The Best Movies Based on True Crimes

The French Connection (1971)

Director William Friedkin’s The French connection is the closest a Hollywood blockbuster comes to an authentic street crime investigation. All the cop movie clichés now taken for granted are invented in this classic. Gene Hackman’s Detective “Popeye” Doyle leads with his gut, picks at his feet in Poughkeepsie, pisses off other cops, enjoys bullying the FBI, and is in the driver’s seat of the ultimate movie chase. His partner, Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), provides perfect backup and even takes a stiletto slice for the team.

The fictional film adaptation of Robin Moore’s 1969 true crime book, The French Connection: A True Story of Police, Drugs and International Conspiraciesdocuments the end of the Corsican mafia’s alliance with organized crime founder Lucky Luciano to produce, refine and distribute heroin, allegedly through the Bonanno and Magaddino families. It was the first sniff that hooked moviegoers on Hollywood’s war on drugs. To experience the dangers of police work firsthand, Friedkin went on the road with the real Popeye Doyle during filming. For his next film, The Exorcist (1973) would see the director go through hell and back.

Good Friends (1990)

Good guysdirected by Martin Scorsese, is the greatest tale of riches to rats in the gangster genre. Based on the book by Nicholas Pileggi Smart guyRay Liotta plays Henry Hill, who gave evidence for the state before escaping into the witness protection program to evade a drug bust. Robert De Niro plays Lucchese family man James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, who was called Jimmy Conway in the film but displays the authentic charm of the original. Joe Pesci plays Tommy DeVito (real name Tommy “Two Gun” DeSimone), who is all but laughable.

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster,” Hill beams at the film’s opening. Scorsese makes crime palpably exciting. Clothes, money, clubs and coke can explode at any moment. Good guys does not take place on the manicured lawns of The godfather. These are street gangs who steal small loot until something bigger comes along. The Lufthansa robbery at Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978, which was already famous before the film was made, is the focus of Good guys. It remains one of the largest thefts in American history and remains unsolved. “The Gent” struck anyone who could connect him to it. Good guys is a groundbreaking masterpiece filled with violence, humor and underreported street crime.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort was raised by two middle-class accountants in a small apartment in Bayside, Queens. He turned 26 the year he ran his own real estate agency, raking in $49 million, not the best haul he’d calculated, considering the rapacious money-mover was chasing a million a week. Director Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the real Belfort’s memoir about his work as a stockbroker on Wall Street. To DiCaprio, Belfort is a goose that lays golden eggs until the eggs fall into the “boiler room” and he gets caught up in a penny-stock scam.

Scorsese knows how to make even the most blatant villainy funny, no matter how fleeting. But the audience never forgets that good times never make it to the end credits. Ultimately convicted of fraud, market manipulation and acts beyond fiduciary violations, the young financial upstarts in this film exemplify the wild and crazy behavior of the fraternity boys of the financial center while the money lasts. Also starring Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, Margot Robbie as a fictionalized version of Belfort’s second wife, Naomi LaPaglia, and Matthew McConaughey as the most laid-back pocket-money wizard on the planet, The Wolf of Wall Street is a rollercoaster ride to the demise of fiduciary power.