5 Gangster Movies From the 1990s You Forgot Were Awesome

Videos by ComicBook.com

The following five films aren’t without their fans, but they still don’t get quite as much love or credit as they deserve. Give them a shot, you may just find a new favorite to watch after Goodfellas on double feature night.

5) New Jack City

image courtesy of warner bros. pictures

First off, yes, New Jack City certainly does have a fanbase. But it’s still been somewhat forgotten in the past 35 years. At the very least it isn’t given credit for being genuinely impressive.

For one, this was Mario Van Peebles first movie as a director, and it showed him to be someone who could create a sprawling narrative yet still fill it with characters who were unique, interesting, and inspired by clear motivations. He also elicits game work from his actors, including Judd Nelson. It’s a movie laced with style, a terrifying antagonist performance by Wesley Snipes (it could be fairly claimed that his work as Nino Brown is his best to date), and one of the most intense scenes of the ’90s: Chris Rock’s Pookie gets off drugs, starts working undercover for the police, gets too tempted by the drugs, gets high at work, and is taken into a back room and shot.

Stream New Jack City on fuboTV.

4) King of New York

image courtesy of carolco pictures

Laurence Fishburne was in not one but three underrated gangster movies in the ’90s: King of New York, Deep Cover, and Hoodlum. Granted, Deep Cover was more about being an undercover cop trying to take down a mobster, but it still fits.

Abel Ferrara’s King of New York is the best of the three. It is a pure showcase of just how intimidating Christopher Walken can be when he’s given a meaty villain role to chew on. He is captivating throughout, even if Fishburne’s role is a bit louder and flashier. While King of New York is similar to other gangster movies in that it shows a criminal figurehead building an empire, it goes about it in a way that is far more character focused. Ferrara was never content going into a genre and giving the audience exactly what they expected, as was also seen in Body Snatchers, and there’s an argument to be made this is his best work.

Stream King of New York for free on Tubi.

3) Bugsy

image courtesy of tristar pictures

Bugsy is more of a lavish romance crime drama than an attempt to tell the story of Bugsy Siegel, but it’s still a must-watch for crime movie aficionados. Yet, while it was a massive Oscar darling back in the early ’90s, it’s mostly been forgotten.

The set design and costuming are top-notch, but the real draw is the white-hot chemistry between Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. They met while filming this and have been married ever since. That bond shows on screen, and both deliver some of the best work of their careers.

2) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

image courtesy of artisan entertainment

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is far different from any other movie on this list. But it does feel somewhat similar to Pulp Fiction in that it’s a unique crime indie that feels as directly tied to the ’90s independent cinema boom as that Tarantino masterpiece or Clerks.

With an amazing soundtrack by RZA and a perfectly modulated performance by Forest Whitaker, this is a slow-moving but enchanting crime saga. It’s really just the tale of an ordered hit gone wrong and then a crime boss’ attempts to bring the hitman down, but director Jim Jarmusch, true to form, creates an engrossing character study out of a simple concept.

Stream Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai on HBO Max.

1) Kiss of Death

image courtesy of 20th century studios

1995 has been retrospectively seen as the year that killed David Caruso’s film career. His work in Kiss of Death and Jade nabbed him a Razzie nomination for Worst New Star. That may have been somewhat applicable to Jade (though he wasn’t really the problem there, it was the script), but it’s baffling for Kiss of Death.

Caruso’s tender, beaten-down performance is just one thing about this movie that makes it work. His Jimmy Kilmartin does not come across as the type of person who would get wrapped up in a crime family’s doings, but that’s exactly what happens. All because he helped out his idiot of a cousin. He’s persuaded to take the fall for the car theft gone wrong with the promise that his wife will be taken care of while he’s on the inside. That doesn’t end up happening. But, once he’s on the outside, things go from bad to worse, because the head of the crime family is no longer “Big Junior” Brown, but rather the deeply unstable “Little Junior” (Nicolas Cage, in his most underrated and unpredictable performance). Kiss of Death is a crime thriller that is constant escalation, and it does that exceedingly well. Yet, to this day, few have given it a shot.

Have you seen any of these movies? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!