Gangster movies are often dramas, because the stories told are, well, dramatic. Back during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the gangster genre was first being fleshed out and made a thing, the stories were almost always of the rise-and-fall variety, with someone becoming a criminal, getting powerful, and then being brought down, because crime just couldn’t pay in the long run; it’s not the message anyone wanted to put across.
Eventually, things got a little more complicated, not necessarily because of The Godfather, but that one is indicative of a new era of sorts for the gangster genre. And The Godfather, while more morally complex, is also pretty dramatic and not exactly a laugh riot. Thankfully, if you are after gangster movies that are funny, the ones below might satisfy, some of them being broad and quite silly, while others are probably more definable as crime-related dramedies.
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‘Prizzi’s Honor’ (1985)
Sure, Jack Nicholson was Oscar-nominated for better movies than Prizzi’s Honor, but this one does still have the honor of housing an Oscar-nominated Nicholson performance (being one of 12… kind of crazy that The Shining isn’t one, but oh well). He plays a hitman in Prizzi’s Honor who works for a dangerous and powerful crime family and finds his life taking a turn when he happens to fall in love with a woman who’s also an assassin.
That is the premise, and you sort of just have to roll with it, even if it might sound, on the surface, a little too heightened, even for a crime/gangster movie with a comedic tone. Still, Prizzi’s Honor shows Jack Nicholson can do just about anything as an actor since he’s pretty good in this film, and so too is Anjelica Huston (being directed by her father, John Huston, in what ended up being his penultimate film), who won Best Supporting Actress for her role here.
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‘The Freshman’ (1990)
There were many crime movies that came out in 1990, perhaps more high-profile ones than usual, including The Godfather Part III (definitely not a comedy), and a couple more that’ll be mentioned in a bit. But it’s worth bringing up The Godfather, since The Freshman works as a parody of sorts to that first film since that one starred Marlon Brando, and he’s in The Freshman as an older gangster who’s kind of similar in some ways to Vito Corleone.
Matthew Broderick’s character certainly thinks so as he’s a film student who ends up getting mixed up with the mob, and comedic hijinks ensue. Or they’re supposed to ensue. The Freshman is unfortunately a little inconsistent and maybe one-note with the main joke it tells again and again throughout, yet it’s kind of neat and clever at times. Certainly not awful though, and arguably a tad overlooked.
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‘Guys and Dolls’ (1955)
Another Marlon Brando movie, but this time one from before he did The Godfather, here’s Guys and Dolls, which is – strange as it might sound – a comedy romance crime musical movie all at once (and not particularly intense the way some crime-musical hybrids are). It’s a lot, and it’s kind of big (even borderline epic) in the way quite a few musicals from around the middle of the 20th century liked to be, with perhaps an overlong runtime here of almost 2.5 hours.
There’s fun to be had with the excessiveness of it all though getting to see Brando and Frank Sinatra share the screen is probably worth the price of admission if you like Golden Age of Hollywood musicals. It’s about some people affiliated with some criminals and also their love lives and some other stuff. They just pile a lot into Guys and Dolls, hoping you, the viewer will think enough of it works.
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‘Snatch’ (2000)
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You can push back onPulp Fiction being a true gangster movie if you want but things were broadened enough before to allow Goodfellas into a ranking about comedies even though it wasn’t a full-on comedy soPulp Fiction being kind of a gangster movie is enough. Marsellus Wallace is a pretty fearsome gangster and he doesn’t have the most screen time but he is the character around whom all the stories inPulp Fiction revolve.
This article lists various gangster films that blend elements of comedy while showcasing their unique narratives. Each entry highlights key performances by actors such as Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando while emphasizing their contributions to the genre.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Release Date: September 10, 1994
Runtime: 154 minutes
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