Good Movies & Music

Movies

Gangsters, Thugs, and Underworld Figures

DVD/AMERICAN
American Gangster (R)
Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in Harlem in the 1970s, creating alliances with the New York Mafia and enemies of local and federal authorities.

DVD/EASTERN
Eastern Promises (R)
A diary left behind by a teenager who dies in childbirth leads the teen’s midwife to track down her relatives and into the lair of a dangerous Russian mob family in London.

DVD/GANGS
Gangs of New York (R)
Amsterdam Vallon has returned to the streets of 1860s New York to avenge his father’s killing at the hands of Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, a psychotic gangland kingpin.

DVD/GODFATHER
The Godfather: Parts I, II, III (R)
The classic saga of the Corleone Mafia family of New York is now available in a special Coppola Restoration edition.

DVD/HARRY
Harry Brown (R)
After his best friend is beaten to death by hoodlums and the police can’t convict his killers, Harry Brown doles out his own justice using the skills he learned while fighting the IRA.

DVD/HEAT
Heat (R)
Two men on opposite sides of the law—one a brilliant detective, the other a dangerous, career criminal—square off on the streets of Los Angeles after a brutal armored-car robbery.

DVD/HISTORY
A History of Violence (R)
Mild-mannered Tom Stall foils an attempted robbery at his small-town diner, setting off a chain of violent events that are related to his hidden criminal past.

DVD/LAYER
Layer Cake (R)
A British drug dealer longs to get out of the business, but not before carrying out one last impossible job.

DVD/LOCK*
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (R)
A high-stakes card game goes wrong, leaving four friends with the hopeless task of raising half a million pounds in one week to pay off an underworld boss.

DVD/MILLER’S
Miller’s Crossing (R)
A citywide gang war is launched when a Prohibition-era crime boss and his adviser have a parting of ways after they both fall for the same woman.

DVD/PROPHET
A Prophet (R)
In order to survive his prison sentence, nineteen-year-old Malik accepts the assignments given to him by the gang leader who rules the prison, while secretly devising plans of his own.

DVD/PUBLIC
Public Enemies (R)
Bank robber John Dillinger is Public Enemy #1, living freely in 1930s Chicago, while FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is doing everything in his considerable powers to bring him down.

DVD/RESERVOIR*
Reservoir Dogs (R)
Six strangers are assembled to pull off the perfect crime at a diamond warehouse, but after they are ambushed by police, the surviving criminals seek vengeance on the informant among them.

DVD/WHITE*
White Heat (Not Rated)
In his final role as a heartless gangster, James Cagney plays a psychopath with a mother obsession who embarks on the heist of a lifetime after escaping from prison.

* Also available in VHS

Prepared by Gretchen Rings, September 2010