"
"amnesia. These include ""The Addams Family"", ""The Munsters"" (both 1965),""The Man from U.N.C.L.E."" (1966), ""Get Smart"" (1967), ""The Wild Wild West"", ""The Big Valley"", """" (all from 1968), ""It Takes a Thief"" (1969), ""The Mod Squad"" (1971), ""Hawaii Five-O"" (1972), ""Gunsmoke"" (1973), and ""Charlie's Angels"" (1978). By the end of the 1970s, this now shop-worn plot device became dormant once again until resurfacing in a spate of mystery thrillers in the 1990s (see the ""Psychological thriller"" section below). In Italy, a new type of controversial horror-based thriller called the Giallo film (which began in the 1960s) became a popular and"
"African American filmmakers also found success in the 1970s with such hits as ""Shaft"" and ""Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song"". Like other sequels in the 1970s, ""Shaft"" went on to have two more adventures, each less successful than the last. An adaptation of a Mario Puzo novel, ""The Godfather"", was a box-office and critical success in 1972. The three-hour epic followed a Mafia boss, played by Marlon Brando, through his life of crime. Beyond the violence and drama were themes of love, pride, and greed. ""The Godfather"" went on to earn $134 million at American box office, and $245 million throughout"
"the agency's portrayal was demoralizing. ""American Gangster"" was nominated for twenty-one awards, including two Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Supporting Actress (Ruby Dee), and won three including a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Dee. In 1968, Frank Lucas is the right-hand man of Harlem gangster Ellsworth ""Bumpy"" Johnson. When Johnson dies of a heart attack, Lucas takes control of the Harlem crime scene. After handing in almost $1 million that he found in a mobster's car, Newark detective Richie Roberts is ostracized in his precinct."
"included Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall (Best Supporting Actor), and Coppola for Best Director. ""The Godfather"" is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema and one of the most influential, especially in the gangster genre. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990, being deemed ""culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"" and is ranked the second-greatest film in American cinema (behind ""Citizen Kane"") by the American Film Institute. It was followed by sequels ""The Godfather Part II"" (1974) and ""The Godfather Part III"" (1990). In 1945, at"
"in the labor union leadership. In 1979 he wrote, directed and starred in the sequel to his 1976 hit, ""Rocky II"" (replacing John G. Avildsen, who won an Academy Award for directing the first film), which also became a major success, grossing million. In 1981, he starred alongside Michael Caine in ""Escape to Victory"", a sports drama in which he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda soccer game. That same year, he starred in the thriller ""Nighthawks"", in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat-and-mouse game with a foreign terrorist, played"
"the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist."" Underworld (1927 film) Underworld (also released as Paying the Penalty) is a 1927 American silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg. The film launched Sternberg's eight-year collaboration with Paramount Pictures, with whom he would produce his seven films with actress Marlene Dietrich. Journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht won an Academy Award for Best Original Story. Boisterous gangster kingpin 'Bull' Weed rehabilitates the down-and-out 'Rolls Royce' Wensel, a former lawyer who has fallen into alcoholism. The two"
"the blockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was eclipsed two years later by the science-fiction film ""Star Wars"" (1977). ""Saturday Night Fever"" (1977) single-handedly touched off disco mania in the U.S. ""The Godfather"" (1972) was also one of the decade's greatest successes and its first follow-up, ""The Godfather Part II"" (1974) was also successful for a sequel. ""The Rocky Horror Picture Show"" flopped in its 1975 debut, only to reappear as a more-popular midnight show later in the decade. Still in limited release 36 years after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. ""The Exorcist"" (1973)"
"next fifteen years saw a number of high-quality blockbusters released including the likes of ""Alien"" (1979) and its sequel, ""Aliens"" (1986), the first three Indiana Jones films (1981, 1984 and 1989), ""E.T."" (1982), ""Ghostbusters"" (1984), ""Beverly Hills Cop"" (1984), the ""Back to the Future"" trilogy (1985, 1989 and 1990), ""Top Gun"" (1986), ""Die Hard"" (1988), ""Batman"" (1989) and its sequel ""Batman Returns"" (1992), and ""The Hunt for Red October"" (1990). Eventually, the focus on creating blockbusters grew so intense that a backlash occurred, with critics and some film-makers decrying the prevalence of a ""blockbuster mentality"" and lamenting the death of"
"1970s, the films of New Hollywood filmmakers were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While the early New Hollywood films like ""Bonnie and Clyde"" and ""Easy Rider"" had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Friedkin with ""The Exorcist"", Spielberg with ""Jaws"", Coppola with ""The Godfather"" and ""Apocalypse Now"", Scorsese with ""Taxi Driver"", Kubrick with """", Polanski with ""Chinatown"", and Lucas with ""American Graffiti"" and ""Star Wars"", respectively helped to give rise to the modern ""blockbuster"", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous"
"American Gangster (film) American Gangster is a 2007 American biographical crime film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Zaillian. The film is fictionally based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by detective Richie Roberts. The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in their first lead acting roles together since 1995's ""Virtuosity"". The film also co-stars Ted Levine, John Ortiz, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor,"
"(1973), a sequel to ""Dirty Harry"", about a group of rogue young officers (among them David Soul, Robert Urich and Tim Matheson) in the San Francisco Police Department who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals. Although the film was a major success after release, grossing $58.1 million in the United States (a record for Eastwood), it was not a critical success. ""The New York Times"" critic Nora Sayre panned the often contradictory moral themes of the film, while the paper's Frank Rich called it ""the same old stuff"". In 1974, Eastwood teamed up with Jeff Bridges and George Kennedy in"
"Nonetheless, the urban-crime genre was mostly ignored until 1927 when ""Underworld"", which is recognized as the first gangster movie, became a surprise hit. According to the ""Encyclopedia of Hollywood"" entry on ""Underworld"", ""The film established the fundamental elements of the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist"". Gangster films such as ""Thunderbolt"" (1929), and ""Doorway to Hell"" (1930) were released to capitalize on ""Underworld""s popularity, with ""Thunderbolt"" being described as ""a virtual remake"" of the film. Other late 1920s crime films investigated the connection between"
"11 Academy Award nominations. It again won Best Picture. Coppola won Best Director and Robert DeNiro won best supporting actor for his portrayal of a young Vito Corleone. The lesson of the films' successes was not wasted on Hollywood. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the studios issued a steady flow of films about Italian American gangsters and the Mafia. Some of these were critically acclaimed. Scorsese's ""Goodfellas"" about Henry Hill's life and relationship with the Lucchese and Gambino crime families, was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director and won the award for Best Supporting Actor"
"the Bandit"" in 1977. Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the movies of Bollywood superhero Amitabh Bachchan. Another Asian touchstone beginning in the early 1970s was Hong Kong martial arts film which sparked a greater interest in Chinese martial arts around the world. Martial arts film reached the peak of its popularity largely in part due to its greatest icon, Bruce Lee. During the 1970s, Hollywood continued the New Hollywood revolution of the late-1960s with young film-makers. Top-grossing ""Jaws"" (1975) ushered in"
"1960s began to influence horror films in the 70s, as the youth involved in the counterculture began exploring the medium. Wes Craven's ""The Hills Have Eyes"" (1977) and ""The Last House on the Left"" (1972) along with Tobe Hooper's ""The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"" (1974) (based on the Ed Gein case) recalled the Vietnam War; while George A. Romero satirized the consumer society in his zombie sequel, ""Dawn of the Dead"" (1978). Meanwhile, the subgenre of comedy horror re-emerged in the cinema with ""The Abominable Dr. Phibes"" (1971), ""Young Frankenstein"" (1974), ""The Rocky Horror Picture Show"" (1975), and ""An American"
"(1988) and """" (1989). In them, Angela (now played by Bruce Springsteen's younger sister, Pamela Springsteen) resurfaces at a nearby summer camp, but this time masquerading as a counselor after a sex reassignment surgery. Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills anyone who misbehaves or annoys her. These films had more of a satirical comic tone than the original. Another rogue sequel, """", directed by Jim Markovic, was partially filmed in the early 1990s but never completed. In 2002 the unfinished footage was released and made available as an exclusive fourth disc in Anchor Bay/Starz Entertainment's"
"Robbery"" (1903) and ""A California Hold Up"" (1906)—the most commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon era. Gangster films began appearing as early as 1910, but became popular only with the advent of sound in film in the 1930s. The genre was boosted by the events of the prohibition era, such as bootlegging and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, the existence of real-life gangsters (e.g., Al Capone) and the rise of contemporary organized crime and escalation of urban violence. These movies flaunted the archetypal exploits of ""swaggering, cruel, wily, tough, and law-defying bootleggers and urban gangsters."" With the arrival"
"community. ""Goodfellas"" was regarded as the second-best in the gangster film genre (after ""The Godfather""). In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film ""culturally significant"" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Roger Ebert named ""Goodfellas"" the ""best mob movie ever"" and placed it among the best films of the 1990s. In December 2002, a UK film critics poll in ""Sight and Sound"" ranked the film #4 on their list of the 10 Best Films of the Last 25 Years. ""Time"" included ""Goodfellas"" in their list of Time's All-TIME 100 Movies. ""Channel 4"" placed"
"yet with ""Rocky"" (1976), which earned the Academy Award as Best Picture. Subsequently, the producing duo picked up Best Picture Oscar nominations for ""Raging Bull"" (1980) and ""The Right Stuff"" (1983), their last project together before Winkler launched his solo career with the ""Revolution"" (1985). Winkler produced such noteworthy features as Bertrand Tavernier's ""Round Midnight"" (1986) and back-to-back Costa-Gavras films, ""Betrayed"" (1988) and ""Music Box"" (1989), before receiving another Best Picture Oscar nomination for Martin Scorsese's ""Goodfellas"" (1990). He also returned to the franchise to oversee ""Rocky IV"" (1985) and ""Rocky V"" (1990), continuing the association forged with Sylvester Stallone"