Let's take a look at eight crime films and TV series based on the history of real gangs. 
"Gangs of Paris" (2023) 
While the red-hot wheel of the Moulin Rouge mill attracted onlookers to Montmartre, and the regulars of this cabaret, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin, created their masterpieces in apartments nearby, the streets of Paris were ruled by daring gangs of hot tomboys, nicknamed Apaches for their violent cruelty and fearlessness. Impudent not only in words, but also in deeds, they were distinguished by an implacable hatred of order, personified by the police and the bourgeoisie, and stood out from the crowd with bright outfits - vests, colored scarves, shoes polished to a shine and tattoos scattered across their bodies. Only time and the First World War, which undermined the previous order, were able to cope with the Apaches.
Romain Quirot's film, which will be released in early May, is about one of the Apache gangs - a stunningly cinematic gang. The plot centers on a girl with the male name Billy (Alice Isaaz), who grew up on the streets of Paris and returned to them to avenge the death of her brother, who died in childhood due to the fault of one of the Apaches - the charismatic Jesus played by Nils Schneider. The path to the vendetta becomes more complicated when Billy becomes part of the gang, unexpectedly finds a new family in it, and even becomes imbued with conflicting feelings for Jesus himself.
The result is a daring and stylish film. By the way, one of the rare paintings that depicted the Apaches before was “The Golden Helmet” by Jacques Becker with Simone Signoret in the title role.
Peaky Blinders (2013-2022) 
A collective image of another cult gang is presented in the series by Steven Knight. “Peaky Blinders” is the general name for Birmingham gangs that have been active since the end of the 19th century and were involved in a little of everything: robberies, racketeering, underground betting. Made up of residents of the Birmingham slums, they were distinguished by a special “business” style - they wore vests, coats, scarves and the obligatory eight-cornered caps with razor-sharp edges.
In the series, Knight used this collective name to tell the story of the criminal empire built by the Shelby brothers - Arthur (Paul Anderson), John, Finn and the head of the family, Thomas (Cillian Murphy), who returned from the First World War and were looking for where to apply the skills acquired during the war in Peaceful time. Shelby’s “business” is growing, and with it, so are the appetites that take the brothers far beyond the city limits.
"Johnny D" (2009) 
Around the same time as Peaky Blinders, the notorious John Dillinger, a “noble” bank robber who won popular love in the wake of distrust in the financial system after the global financial crisis of 1929, was active in the United States.
Dillinger's ideology was extremely simple - to rob exclusively moneybags and in no case to encroach on virtuous workers, who perceived his activities as a kind of revenge for their difficulties.
He appears as this version of the Robin Hood of the 1930s in the drama by Michael Mann, the director of Heat and Collateral, who was not afraid to use his favorite hand-held camera in the historical and, as a rule, static genre of gangster cinema. The film, based on Brian Barrow's documentary novel Public Enemies, consistently and fairly accurately retells the events of the last years of Dillinger's (Johnny Depp) life. It shows the escape of his accomplices from prison, his accidental arrest and equally ridiculous escape with a wooden dummy revolver, numerous bank robberies, but also - and this is the most important - meeting Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), the love of his life, with whom he met greatly helped Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), an agent of the FBI, which was gaining strength in those years, to find and destroy “public enemy number one.”
"The Godfather" (1972) 
Unlike Barrow, Mario Puzo's novel is not so straightforward - he does not call the five mafia families of New York originally from Sicily by their names, but he obviously has them in mind, including retelling real stories (for example, in the popular singer Johnny Fontane, a friend of Corleone family, Frank Sinatra is easily guessed).
The Godfather, like many masterpieces, was born in agony, controversy and disagreement. Francis Ford Coppola, then still a very young director, a tender youngster of the “New Hollywood”, was approved largely because of his Italian origin and a small fee. But for many artistic decisions and the choice of actors, he had to fight hard with the Paramount studio, which, for example, desperately did not want to see the then little-known Al Pacino in the role of Michael Corleone - the hero of World War II, who had just returned from Europe and became a mafia as a result of the outbreak of the war. families heir to the throne of his father Don Vitto. Fortunately, Coppola's tenacity was as unstoppable as his talent, and the film eventually became an all-time classic, beginning a trilogy about Michael's simultaneous rise and fall.
"Legend" (2015) 
“Legend” tells about another family, although not as extensive as the Corleones, taking viewers to the 60s in the East End of London, which at that time was ruled by the Kray twin brothers - handsome Reggie and Ron, his dark double with suspicion to paranoid schizophrenia, played by Tom Hardy. The cruelty that the Krays displayed from their youth in and out of the boxing ring, they surprisingly combined with a certain amount of charm, allowing their legitimate business - several nightclubs throughout London - to obscure the real activities of the "Cray firm": racketeering, robbery, money laundering, murders and much more. Even after their conviction, the brothers enjoyed the support of their celebrity friends - English actors and singers like Barbara Windsor and George Raft.
The film is narrated from the perspective of Frances Shea (Emily Browning), Reggie's wife, whose posthumous diaries were published in 2014 and formed the basis of the script. Quite closely following the main events in the life of the Krays, “Legend”, however, crossed out the twins’ older brother, Charlie, whose role in the “company” still remains unclear.
"Goodfellas" (1990) 
Martin Scorsese is one of the most influential masters working in the genre of gangster cinema, but he has not directed many films based on real biographies - the recent "The Irishman" and the already classics "Goodfellas" ("Casino" and "The Departed" were only inspired by the stories of real personalities).
The film Goodfellas is based on the story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a member of the New York mafia who participated in two legendary robberies at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Hill, half Irish, half Sicilian, grew up in Brooklyn in the 50s and, having fallen under the influence of local mafioso Paul Vario, from his teenage years he was a threat to society, although due to his origin he could not be accepted into the “family” with whom he was closely associated collaborated. Hill's side business was drug trafficking, which landed him in prison a second time and only managed to avoid time by agreeing to enter the witness protection program. In general, it’s a finished movie, not a biography. Henry's partners - Jimmy Burke and crazy Tommy Desimone - were played by Scorsese's favorite duo of actors - Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.
"Black Mass" (2015) 
The story of James "Whitey" Bulger stands out even from this character-rich selection. Firstly, his younger brother Billy Bulger was such a law-abiding citizen that he rose to the rank of Massachusetts State Senator, which did not prevent Whitey from leading the Irish Winter Hill gang from south Boston for several decades. Secondly, Bulger, who hated “rats” and informers, was himself an FBI informant, although he reported exclusively on the Italian mafia, which competed with him. Thirdly, without the help of the FBI and agent John Connolly, whom he knew from childhood, his rise and transformation into the king of the Boston underworld would have been simply impossible. In general, Bulger led the entire Boston FBI office by the nose for quite a long time. In Scott Cooper's film with an unusually strong cast - from Joel Edgerton, who played Connolly, to Benedict Cumberbatch, who embodied Billy, the main role was played by Johnny Depp, made up beyond recognition.
By the way, Whitey’s story helped screenwriter William Monahan transplant the plot of the Korean “Double Castling” onto American soil, which eventually turned into Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed,” for which, by the way, he was finally awarded an Oscar.
"The Sopranos" (1999-2007) 
Showrunner David Chase created the cult HBO series using the old rule: write what you know. So the story about Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) - a modern gangster from New Jersey - added a complex relationship with an anhedonic mother, panic attacks and depression, psychotherapy sessions, discussions about the place of Italian-Americans (Chase's grandfather changed his last name, shortening the original - Decesare) in modern society and the charm of the mafia from the “garden country”, familiar to Chase from childhood.
The “clan” itself is in many ways reminiscent of the Decavalcante crime family, which has been operating in several cities in New Jersey since the 20s and is going through times of crisis on the threshold of the new millennium. Then about 20 of its members were arrested and sentenced to various terms - the FBI monitors every step, young people do not honor “omerta” (the mafia’s code of honor) and confess to the prosecutor at the first opportunity. In general, Tony has a lot of troubles both at home, where his nagging wife Carmela (Edie Falco) and two teenage children are waiting for him, and at work with his extremely expensive colleagues from the “waste disposal company”.
By the way, many of the actors who played the latter, like Lorraine Bracco, who played the role of Tonya's psychologist Jennifer Melfi, also appeared in Scorsese's Goodfellas.
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