'The Godfather', 'Goodfellas' and More: Mafia Movies Inspired by Real-Life Gangsters

Every few years, a movie comes along that you just can't refuse. 

The gangster movie is one of the most enduring genres of cinema thanks to stories of organized crime that are filled with questions of morality and loyalty that play out in visually spectacular and often dramatic and violent ways. Crime families are pitted against traditional families and individual ambition conflicts with what's good for the organization, and it's all set in times of societal hardships and oppression—when people are most likely to be driven to desperation. 

The true tales of mobsters rising to power are practically interchangeable with the ones invented for the screen, giving filmmakers and storytellers endless inspiration and opportunities to inject a little reality into their fiction. 

Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy is an amalgamation of true stories, making the Corleones the fictional crime family of all fictional crime families. Vito Corleone was primarily based on Frank Costello with elements of Joe Profaci and Carlo Gambino. Costello, who retired from criminal life in the 1950s, was known as "The Prime Minister" of the Luciano crime family and, like Vito, was highly influential among politicians and other famous figures. Vito's reluctant son, Michael, was based on Salvatore “Bill” Bonanno, son of Joseph Bonanno, and singer Johnny Fontane was inspired by Frank Sinatra, who was rumored to have ties to the mob. 

Scarface was actually the infamous Al Capone's nickname. Al Pacino saw a screening of the 1932 movie Scarface, based on the 1930 Capone-inspired book by pulp writer Armitage Trail, and thought it was ripe for an updated retelling. Director Brian De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone turned to current events to modernize the setting and incorporated the mass emigration of Cuban refugees in 1980, turning the main mobster into a Cuban immigrant ruling over the cocaine trade in Miami. It was a controversial choice, but the movie was nevertheless incredibly impactful to film history. 

Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece Goodfellas chronicles the decades-long journey of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) from fence to associate to informant in a Brooklyn crime family. The writer and director worked with reporter Nicholas Pileggi to adapt his 1985 book Wiseguy, which is about the real Hill. Not only did they allow the actors to improvise lines, but they also gave the gangsters new names: Paul Vario became Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), Tommy "Two Guns" DeSimone became Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy "The Gent" Burke turned into Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro). 

Casino is the only Las Vegas-set film on this list, but it's certainly not the only mafia film directed by Scorsese and starring De Niro and Pesci. It's all about the rise and fall of the mob's influence in Sin City with De Niro playing a numbers whiz and sports betting expert who's sent by the Chicago Outfit to oversee the Tangiers hotel and casino. His character, Sam "Ace" Rothstein, was based on Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who ran four casinos for the mob in the 1970s. Pesci's character, Nicky Santoro, was inspired by enforcer Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, while Sam's wife, Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), was based on Lefty's actual wife, Geri McGee. 

Tom Hanks and a young Tyler Hoechlin starred in Sam Mendes's adaptation of the 1998 graphic novel Road to Perdition, which tells a fictional story set in the world of real-life mob boss and political fixer John Patrick Looney. The name was changed to Rooney for the film, and Hanks plays Michael Sullivan Sr., an enforcer in Rooney's Rock Island, Ill., crime syndicate who, along with his son, Michael Jr. (Hoechlin), goes on a quest for revenge after Rooney betrays him. The story was somewhat based on Looney's actual feud with former associate Dan Drost. 

Scorsese, at it again. The Departed is an English-language remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, reimagined as a Boston mob movie. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as officer Billy Costigan, assigned to go undercover in the mob. Matt Damon plays Colin Sullivan, a mobster who infiltrated the police. Sullivan was loosely based on corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, while mobster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) was based on the notorious Whitey Bulger—though named after the real Frank Costello.

Nearly 30 years after Goodfellas, Scorsese once again took a work of nonfiction and turned it into an epic cinematic tale starring De Niro and Pesci. This time, De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a truck driver turned hitman turned nursing home resident (and yes, De Niro plays them all with help from de-aging technology). Pacino plays Jimmy Hoffa, the real-life union leader who went missing in 1975 and has never resurfaced. Pesci plays Russell Bufalino, the leader of the Bufalino crime family, with Ray Romano as his attorney cousin Bill Bufalino.