If any cinematic genre begs for a lengthy runtime, it’s the crime film. Many of them follow a rise and fall trajectory. And, in that case, we need to have the initial struggle, the excess, and the fall from rich, greedy grace, shown in great detail. Then there are a few that play with that formula, even going so far as to toy with the concept of a linear narrative in and of itself. Both of those types are included below; the only qualifier was that the excellent crime epic had to be two and a half hours or more. If it’s an epic in multiple parts, e.g. Infernal Affairs or Kill Bill, it didn’t count.

Furthermore, just missing the cut was The Irishman. It’s ambitious but falls short of required viewing. With all that said, in honor of Paul Thomas Anderson’s lauded One Battle After Another, here are 10 crime epics that certainly are required viewing, ranked according to just how required their viewing is.

One of the following entries contains a discussion of scenes involving sexual assault.

10) Casino

11 years after Robert De Niro and James Woods shared the screen in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America they teamed up once more for Martin Scorsese’s Casino. And like with Leone’s film, Woods is the real scene-stealer here, playing a smarmy snake to absolute perfection.

Admittedly, Casino doesn’t quite earn its massive runtime (178 minutes) as much as Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, or The Irishman. It occasionally flounders under the weight of its ambition and the overall lack of likability in its mostly unchanging characters. But this is still the definitive companion piece to the far superior Goodfellas, as it too is an adaptation of a Nicholas Pileggi gangster novel. To its credit, Casino does have two things Goodfellas did not: the best work of Sharon Stone’s career and the late, great Don Rickles.

Stream Casino on Prime Video.

9) Once Upon a Time in America

To acknowledge Once Upon a Time in America‘s elephant in the room, it is not at all a movie that treats women well. Even the major female characters in the film, Carol (Tuesday Weld) and Deborah (Jennifer Connelly as a child and Elizabeth McGovern as an adult) come across as nothing more than flat stereotypes. Worse yet, we see our protagonist, David “Noodles” Aaronson (Robert De Niro), sexually assault them both.

While those scenes are incredibly hard to watch, they also serve to underline the movie’s core theme. Gangsters, even the one we follow as the supposed hero of the story, are not to be romanticized. They are power-hungry, greedy, selfish individuals who harm anyone in their orbit. Of all the movies on this list, Once Upon a Time in America does the best job of showing just how empty their lives end up being. By film’s end we come to realize there is very little that separates this four-hour epic’s protagonist and surprise antagonist.

Stream Once Upon a Time in America on Prime Video.

8) American Gangster

Ridley Scott directed a pair of excellent crime movies in Thelma & Louise and Matchstick Men (and also The Counselor, All the Money in the World, and House of Gucci, but the less said about those the better), but American Gangster remains his one true gangster film. And as far as rise and fall crime lord movies go, it’s pretty fantastic.

A few things work to the film’s benefit. For one, while it’s just over two and a half hours, it breezes by considering it follows a number of genuinely complex and interesting characters, most notably Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas, Russell Crowe’s Richie Roberts, and Josh Brolin’s Detective Trupo. Two, it has what must be the most jarring scene in crime movie history. Specifically, when Lucas holds a gun to the head of Idris Elba’s Tango in the middle of broad daylight, to which Tango goads him to pull the trigger, assuming Lucas won’t, but finds out in a flash of a second that his assumption was way off.

7) Gangs of New York

For decades, Robert De Niro was director Martin Scorsese’s go-to performer. Then, starting with 2002’s Gangs of New York, that honor seemed to switch over to Leonardo DiCaprio (though of course Scorsese and De Niro continued to collaborate). Scorsese has always been able to get some of DiCaprio’s best and most intensely delivered work out of the actor, be it in Gangs or their subsequent team-ups: The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Suffice to say, all of their collaborations are very much worth watching, arguably even required viewing across the board. And, when it came to this entry in particular, we flip-flopped between Wolf and Gangs. The edge went to Gangs because, in spite of its faults, it has a dynamite gut-punch of an opening scene and captivating work by Daniel Day-Lewis.

Stream Gangs of New York on MGM+.

6) Scarface

Scarface is the only entry here that is more of a pop-culture sensation than it is an epic with a lot on its mind. But its entertainment value is enormous and, without a doubt, Al Pacino’s amped up performance as Tony Montana is hard to take your eyes off of.

For a 170-minute movie, Brian De Palma’s rise and fall story really does soar by. And even though Montana is undoubtedly a despicable human being we can’t help but have part of ourselves root for him. You just wouldn’t want to be best friends with the guy, because that doesn’t mean a hill of beans to him. With one of the best soundtracks of all time and a style that is still referenced and replicated today, Scarface is one of the 1980s’ most seminal films.

Stream Scarface on Hulu.

5) The Departed

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is essentially a merger of 2002’s Infernal Affairs and the Winter Hill Gang. Furthermore, Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello is an amalgam of one of Winter Hill’s leaders, James “Whitey” Bulger, and real-life Italian-American gangster Frank Costello (who operated alongside “Lucky” Luciano in New York City, not with Bulger in Boston).

In other words, it’s not a movie that is actively trying to be historically accurate, but it says a lot about Scorsese’s skill that the engrossing “who’s the mole” narrative feels like it truly happened. This is a narrative where no one knows who to trust while we as the audience know exactly who’s who. We’re just waiting for the right match to be struck and bring the whole log cabin down.

4) Pulp Fiction

As was mentioned in the opening, some crime films toy with chronology itself. No one is better at this than Quentin Tarantino and none of his nonlinear films are as iconic, quotable, or entertaining as Pulp Fiction (though Inglourious Basterds could be fairly considered Pulp‘s equal).

If any film encapsulates the boom of indie cinema in the ’90s, it’s this one. A mega financial smash, Pulp Fiction oozes with style, coasts on the strength of its screenplay, and is only given greater power by the sublime cast, including a career-reviving turn by John Travolta.

Stream Pulp Fiction on Prime Video.

3) Heat

We’re still waiting on the sequel to Heat, which will be based on Meg Gardiner and director Michael Mann’s solid 2022 novel. But, even if that doesn’t ever come, Mann’s 1995 masterpiece will still feel like a massive, sweeping story told with precision and attention to character development.

In fact, maybe it would be better if Heat 2 remains a novel. There’s simply no replicating the distinctive appeal of featuring mid ’90s Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, and Al Pacino in the same project. Each of the three leads’ work is Oscar caliber, the scope of the film is impressive given how it also embraces intimate storytelling, and the six-minute shootout scene is the most viscerally intense ever committed to celluloid.

2) Goodfellas

With astounding work by Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and the late Ray Liotta, Goodfellas is one of the most well-acted movies of the ’90s. It’s also the apex of Martin Scorsese gangster films and, were it not for a pair of iconic members of the genre released two decades prior, it would be the definitive gangster film.

There isn’t a false note or misstep anywhere in Goodfellas‘ construction. The script by Scorsese and Wiseguy author Nicholas Pileggi makes the film breezy without ever sacrificing an ounce of character development. This is a film with a massive assembly of personalities and every last one of them manages to stand out. The dialogue crackles, Scorsese’s direction couldn’t be any tighter, Pesci’s Tommy DeVito is terrifyingly unhinged, Paul Sorvino is the ultimate paternal figure as Paulie Cicero, and Liotta made for the ultimate glue to hold it all together.

1) The Godfather & The Godfather Part II

It’s hard to write anything about The Godfather and The Godfather Part II that hasn’t been written about, unpacked, and discussed to death. And there’s good reason for that, because they’re two of the most engrossing and expertly constructed movies ever made.

What’s great about this pair of movies is that they both function on their own and work even better as a six hour and fifteen-minute binge watch. Note-perfect acting, gorgeous cinematography, iconic music by Nino Rota, they couldn’t be better. Just avoid The Godfather Part III as even the recut version, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, is a massive step down.

Stream The Godfather and The Godfather Part II on MGM+.

What’s your favorite gangster epic? Let us know in the comments.