8 Best Mafia Movies of All Time, From The Godfather to The Irishman

The best mafia movies of all time are The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), followed by Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990), Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Departed (2006), Casino (1995), The Irishman (2019), Donnie Brasco (1997) and Scarface (1983). In the UK, The Godfather films are on Paramount+, Goodfellas is on NOW and Sky, Scarface is on Netflix, Casino and Once Upon a Time in America are free on ITVX, and The Irishman is a Netflix original.

This is a ranked list of the eight best mafia movies ever made, from Francis Ford Coppola’s Corleone saga to Scorsese’s late-career epic. We ranked them on how well they have lasted, their influence on the crime genre and their craft, and we’ve included a couple of films about gangsters outside the Italian-American mob, because no list of the genre feels complete without them.

1. The Godfather Trilogy (1972–1990, Paramount)

What makes it stand out: The first two films are the gold standard of the genre, and arguably of American cinema in the 1970s.

Key data: Directed by Francis Ford Coppola from Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel; The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) both won the Best Picture Oscar, with Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro winning acting Oscars for playing Vito Corleone.

Why it matters: It defined how the mafia looks, sounds and talks on screen, and every film below owes it something.

The first film follows the Corleone family over a decade after the Second World War, as the ageing Don Vito (Brando) refuses to get into the narcotics trade and his youngest son Michael (Al Pacino), the war hero who wanted nothing to do with the family business, is drawn in and turns out to be better at it than anyone. The genius of the film is that it treats crime as a family drama about succession, loyalty and inheritance.

Part II goes further, cutting between Michael’s cold consolidation of power in the late 1950s and young Vito’s arrival in New York in the early 1900s, played by De Niro. It is the rare sequel that many people rank above the original. Part III (1990), with Andy García and Sofia Coppola, was received less warmly, but Coppola’s 2020 re-edit, The Godfather Coda, has won it some new admirers. Start with the first two and see if you want to go on. All three are on Paramount+ in the UK.

2. Goodfellas (1990, Warner Bros.)

What makes it stand out: It shows the mob from the bottom up, as a lifestyle rather than a dynasty, at a breathless pace.

Key data: Directed by Martin Scorsese, who co-wrote it with Nicholas Pileggi from Pileggi’s 1985 book Wiseguy; starring Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Why it matters: Its voiceover, freeze frames and pop soundtrack have been copied by crime films ever since.

Henry Hill grew up in Brooklyn wanting to be a gangster, and the film lets him explain why. It is a true story: the real Hill was an associate of the Lucchese crime family who became an FBI informant. Liotta narrates three decades of hijackings, the Lufthansa heist, prison and a cocaine-fuelled collapse in the early 1980s.

The famous long take through the back door of the Copacabana sells the glamour, and the second half takes it all away again. Pesci’s “funny how?” scene is still one of the most nerve-racking in the genre. If The Godfather is the opera, Goodfellas is the rock record. It’s on NOW Cinema and Sky in the UK.

3. Once Upon a Time in America (1984, The Ladd Company/Warner Bros.)

What makes it stand out: Sergio Leone’s final film is a sprawling, dreamlike epic about memory, friendship and betrayal.

Key data: Starring Robert De Niro and James Woods with a score by Ennio Morricone; Leone’s version runs close to four hours, and the US distributor’s shortened, reordered cut flopped on release.

Why it matters: Restored to Leone’s intended form, it’s now recognised as one of the great crime films.

The story follows a group of Jewish kids from New York’s Lower East Side who become Prohibition-era gangsters, told across the 1920s, the 1930s and 1968, when the ageing David “Noodles” Aaronson (De Niro) returns to the city to find out what really happened decades earlier. The structure jumps around in time, and the film asks you to be patient.

It rewards that patience. Morricone’s music is among his best, and the film has a melancholy unlike anything else on this list. It contains some genuinely disturbing scenes, including a sexual assault, so it’s not an easy watch. Make sure you see the long version: the butchered American theatrical cut was one of the great studio interference stories of the 1980s. It’s currently free on ITVX in the UK.

4. The Departed (2006, Warner Bros.)

What makes it stand out: A twisty, foul-mouthed Boston thriller that finally won Scorsese his Oscar.

Key data: Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg; a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs; four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for William Monahan.

Why it matters: It took a Hong Kong hit and turned it into a very American story about Irish mobsters and police corruption.

Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is a young cop sent undercover into the crew of Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Nicholson). Colin Sullivan (Damon) is Costello’s man inside the Massachusetts State Police. Each side realises it has a rat, and each mole is given the job of finding the other.

Nicholson’s Costello is loosely inspired by the real Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, and he’s enjoying himself enormously. The film is less a family saga than a cat-and-mouse thriller, and it’s the most purely entertaining film on this list. It’s available to rent or buy in the UK.

5. Casino (1995, Universal)

What makes it stand out: It is the mob as big business, following the money through 1970s Las Vegas.

Key data: Directed by Scorsese from Nicholas Pileggi’s book, starring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone (Oscar-nominated for Best Actress) and Joe Pesci; runtime 2 hours 59 minutes, rated 18 in the UK.

Why it matters: It’s the most detailed account in fiction of how the mob skimmed money out of Las Vegas.

De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a sports handicapper put in charge of the Tangiers casino by the Midwest mob, based on the real Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Pesci is Nicky Santoro, his violent childhood friend, sent to protect the operation and soon a threat to it. Stone plays Ginger, the hustler Ace marries, in the best performance of her career.

Casino is often seen as Goodfellas in Vegas, and it shares the voiceover and the rise-and-fall shape. But it’s colder and more procedural, almost a documentary about how the money moved. It’s also very violent. It’s free with ads on ITVX in the UK.

6. The Irishman (2019, Netflix)

What makes it stand out: Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino and Pesci looking back at the genre they helped define, and finding regret at the end of it.

Key data: Based on Charles Brandt’s 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses; running 209 minutes; nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture, though it won none.

Why it matters: It’s the first time Pacino worked with Scorsese, and it’s a deliberate farewell to the gangster film.

The film follows Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a truck driver who becomes a hitman for the Bufalino crime family and a close ally of union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). Its account of Sheeran’s role in Hoffa’s 1975 disappearance is based on his own claims, which many historians dispute, so treat it as one version of events.

The digital de-ageing used on the actors is the bit everyone talked about at the time. What lingers is the last hour, as Sheeran outlives everyone and ends up alone in a care home. Pesci, coaxed out of retirement, is quietly frightening. It’s a Netflix original, so in the UK it’s only on Netflix.

7. Donnie Brasco (1997, TriStar)

What makes it stand out: A true undercover story that’s really about a friendship between two men, one of whom is lying.

Key data: Directed by British filmmaker Mike Newell, starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino; Paul Attanasio’s script, from the memoir by FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Why it matters: It gives Pacino one of his best late roles, as a small-time hood rather than a kingpin.

In the late 1970s Pistone spent around six years undercover in New York’s Bonanno crime family as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco”. His way in is Lefty Ruggiero (Pacino), a tired, loyal soldier who has never got the promotion he thinks he deserves and who vouches for Donnie with his own life.

Depp is good as a man losing track of who he really is, but Pacino’s Lefty is the reason to watch: funny, sad and painfully trusting. It’s a smaller film than the others here, and that’s its strength. It’s on the Sony Pictures Core channel on Prime Video in the UK.

8. Scarface (1983, Universal)

What makes it stand out: The most quoted, most excessive gangster film ever made.

Key data: Directed by Brian De Palma from a script by Oliver Stone, starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana and Michelle Pfeiffer; a remake of Howard Hawks’s 1932 Scarface.

Why it matters: Critics were mixed in 1983, but it became a huge influence on hip-hop and pop culture.

Tony Montana is a Cuban refugee who arrives in Miami in 1980 and claws his way to the top of the cocaine trade, then destroys himself on his own product. It’s not strictly a mafia film, since Tony is an independent, but it belongs here because it changed how the genre sounds and how it was received.

It is loud, long and deliberately operatic, and Pacino’s performance goes far past naturalism. The chainsaw scene and the “say hello to my little friend” finale are famous for a reason. It’s on Netflix, NOW and Channel 4 in the UK.

The Bottom Line on the Best Mafia Movies

If you’ve never seen any of these, start with The Godfather and Goodfellas, which between them cover both sides of the mob: the family dynasty and the street-level hustle. Then go back for Once Upon a Time in America when you have an evening free, and finish with The Irishman, which looks back on everything the genre had become.

There are plenty more worth adding: Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987), Carlito’s Way (1993) and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster (2007) all have strong claims. Tell us what you’d swap in.

Last updated: 4 October 2026.

Sources: JustWatch UK (streaming availability, checked 4 October 2026); Academy Awards database; Netflix: The Irishman; BFI.

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