Added by Log Lady on 18 Sep 2011 04:03

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White Hand - Films featuring the Irish Mafia

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Decade: Rating: List Type:

7.8

7.5

Underworld (1927)

Directors: Josef von Sternberg
Cast: George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook, Fred Kohler

Story: Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.

Log Lady's rating:

7.6

6.6

The Racket (1928)

Director: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Thomas Meighan, Louis Wolheim, Marie Prevost, G. Pat Collins

Story: An honest police captain vows to bring down a powerful bootlegger who is protected by corrupt politicians and judges.

353

7.6

The Public Enemy (1931)

Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell

Story: A young hoodlum rises up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, even as a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob war.

Log Lady's rating:

533

7.7

Scarface (1932)

Directors: Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson
Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Boris Karloff

Story: An ambitious and near insanely violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.

Log Lady's rating:

355

7.8

7.9

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan

Story: A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.

Log Lady's rating:

1016

8.1

On the Waterfront (1954)

Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger

Story: An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.

Log Lady's rating:

6.9

6.7

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

Director: Roger Corman
Cast: Jason Robards, George Segal, Ralph Meeker, Jean Hale

Story: Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran's rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.

Log Lady's rating:

6.4

6.7

Prime Cut

Director: Michael Ritchie
Cast: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Angel Tompkins, Gregory Walcott

Story: A Chicago mob enforcer is sent to Kansas City to settle a debt with a cattle rancher who not only grinds his enemies into sausage, but sells women as sex slaves.

1155

8.3

The Sting

Director: George Roy Hill
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning

Story: In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker.

Log Lady's rating:

149

7.9

7.5

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Director: Peter Yates
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats

Story: After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.

Log Lady's rating:

6.2

6.3

A Prayer for the Dying (1987)

Director: Mike Hodges
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins, Alan Bates, Sammi Davis

Story: Martin Fallon is an IRA bomber who tries to blow up a troop truck but instead kills a bus load of school children. He loses heart and quits the movement and goes to London trying to leave the U.K. and start a new life.

1137

7.8

7.7

Miller's Crossing (1990)

Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito

Story: Tom Regan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties.

Log Lady's rating:

238

7.2

State of Grace (1990)

Directors: Phil Joanou
Cast: Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright

Story: Terry Noonan returns home to New York's Hells Kitchen after a ten year absence. He soon hooks up with childhood pal Jackie who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother Frankie.

5.3

6.2

Run

Directors: Geoff Burrowes
Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Kelly Preston, Ken Pogue, Alan C. Peterson

Story: When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.

513

6.2

6.4

Last Man Standing (1996)

Directors: Walter Hill
Cast: Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern, William Sanderson, Christopher Walken

Story: A drifting gunslinger-for-hire finds himself in the middle of an ongoing war between the Irish and Italian mafia in a Prohibition era ghost town.

6.8

I Went Down

Directors: Paddy Breathnach
Cast: Peter McDonald, Antoine Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Michael McElhatton

Story: Fresh out of prison, Git rescues a former best friend (now living with Git's girlfriend) from a beating at the hands of loan sharks. He's now in trouble with the mob boss, Tom French, who sends Git to Cork with another debtor, Bunny Kelly, to find a guy named Frank Grogan, and take him to a man with a friendly face at a shack across a bog.

7.5

7.3

The General (1998)

Directors: John Boorman
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley, Maria Doyle Kennedy

Story: The real-life story of Dublin folk hero and criminal Martin Cahill, who pulled off two daring robberies in Ireland with his team, but attracted unwanted attention from the police, the IRA, the UVF and members of his own team.

6.3

6.6

Monument Ave. (1998)

Directors: Ted Demme
Cast: Denis Leary, Ian Hart, Jason Barry, Lenny Clarke

Story: A small time hoodlum is divided between his conscience and loyalty to his boss when his cousin is murdered.

5.3

Southie (1998)

Directors: John Shea
Cast: Donnie Wahlberg, Rose McGowan, Anne Meara, Lawrence Tierney

Story: South Boston Irish bad boy Danny Quinn returns back home from New York and gets stuck between his pals, who are supported by one Irish mafia clan, and his family, which are members of another.

120

6.4

Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)

Directors: Thaddeus O'Sullivan
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Linda Fiorentino, Peter Mullan, Stephen Dillane

Story: Brilliant, flamboyant master criminal Michael Lynch is more interested in his image and his posterity than the actual profit from his ill-gotten gains.

6.5

When the Sky Falls

Directors: John Mackenzie
Cast: Joan Allen, Patrick Bergin, Liam Cunningham, Kevin McNally

Story: Fact-based story about Irish crime-investigating reporter Sinead Hamilton, who invaded the Irish underworld and attempted to expose the illegitimate activities she found.

121

6.1

6.3

Made

Directors: Jon Favreau
Cast: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Joe Goossen, Famke Janssen

Story: Two aspiring boxers, lifelong friends, get involved in a money-laundering scheme through a low-level organized crime group.

5.4

5.9

Ash Wednesday (2002)...

Directors: Edward Burns
Cast: Brian Burns, Vincent Rubino, Jimmy Cummings, Elijah Wood

Story: Set in the Manhattan of the early 1980's, a pair of Irish-American brothers become embroiled in a conflict with the Irish Mob.

545

5.8

6.3

Death to Smoochy (2002)

Directors: Danny DeVito
Cast: Robin Williams, Edward Norton, Catherine Keener, Danny DeVito

Story: When he is fired for taking payola, the host for a children's television show plots revenge against his replacement, a rhino named Smoochy.

6.3

Dirty Deeds (2002)

Directors: Davis Caesar
Cast: Bryan Brown, Toni Collette, John Goodman, Sam Neill

Story: Set in 1960's Sydney, this is the story of an Australian gangster whose booming business, buoyed by the influx of U.S. soldiers in town for R&R during their tours in Vietnam, attracts the attention of first the Chicago mafia, and then their East Coast competitors.

3827

7.1

7.5

Gangs of New York (2002)

Directors: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent

Story: In 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher, his father's killer.

Log Lady's rating:

2267

7.3

7.7

Road to Perdition

Directors: Sam Mendes
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tyler Hoechlin, Paul Newman, Jude Law

Story: Bonds of loyalty are put to the test when a hitman's son witnesses what his father does for a living.

Log Lady's rating:

4.6

Vendetta: No Conscience, No Mercy

Director: Daniel McCarthy
Cast: Daniel Baldwin, John Novak, Wings Hauser, Walter Learning

Story: Explores the relationship between two Irish-American brothers in Boston born to immigrant parents and raised in a rough, working class Irish neighborhood.

2207

7.2

7.4

A History of Violence

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt

Story: A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core.

Log Lady's rating:

5277

8.5

The Departed

Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg

Story: Two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Massachusetts State Police and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made.

6.2

6.6

What Doesn't Kill You (2008) (2009)

Director: Brian Goodman
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke, Amanda Peet, Will Lyman

Story: Two childhood friends from South Boston turn to crime as a way to get by, ultimately causing a strain in their personal lives and their friendship.

6.4

Perrier's Bounty (2010)

Director: Ian Fitzgibbon
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Cillian Murphy, Michael McElhatton, Don Wycherley

Story: A gangster named Perrier looks to exact his revenge on a trio of fugitives responsible for the accidental death of one of his cronies.

210

6.4

7.1

Kill the Irishman (2012) (2012)

Director: Jonathan Hensleigh
Cast: Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken

Story: The true story of Danny Greene, a tough Irish thug working for mobsters in Cleveland during the 1970's.

Voters of this movie list - View all

The first criminal bands that emerged from the gritty slums of areas like Five Points were the Irish. Although many Irish became civil servants, there were a few who chose the underworld road to success. While the Sicilians were going by the moniker Black Hand, the Irish were using White Hand.

Based out of the Brooklyn docks, these groups made most of their money by extorting the longshoremen, hijacking loads of merchandise off the boats, and running gambling operations open to the dockworkers.
- The Everything Mafia Book by Scott M. Deitche

Story synopses from IMDB.