The allure of wealth and power, the precarious gambling of life and death - there's nothing quite like a good gangster movie. But what might be the greatest gangster movies ever made?
As the American film industry matured in the early 20th century, so too did organized crime. While violent gangs and criminal outlaws are hardly an American invention, Prohibition in the 1920s did much to inspire the enduring images of gangsters as we know them now. Between 1931 and 1932, three blockbuster films captivated audiences and laid down the foundation of the modern gangster movie: Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932).
