10 Best Gangster Movies to Watch if You Liked Snatch (2024)

British director Guy Ritchie burst onto the international film scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s with two hit black comedy crime movies, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Both films were low-budget productions that exceeded box office expectations. Snatch tells the story of a rag-tag group of boxing promoters, bookmakers, Russian gangsters, Irish gypsies, armed robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers who fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. Initially receiving mixed reviews from critics, Snatch developed a cult following over the years due to its witty dialogue and eccentric cast of characters.

Audiences seeking more Snatch-esque gangster movies are most likely interested in crime films with dark senses of humor, large ensemble casts of colorful characters, razor-sharp dialogue full of vulgar insults, and hyperlink-style narratives where multiple interconnected storylines take place. Ritchie's own Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and Martin Scorsese's The Departed are just a few of the many iconic gangster movies that make for ideal viewing experiences for fans of Snatch.

10 Martin McDonagh Channels Quentin Tarantino With Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Seven Psychopaths

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• IMDb Rating: 7.1

A satirical crime comedy-drama with meta-fictional elements, Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths centers on a struggling screenwriter who inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his zany friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu. Seven Psychopaths features a large ensemble cast of stars that includes Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, and Olga Kurylenko.

A modest box office success, Seven Psychopaths grossed $33 million against a budget of approximately $15 million. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Roger Ebert, Lisa Schwarzbaum, and David Rooney each comparing Seven Psychopaths to the works of Quentin Tarantino. Similar to Snatch, many lauded Seven Psychopaths for its ensemble acting performances. At the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Seven Psychopaths won the award for Best Ensemble Cast. In pointing out the positive aspects of the film's script, Eric Kohn of IndieWire wrote, "McDonagh's new movie benefits greatly from a plethora of one-liners that toy with crime movie clichés in the unlikely context of writerly obsessions."

9 The Nice Guys Has Emerged as a Modern Cult Classic (2016)

The Nice Guys

Comedy

Action

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In 1970s Los Angeles, a mismatched pair of private eyes investigate a missing girl and the mysterious death of a p*rn star.

Director

Shane Black

Release Date

May 20, 2016

Cast

Russell Crowe , Ryan Gosling

Writers

Shane Black , Anthony Bagarozzi

Runtime

116 minutes

• IMDb Rating: 7.4

A master of the buddy comedy genre, Shane Black first made a name for himself in the 1980s when he wrote Lethal Weapon, commencing one of cinema's most beloved buddy comedy franchises. In 2016, Black co-wrote and directed the buddy action comedy The Nice Guys. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star as private investigators working in 1970s Los Angeles. The two find themselves wrapped in a chaotic conspiracy involving gangsters, missing women, murder, and p*rnography.

Despite featuring two A-list Hollywood stars and accumulating positive reviews from critics, The Nice Guys floundered at the box office, grossing only $63 million against a budget of $50 million. The Nice Guys failed to find an audience while competing against Captain America: Civil War and The Angry Birds Movie. However, The Nice Guys has very quickly developed into a sort of modern cult classic, with audiences truly appreciating the magnetic comedic chemistry between Gosling and Crowe. Rising demands for a sequel continue to circulate online, however, Gosling has stated a follow-up to The Nice Guys seems unlikely to come to fruition.

8 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Is a Seminal Work of British Cinema (1998)

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

R

Comedy

Crime

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Eddy persuades his three pals to pool money for a vital poker game against a powerful local mobster, Hatchet Harry. Eddy loses, after which Harry gives him a week to pay back 500,000 pounds.

Director

Guy Ritchie

Release Date

August 28, 1998

Cast

Jason Flemyng , Dexter Fletcher , Nick Moran , sting , Jason Statham , Vinnie Jones

Writers

Guy Ritchie

Runtime

1 hour 47 minutes

Main Genre

Action

Production Company

Summit Entertainment, The Steve Tisch Company, SKA Films, HandMade Films, Polygram Filmed Entertainment

• IMDb Rating: 8.1

Guy Ritchie's directorial debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, stars Nick Moran as Eddy, a small-time London criminal who enlists his friends to pool money for a poker game against Hatchet Harry, a powerful local mobster. After Eddy loses, he has one week to pay back the 500,000 pounds he owes Hatchet Harry. Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, and Sting round out the ensemble cast.

A surprise box office hit, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels grossed over $28 million against a minuscule budget of $1.4 million. The film helped turn Ritchie into one of the most promising young British filmmakers. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels also served as a launching pad for the careers of Statham and Jones. A critical success as well, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels earned three BAFTA Film Award nominations, winning the Audience Award. The movie also received four British Independent Film Awards nominations, winning for Achievement in Production. In 2016, Empire voted Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels the 75th greatest British film of all time.

7 A Fish Called Wanda Is One of the Most Famous British Crime Comedies (1988)

A Fish Called Wanda

R

Comedy

Crime

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In London, four very different people team up on a jewel heist, then try to double-cross one another for the loot, complicated by their efforts to fool a very proper barrister.

Director

Charles Crichton , John Cleese

Release Date

July 29, 1988

Cast

John Cleese , Jamie Lee Curtis , Kevin Kline , Michael Palin

Writers

John Cleese , Charles Crichton

Runtime

108 minutes

Main Genre

Comedy

• IMDb Rating: 7.5

Starring legendary actors John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin, Charles Crichton's A Fish Called Wanda is one of British cinema's most famous crime comedies. A heist film, A Fish Called Wanda follows a London-based gangster, his right-hand man, a con artist, and a weapons expert who team up to commit a jewel robbery. Hilarity ensues as they attempt to double-cross one another while, at the same time, avoiding a very proper barrister.

Produced on a small budget of $7.5 million, A Fish Called Wanda grossed a whopping $189 million at the worldwide box office, finishing 1988 as the year's seventh highest-grossing movie. Critics championed A Fish Called Wanda for its brilliant ensemble acting performances and laugh-out-loud hysterical screenplay. A Fish Called Wanda contains several of cinema's most creative and quotable insults. At the 61st Academy Awards, A Fish Called Wanda earned three nominations, winning for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. A Fish Called Wanda also received nine BAFTA Film Award nominations, winning Best Actor and Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Empire named A Fish Called Wanda the 35th best British film ever made, while the British Film Institute placed the movie 39th on their list of the greatest British films in history.

6 Famed Playwright Martin McDonagh Makes his Directorial Debut With In Bruges (2008)

In Bruges

R

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Guilt-stricken after a job gone wrong, hitman Ray and his partner await orders from their ruthless boss in Bruges, Belgium, the last place in the world Ray wants to be.

Director

Martin McDonagh

Release Date

February 29, 2008

Cast

Colin Farrell , Brendan Gleeson , Ralph Fiennes , Elizabeth Berrington

Runtime

1 hour 47 minutes

Main Genre

Thriller

• IMDb Rating: 7.9

Although now known as one of the world's premier filmmakers, Martin McDonagh began his career as a playwright. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, McDonagh wrote numerous critically acclaimed plays, such as The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. In 2008, McDonagh made his feature film directorial debut with In Bruges, a black comedy-drama crime thriller about two hit men waiting in Bruges, Belgium to receive their next mission.

With In Bruges, McDonagh established an absurdist sense of black comedy that would carry through his next three feature films, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin. Internationally acclaimed, In Bruges won two dozen awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical, the BAFTA Film Award for Best Screenplay - Original, and the British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review also named In Bruges one of 2008's Top Independent Films.

5 Get Shorty Was a Paramount Film in John Travolta's Career Renaissance (1995)

Get Shorty

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A mobster travels to Hollywood to collect a debt, and discovers that the movie business is much the same as his current job.

• IMDb Rating: 6.9

During the late 1970s, John Travolta was one of the biggest television and movie stars on the planet. However, the 1980s saw a drastic career decline for Travolta that many believed he would never recover from. Travolta's fortunes changed in 1994 with his starring role in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty, Travolta's follow-up to Pulp Fiction, continued his career renaissance. In Get Shorty, Travolta stars as Chili Palmer, a Miami mobster who inadvertently becomes involved in feature film production. In addition to Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, and James Gandolfini makeup Get Shorty's all-star cast.

A second consecutive critical and box office triumph for Travolta, Get Shorty grossed over $115 million worldwide. Commended for its countless memorable performances by the film's entire cast, Get Shorty earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. Get Shorty also received three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. The success of Get Shorty led to a sequel, Be Cool, and a television series adaptation of the same name, which ran on Epix from 2017 to 2019.

4 The Usual Suspects Has One of Cinema's Most Unforgettable Twists (1995)

The Usual Suspects

R

Drama

Mystery

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The sole survivor of a pier shoot-out tells the story of how a notorious criminal influenced the events that began with five criminals meeting in a seemingly random police lineup.

Director

Bryan Singer

Release Date

January 25, 1995

Cast

stephen baldwin , Gabriel Byrne , Benicio Del Toro , Kevin Pollak , Chazz Palminteri , Pete Postlethwaite , Kevin Spacey

Runtime

1 hour 46 minutes

Main Genre

Crime

• IMDb Rating: 8.5

Directed by Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects is a crime drama mystery thriller about Verbal Kint, a criminal who recalls to investigators how he and four other convicts were recruited by mythic crime lord Keyser Söze to partake in a multi-million dollar heist that resulted in a deadly explosion in San Pedro harbor. The Usual Suspects features a remarkable cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollack, and Pete Postlethwaite.

A tremendous financial success, The Usual Suspects grossed $67 million against a budget of $6 million. Critics praised The Usual Suspects' ensemble acting performances, editing, and screenplay. At the 68th Academy Awards, The Usual Suspects won Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. The film also won a BAFTA Film Award, two Film Independent Spirit Awards, and three awards from the National Board of Review. Retrospectively, the American Film Institute named The Usual Suspects the 10th best Hollywood mystery film and Kint the 48th greatest American movie villain. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Usual Suspects' screenplay the 35th best written.

3 Quentin Tarantino Becomes a Major Force in Independent Cinema After Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Reservoir Dogs

R

Crime

Thriller

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Director

Quentin Tarantino

Release Date

October 9, 1992

Cast

Harvey Keitel , Tim Roth , Chris Penn , Steve Buscemi , Lawrence Tierney , Michael Madsen

Writers

Quentin Tarantino

Runtime

99 minutes

Main Genre

Crime

Cinematographer

Andrzej Sekuła

Producer

Lawrence Bender

Production Company

Live America Inc., Dog Eat Dog Productions

Sfx Supervisor

Stephen DeLollis

• IMDb Rating: 8.3

Quentin Tarantino announced his presence as a major force in American independent cinema with the release of his 1992 heist crime drama Reservoir Dogs. Inspired by works such as The Killing, Kansas City Confidential, The Big Combo, and City on Fire, Reservoir Dogs follows a group of criminals, who, after a heist goes wrong, begin to suspect one of them is a police informant. Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, and Tarantino himself comprise the film's famous cast.

Despite the controversy surrounding Reservoir Dogs' violence and explicit language, the film earned positive reviews from critics. After the success of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs developed a substantial cult following. Reservoir Dogs established Tarantino's pastiche style aesthetic, dark sense of humor, excessive use of violence, and quick-witted dialogue that would come to define his filmography. Reservoir Dogs received three Film Independent Spirit Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Male. In 2011, Empire ranked Reservoir Dogs the 97th greatest movie of all time.

2 The Departed Won Martin Scorsese his First Oscar (2006)

The Departed

R

Crime

Thriller

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An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.

Director

Martin Scorsese

Release Date

September 6, 2006

Studio

Warner Bros

Cast

Leonardo DiCaprio , Matt Damon , Mark Wahlberg , Vera Farmiga , Jack Nicholson , Alec Baldwin , Martin Sheen

Runtime

2 hours 31 minutes

Main Genre

Drama

• IMDb Rating: 8.5

An American remake of Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak's Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, The Departed is a gangster epic by Martin Scorsese. The Departed tells parallel stories, one about a police officer working undercover in the Boston Mob, and the other about a Boston gangster secretly working as an informant in the Massachusetts State Police. The film's star-studded cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson, and James Badge Dale.

The Departed grossed over $290 million at the worldwide box office and finally brought Scorsese his first Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing. The film also won Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Achievement in Film Editing. In total, The Departed won 99 awards out of 240 nominations. Like all Scorsese gangster movies, The Departed is by no means a comedy, yet the film is full of darkly comedic banter and plenty of wicked insults. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated The Departed for their list of the best Hollywood gangster films.

1 Pulp Fiction Is the Best Gangster Film Fans of Snatch Should Check Out (1994)

Pulp Fiction

R

Crime

Drama

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The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

Director

Quentin Tarantino

Release Date

September 10, 1994

Studio

Miramax Films

Cast

John Travolta , Uma Thurman , Samuel L. Jackson

Writers

Quentin Tarantino , Roger Avary

Runtime

2 hours 34 minutes

Production Company

Miramax, A Band Apart, Jersey Films

• IMDb Rating: 8.9

Pulp Fiction is the best gangster film fans of Snatch should check out as soon as possible. One of many iconic movies from 1994, Pulp Fiction focuses on the interconnected lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits. John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Ving Rhames, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Willis all give career-defining performances in Pulp Fiction.

Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Pulp Fiction took American independent cinema by storm, grossing $214 million on a measly budget of $8 million. Critics celebrated Pulp Fiction for its ensemble acting performances, snappy screenplay, postmodern aesthetic, and non-linear narrative. For Pulp Fiction, Tarantino won his first Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Overall, Pulp Fiction won 69 awards out of 141 nominations. The American Film Institute, Empire, Time, Total Film, Channel 4, and the BBC are just a few of the many organizations to name Pulp Fiction one of the greatest movies of all time. In 2013, the Library of Congress selected Pulp Fiction for preservation in the National Film Registry.