Crime and Gangster films are focused on the actions of criminals and gangsters. Films in this genre often highlight the life of a crime figure or they glorify the rise and fall of a particular criminal gang. Crime plots include how the criminal will be apprehended by the police. Criminals may present a tough as nails exterior but they may have a soft gentle side. Regardless of how much the audiences may cheer on these gangster heroes they inevitably fall into a confrontation with the law and lose.

Crime films date as far back as the silent film era. Josef von Sternberg's gangland melodrama Underworld (1927) with George Raft and Clive Brook, often considered as the first modern gangster film, had many standard conventions of the crime film - and it was shot from the gangster's point of view. But it wasn't until the age of sound did crime films became a popular genre. Sound accounted for the rise of crime films because these films needed sound to truly come alive. The sound of the conventional tommy-gun gave the films added realism. It also wasn't chance that the 1930s saw the rise of many crime figures especially during the Prohibition. Legendary crime figures like Al Capone gave material for this genre. The Great Depression drove audiences to identify with these underworld characters who by their own pluck rose to power. These characters gave the poor masses, strange as it may seem, heroes they could look up to. In a sense the crime film is a morality play turned upside down. Gangster characters fall prey to crime in pursuit of the great American dream because all the other avenues to success are closed to them.

In William Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931) James Cagney starred in his first film as a brutal criminal named Tom Powers. Howard Hawks' Scarface: The Shame of A Nation (1932) was a seminal film in the crime genre. The ultra violent film included twenty eight deaths and the first ever use of a machine gun by gangster. It starred Paul Muni as a beastly hood in Prohibition-Era Chicago. The film caught enough attention from the Hays Code. The ensuing debate about its release led to a new Hayes Production Code that censored such violence in films. Social conventions of the time required that films show that crime does not pay. In response to criticisms and protests over its glorifying criminals, Hollywood shifted attention to the other side of the law. The good guys like cops, federal agents or private eyes may have been operating on the right side of the law but they had shades of gray in their moral make-up. The main characters was a gangster in disguise. He often used brutal methods to capture criminals.

The end of the Second World War and the loosening of censor codes gave the blood and violence back to the crime and gangster genre. Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde set new standards for violence. The film's graphic finale showed the very violent end of the gangster lovers. Directors also took a new take on the traditional image of the gangsters. The Mafia had taken over and gangster films were never the same. If the 30s were about the rise and fall of the gangster, the 1970s Mafia were about the rise and continued rise of the Mafia family's. The American dream had been achieved by the heretofore 'losers'. Francis Ford Coppola's directed Mario Puzzo's best selling novel The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. It was a classic especially in its rich characterization of the Mafia family. The films showed another side of the underworld as a tightly knit family that is run more like a business than a shadowy operation. Other 1970s films showed the other side of the force in the violent and abusive tactics of the detectives trying to catch criminals. Clint Eastwood starred as Detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan who took down criminals with an over-sized Magnum.

The violence of the 1990s didn't need the films to show violence. Switching on the television at any time will give viewers a glut of crimes in every city. An audience desensitized to violence needed a new wave of directors who could make violence cool. Enter Quentin Tarantino. With his ultra-violent scenes and smart story telling, he had revitalized the gangster genre. In Pulp Fiction he perfected a mix of humor, ultra violence and interweaving storytelling of three crime stories.

Gangster stories are a barometer of our society. Although we try desperately to ignore the dark side to what we wish to be a civilized society, gangster and crime films show us how thin that civility is. Gangsters and criminals and the way we portray them on film show how we are really close to that beast inside.