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- GoodFellas
- Warner Bros.
Throughout the 1990s, a plethora of thriller and crime films were released that captivated audiences. While many were completely fictional, some ‘90s films were based on real crimes. These films ranged from Bugsy, which focused on the equal parts glamorous and dangerous life of Bugsy Siegel, to the gritty Summer of Sam, set against the backdrop of 1970s New York during the Son of Sam murders. Whatever your preferred style of crime film might be, the ’90s served it up with dynamic scripts and all-star casts.
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Henry Hill began working for a mob when he was just a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s. He would rise through the ranks and eventually spearhead the 1978 Lufthansa Heist, which resulted in the mafia stealing $420,000 from the Air France cargo terminal at JFK Airport. Unfortunately for Hill and his associates, the heist brought a lot of unwanted attention from law enforcement, and mob boss Jimmy Burke began having hits taken out on those involved in the heist. Hill became a government informant and entered the Witness Protection Program with his family as a result.
Goodfellas documents Hill's life beginning as a young boy until entering the Witness Protection Program, which both the real and fictional Hill loathed. Goodfellas was developed by Martin Scorsese and writer Nicholas Pileggi who wrote the nonfiction book Wiseguys, which Goodfellas is based on. The two would work together again on the 1995 film Casino.
Hill was later forced to leave the Witness Protection Program due to continued criminal activity and embraced the fictionalized version of himself in Goodfellas until his death in 2015.
Worth rewatching?What to Watch If You Love 'Goodfellas'See all
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- 2Scarface40 Votes
- 3The Departed26 Votes
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In the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, Sam “Ace” Rothstein is sent to Las Vegas by the Chicago mafia to manage the Tangiers Casino in 1973. Although he makes a huge profit for the mob, Rothstein's larger-than-life persona becomes a liability, especially when he starts his own talk show. After an attempted hit on Rothstein fails, his wife, dancer Ginger McKenna, mysteriously overdoses, and Rothstein knows the two events are related. Rothstein eventually lives the quiet life of a sports handicapper, stating that he ends up “right back where I started.”
Casino was based on the nonfiction book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi. The character of Rothstein was based on casino manager Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who managed the Stardust Casino at the behest of the Chicago mafia. Like Rothstein's character, Rosenthal had his men break a man's hand with a rubber mallet after he attempted to steal from the casino. Rosenthal also hosted his own local talk show with celebrity guests including Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles, the latter of whom appears in Casino.
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A Bronx Tale tells the story of an Italian boy named Calogero who witnesses a man getting shot to death when he's just nine years old in 1960. The man was shot by local mob boss Sonny who takes an interest in Calogero. Intrigued by the mafia, Calogero begins working for Sonny and the two develop a close relationship. Meanwhile, Calogero's father, a bus driver named Lorenzo, tries to prevent his son from getting too deep into a life of crime. However, Sonny ends up saving Calogero's life, further pulling him in. It's only after witnessing Sonny's death that Calogero decides to leave behind his interest in the mob.
In real life, Chazz Palminteri developed a play called A Bronx Tale based on his own life. The play debuted in 1989, and Robert De Niro turned it into a film in 1993. Palminteri plays mob boss Sonny while De Niro plays Lorenzo. Palminteri later revived the play in 2007, and De Niro adapted it into a musical which opened in 2016.
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Donnie Brasco from 1997 tells the story of FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone who infiltrates New York's Bonann crime family as jewel thief Donnie Brasco. From 1978 to 1981, Brasco uses his friendship with mobster Lefty Ruggiero, but Brasco's mobster persona spills into real life when he hits his wife and the couple enters marriage counseling. Brasco is also witness to grisly crimes that include dismembering victims with hacksaws. In the end, Brasco is rescued by the FBI just before he's supposed to take out a hit and become a true member of “the family.”
The real Joseph Pistone has said that the movie was 85% true. Pistone's real undercover work did result in 200 indictments and 100 convictions, which significantly impacted organized crime in New York City. However, Pistone maintains that he never witnessed the graphic murders portrayed in the films. He's also adamant that he never hit his wife, which infuriated him when he initially read the script. Pistone went as far as to try and have it removed but was ultimately overruled.
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In 1952, 13-year-old Juliet Hulme moves to a small town in New Zealand where she befriends 14-year-old Pauline Parker in the 1994 Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures. The two girls develop an intense friendship over the course of two years, even making up a fictional land called “Borovnia” and developing violent fantasies about those who've wronged them.
When Juliet learns she'll be moving to South Africa, she and Pauline develop a plan to run away together, which involves murdering Pauline's mother. The two succeed in killing the mother but are caught and forced never to see each other again.
In reality, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker were real people who murdered Honora Parker, Pauline's mother. The girls each served five years in prison. Following her release, Juliet Hulme changed her name to Anne Perry and became a bestselling author. Perry was upset when Heavenly Creatures was made after trying so hard to forget her past, but ultimately accepted the film and said it had no negative effect on her life.
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Directed by Scott Kalvert and released in 1995, The Basketball Diaries tells the story of Jim Carroll, a 13-year-old boy who's a member of his Catholic school's basketball team. An aspiring writer, Jim's world is turned upside down when a friend dies from leukemia, and Jim and his fellow teammates turn to heroin to cope with the loss. As Jim becomes increasingly addicted, he turns to sex work, gets kicked out of his religious mother's home, and spends six months on Rikers Island where he gets clean.
This coming-of-age story is based on the real Jim Carroll's 1978 memoir, The Basketball Diaries, which includes excerpts from the diary he kept during his time as a teenage addict in 1960s New York. After getting clean and being released from Rikers, Carroll went on to become a successful poet, writer, and punk rocker.
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In the 1999 film Boy's Don't Cry, a transgender man named Brandon Teena attempts to start a new life in Falls City, NE, after receiving death threats as a result of his gender identity. After falling in love with a woman named Lana Tisdel, Brandon is arrested and two ex-cons, John Lotter and Tom Nissen, violently assault him after learning he's trans. Lotter eventually murders Brandon by shooting him in the head, and then Nissen stabs his lifeless body. Nissen received a life sentence, and Lotter was given the death penalty.
Brandon Teena was a real person who was murdered by John Lotter and Tom Nissen on December 31, 1993. Teena was actually shot and then stabbed to death at a friend's house.
Directory Kimberly Pierce spent five years researching and writing the script for Boys Don't Cry.
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In the Name of the Father tells the story of Gerry Conlon, who was wrongly arrested and convicted for two bombings in England in 1974. A resident of Northern Ireland, Conlon was in the town of Guilford when a bomb went off at a pub, killing four soldiers. The attack was attributed to the IRA, and Conlon, a friend, and two other young men were arrested on terrorism charges since they were near the bombing.
Conlon signs a false confession after law enforcement threatens to kill his father. Conlon's dad was subsequently arrested and also sent to prison. Conlon and his father spent years trying to overturn their conviction, but Conlon's father died before he could be exonerated. Eventually, Conlon's lawyer finds evidence to overturn the convictions of “The Guilford Four” 15 years after they were sent to prison.
In the Name of the Father is largely based on Gerry Conlon's memoir, Proved Innocent: The Story of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four. As portrayed in the film, an IRA member confessed to the bombings, but his confession was suppressed by police. Conlon and the other men were able to clear their names and were released in 1989.
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Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil centers around the murder trial of wealthy Savannah antiques dealer Jim Williams who's been accused of murdering his lover, Billy Hanson. Meanwhile, journalist John Kelso has come to Savannah simply to cover one of Williams's legendary Christmas parties but ends up being a confidant to him during the murder trial. Although Williams is eventually found not guilty of the crime, which is a huge point of contention for many, his freedom is short-lived.
The book Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil was written by John Berendt who did know Jim Williams but had no plans to write a book about murder. In the film adaptation, multiple murder trials were rolled into one and Berendt was turned into the fictional John Kelso and given a love story. That said, many real-life residents of Savannah, most notably The Lady Chablis, appear in the film.
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1998's The Newton Boys tells the story of The Newton Gang, a prolific group of bank and train robbers who committed crimes across the United States and Canada in the 1920s. The gang consisted of Texas-born Willis Newton and his brothers, Doc, Jess, and Joe, along with a couple of other associates over the years. In the film and real life, the gang was known for committing bank robberies at night and never harming anyone. However, they did wound two bank messengers during a botched robbery in Canada, which is included in the film. The gang's ultimate undoing was a train robbery in Illinois on June 12, 1924, which resulted in Doc being shot by another member of the gang and their subsequent capture.
While the film ends with the gang's arrest, all members of the Newton Gang were eventually released from prison and lived long lives. Willis lived to be 90 before dying in 1979, and Joe Newton lived until 1989, giving a television interview shortly before his death.
Although some artistic liberties were taken in The Newton Boys, The Newton Gang's 1924 train robbery is considered the largest train robbery in US history.
Worth rewatching?From July 1976 to August 1977, a serial killer known as the Son of Sam terrorized New York City. Also known as the .44 Caliber Killer due to the gun he used, the man murdered six people and injured many more in a series of eight shootings. Son of Sam turned out to be 24-year-old David Berkowitz, who claimed that his neighbor Sam's dog was possessed by a demonic entity that forced him to carry out the shootings. Berkowitz was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
Although originally developed as a Berkowitz biopic, Summer of Sam instead tells the story of friends Ritchie and Vinny whose lives are unraveling during the summer of 1977. As Vinny's marriage deteriorates, Ritchie's friends start to suspect that he is the Son of Sam. While it is a work of fiction, Summer of Sam captures the fear and paranoia that affected real-life New Yorkers that fateful summer.
Worth rewatching?- 12
Rush
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Rush is a 1991 thriller based on the 1990 novel of the same name written by Kim Wozencraft. The film tells the story of detective Jim Raynor and recent police academy grad Kristen Cates who go deep undercover in order to take down local drug dealers. After Cates is forced to take drugs in front of a dealer to not blow her and Raynor's cover, she slowly becomes addicted to the very substances she's trying to get off the streets. The investigation ultimately leads to Raynor's demise, but Cates gets the last word in the film's stunning conclusion.
Kim Wozencraft based the novel Rush on her own experience as an undercover agent. In a 2022 interview, Wozencraft said that the film “stayed true to the essence of the story” but the book and film were “two different things entirely.” Wozencraft also pointed out that her novel is told from Cates's point of view and doesn't have the buddy cop element of the film.
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In the 1999 film The Hurricane, Denzel Washington gives a stunning performance as acclaimed middleweight boxer Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter. Carter was on track to become the world's greatest middleweight boxer when he was wrongfully convicted of three murders in 1966. Carter was finally released from prison in 1985 thanks to the help of a young Black teen named Lesra Martin, who began a campaign to get Carter's conviction overturned.
Although the film was well-received by general audiences, it has several inaccuracies. For instance, a 1964 match between Carter and Joey Giardello appears to have been rigged in favor of Giardello, who was white. Carter himself admitted that Giardello deserved to win, and Giardello sued over his portrayal in the film.
The film also incorporates a love story between Carter and his wife Mae Thelma, but in reality, Carter's wife filed for divorce after he had repeatedly cheated on her.
Finally, The Hurricane leaves out Carter's discharge from the military after being found “unfit for military service” and his three convictions for muggings. It seems that in trying to make Carter a more sympathetic character, filmmakers lost sight of the real Carter's complexity as a person.
Worth rewatching?- 14
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1991's Bugsy recounts the storied life of career criminal Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. The film covers Siegel's rise to power and association with the New York mob, followed by his move to Las Vegas where he constructed and opened the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. Due To Siegel's lavish tastes, the hotel goes vastly over budget. A storm on opening night essentially puts the hotel out of business. Meanwhile, Siegel's girlfriend, Hollywood actress Virginia Hill, steals $2 million as the hotel and casino's accountant. Siegel is eventually killed by an unknown sniper in the film's climax.
Although Bugsy takes some liberties, it more or less follows the life of the real Bugsy Sigel, who opened the Flamingo amidst a rainstorm in 1947. Shortly thereafter on June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot multiple times through a window of Virginia Hill's mansion in Beverly Hills. To this day, no one knows who murdered him.
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Killer: A Journal of Murder is a 1995 film based on a book by the same name written by serial killer Carl Panzram. Panzram was born in 1891 and suffered severe emotional and sexual abuse growing up. He began stealing at age 12, and his crimes escalated to murder. In the film, Panzram befriends prison guard Henry Lesser who convinces Panzram to write a memoir about his crimes and try to find redemption. Panzram is eventually sentenced to death for killing a guard.
The real Panzram's crimes were as shocking, if not more so, than what's depicted in the film. However, he did have a friendship with Lesser, who published Panzram's writings in 1970.
In the film, Panzram's last words are, “Hurry up, you Hoosier b*stard. I could kill ten men while you're fooling around here.” When the real Panzram was hanged on September 5, 1930, his exact final words were, “Hurry it up, you Hoosier b*stard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”
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