25 Best Gangster Movie Stars, Ranked

Gangster movies have been popular for just about as long as cinema’s been around, though the genre really took off in the early sound era. The 1930s was home to plenty of movies about mobsters, organized crime, and gang warfare that still hold up and feel identifiable as gangster films, with the genre shifting and adapting to changing times as the decades have gone along.

24 Bunta Sugawara Appears in: ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity’ , ‘Street Mobster’ , ‘Violent Streets’ There’s a chance that unless you’re really into yakuza movies, you’ve probably only heard Bunta Sugawara, rather than heard of him, as he had voice roles in well-known 21st-century anime films like Spirited Away and Wolf Children.

22 Jean-Paul Belmondo Appears in: ‘Pierrot le Fou’ , ‘Borsalino’ , ‘Le Doulos’ Jean-Paul Belmondo was a huge star in France, especially during the 1960s and ‘70s, making enough of a splash and being charismatic enough to become internationally renowned. It helped that he teamed with some groundbreaking French filmmakers, working on more than one occasion with the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Melville.

20 Joe Shishido Appears in: ‘Branded to Kill’ , ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode’ , ‘A Colt Is My Passport’ If there’s one leading actor who might well have the edge over Bunta Sugawara when it comes to classic yakuza movies , it would be the legendary Joe Shishido. Funnily enough, two such movies also belonged to the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, with Shishido playing two different characters, both of these films being released in 1974 .

18 Paul Sorvino Appears in: ‘Goodfellas’ , ‘Dick Tracy’ , ‘Kill the Irishman’ Look, Paul Sorvino hasn’t been the first Goodfellas actor mentioned so far, and he also won’t be the last, because Scorsese’s iconic 1990 film is about as good as gangster movies get . Sorvino plays the reserved and well-respected Paulie Cicero, the capo of the specific gang that’s followed throughout the duration of Goodfellas.

16 Frank Vincent Appears in: ‘Casino’ , ‘Goodfellas’ , ‘Wise Guys’ Most well-remembered for playing the love-to-hate character of Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos, Frank Vincent also had a host of movie roles – usually smaller ones – that solidified him as a cinematic gangster to remember. Most significantly, he portrayed mob-connected characters in several high-profile Martin Scorsese movies: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino.

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