The Mafia. The Mob. La Cosa Nostra. No matter what you call them, mobsters have long been a point of fascination for filmmakers and moviegoers alike. The Godfather (1972), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990), American Gangster (2007) — there’s no shortage of iconic onscreen portrayals of the Mafia and criminal organizations with deep-rooted family loyalty. The below movies and TV shows on Netflix dive into that history and feature famed real-life mobsters as well as actors who made names for themselves portraying fictional mafiosi.
This Oscar-nominated gangster film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver) and based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt stars powerhouse trio Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci as warring mafiosi. The three-and-a-half-hour epic, which premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2019, follows truck driver Frank Sheeran (De Niro) as he recounts becoming a hit man in the mid-20th century for mobster Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and his crime family before working for teamster Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, and Bobby Cannavale co-star.
Lilyhammer, a three-season Norwegian series that follows fictional former New York gangster Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano, is part crime thriller, part black comedy. In it, Frank — played by Steven Van Zandt of The Sopranos and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band fame — flees to the isolated town of Lillehammer, Norway, after being placed in witness protection. But his new life as an immigrant named Giovanni “Johnny” Henriksen keeps getting upended when he can’t seem to leave his mob-style problem-solving behind.
Three-part docuseries Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia dives deep into the clash between warring Mafia factions in 1990s Philadephia. When old-school mafioso John Stanfa — handpicked by New York’s Five Families to restore order to Philly’s criminal underground — was challenged by flashy upstart Joey Merlino and his followers, it resulted in a vicious war of shifting loyalties. This drew attention from national media and the FBI. Mob War recalls this bloody history through wiretap recordings, surveillance footage, original interviews, reenactments, and more.
Mafia: Most Wanted reveals the inner workings of one of the world’s most notorious crime families, the ‘Ndrangheta, and focuses on one faction based in Toronto. Through original interviews and recordings, it shares a rare look into where some of the former mobsters are now and how they were able to leave the group behind.
This doc series recalls a time in which the Five Families — the Gambino, Colombo, Bonanno, Lucchese, and Genovese crime organizations — ran New York City and were brought down by the FBI via wiretaps in the 1980s. Through interviews, reenactments, and recordings, Fear City looks back to the Mafia Commission Trial, in which 11 organized crime figures, including the heads of the Five Families, were indicted by then United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani in an attempt to restore order in NYC.
