Best Gangster Movies on Netflix: Mob and Mafia Films
Thirteen gangster and mafia films on Netflix, from The Irishman and Scarface to Korean and Hindi picks, plus the mob series and what is missing.
Start with The Irishman. It is Martin Scorsese directing Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, and because it is a Netflix original, it is the gangster film most likely to be in your country’s catalogue. After that, the choice depends on what Netflix has licensed where you live. When we went through the catalogue it had Scarface, The Departed and The Godfather: Part II, but not GoodFellas and not the first Godfather.
We opened the Netflix page of every film below to confirm it was there and to read what it is about. Nothing here is ranked by taste. The list is built to cover the kinds of gangster film people search for: American mob stories, true stories, and films from Korea, India and Britain.
Before you pick: your Netflix may differ
Netflix’s catalogue is different in every country and it changes every month. The pages we opened were the ones Netflix serves in Nigeria. To see whether a film is in your country, click its title in the table below. If Netflix does not have it where you are, the page tells you the title is not available to watch in your country.
The Irishman, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Night in Paradise and The Drug King are Netflix originals, and Netflix says it holds worldwide rights to most of those. The others are licensed from studios, so they come and go.
Gangster movies on Netflix at a glance
| Film | Year | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Irishman | 2019 | Mob drama | A hit man looks back on his years with the Bufalino crime family |
| The Godfather: Part II | 1974 | Mafia classic | Michael Corleone expands the family empire as flashbacks show his father’s rise |
| Scarface | 1983 | Crime classic | A Cuban-born gangster climbs to Miami drug lord and falls apart |
| The Departed | 2006 | Crime thriller | Two Boston cops go undercover on opposite sides of an Irish mob boss |
| Gangs of New York | 2002 | Period drama | An orphan joins the gang of his father’s killer in 1860s New York |
| The Kitchen | 2019 | Crime drama | Three mob wives take over Hell’s Kitchen in 1978 |
| American Gangster | 2007 | True story | A Harlem drug kingpin rises in the 1970s with an honest detective on his trail |
| Black Mass | 2015 | True story | Whitey Bulger makes a deal with the feds and avoids arrest for years |
| The Drug King | 2018 | Korean, true story | A Busan smuggler becomes the king of drug exports to Japan in the 1970s |
| Night in Paradise | 2021 | Korean noir | A hunted mobster hides out on Jeju Island |
| Gangubai Kathiawadi | 2022 | Hindi drama | A woman sold to a brothel uses the underworld to take charge of it |
| Thug Life | 2025 | Tamil, Hindi audio | A gangster takes in a boy after a fatal shootout, and a power struggle follows years later |
| Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man | 2026 | British drama | Tommy Shelby returns to Birmingham when his son is caught up in a Nazi plot |
The American mob films
The Irishman (2019). Frank Sheeran, a hit man, looks back on a life of loyalty to the Bufalino crime family and the secrets that came with it. Netflix lists it among films based on books. Harvey Keitel is in the cast alongside the three leads.
The Godfather: Part II (1974). Michael Corleone pushes the family business further, and the film cuts back to his father Vito’s climb from orphan in Sicily to godfather in New York. Francis Ford Coppola directs Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Netflix had Part II without the first film, which is an odd way to meet the Corleones. See the original somewhere else first if you can.
Scarface (1983). A gangster born in Cuba fights his way to the top of Miami’s drug trade, and addiction and violence take him apart from there. Al Pacino leads and Brian De Palma directs.
The Departed (2006). Two rookie Boston policemen lead double lives. One is planted in an Irish mob boss’s gang, and the other is betraying the police from the inside. Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
Gangs of New York (2002). New York, the 1860s. Amsterdam Vallon, orphaned and set on revenge, works his way into the gang run by Bill the Butcher, who killed his father. Scorsese again, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Kitchen (2019). It is 1978, and the wives of three mobsters take over the running of Hell’s Kitchen. Keeping it means facing down violent rivals, some of them inside the Irish mafia. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss star; Andrea Berloff directs.
Gangster movies based on true stories
American Gangster (2007). A drug kingpin builds his power in 1970s Harlem, with dangerous rivals around him and one honest detective on his case. Ridley Scott directs Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Netflix lists it as based on real life.
Black Mass (2015). The true story of Whitey Bulger, a gangster who struck a deal with federal agents and stayed out of handcuffs for years. Johnny Depp leads, with Joel Edgerton and Benedict Cumberbatch; Scott Cooper directs.
The Drug King (2018). In the 1970s a small-time smuggler from Busan throws himself into the drug trade and ends up as the king of narcotics exports to Japan. Song Kang-ho leads and Woo Min-ho directs. It is in Korean, and Netflix lists it as based on real life.
Korean, Hindi, Tamil and British
Night in Paradise (2021). A mobster who has been wronged, and is now a marked man, lies low on Jeju Island after a brutal tragedy and grows close to a woman with troubles of her own. Park Hoon-jung directs Um Tae-goo and Jeon Yeo-been. The page we opened offered English audio as well as the original Korean.
Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022). Tricked and sold to a brothel, a young woman uses underworld connections to take charge of the world that once used her. Alia Bhatt leads and Sanjay Leela Bhansali directs. It is in Hindi and based on a book.
Thug Life (2025). A gangster takes in a boy whose life is wrecked by a fatal shootout. Years later a struggle for power leads them both somewhere dark. Mani Ratnam directs Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan TR. The original is Tamil, and Netflix lists Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam audio.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026). Tommy Shelby, living in self-imposed exile, comes back to Birmingham when his estranged son gets tangled in a Nazi plot. Cillian Murphy returns, with Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Roth, and Tom Harper directs. It follows the series, so it will mean more if you have seen that first.
For more Hindi crime, Netflix also had Agneepath (2012), and our list of Hindi movies on Netflix covers Dhurandhar, which is set in Karachi’s underworld.
What is missing
GoodFellas, The Godfather and Casino all have pages on Netflix, and each page said the film was not available to watch where we were. Blow, which was on our earlier list, was the same. Lawless and Sin City, also from that list, had no page at all where we looked.
Any of them may be in your country’s catalogue. Search for the title in the Netflix app before you assume it is gone.
Gangster series and documentaries
If you would rather have something that lasts longer than an evening, these were all on Netflix too:
- Peaky Blinders. Six seasons about a Birmingham gang in 1919 and its leader, Tommy Shelby.
- The Gentlemen. Two seasons from Guy Ritchie, in which a duke inherits a weed empire and a criminal dynasty comes with it.
- Griselda. A limited series with Sofía Vergara, inspired by Griselda Blanco’s path from Medellín to the top of Miami’s drug trade.
- MobLand. Tom Hardy leads this series about the fixer for an Irish crime empire during a gang war in London.
- Fear City: New York vs The Mafia. A documentary series on the five Mafia families of the 1970s and 80s and the federal agents who went after them. The same makers followed it with Get Gotti, and Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia is in the same vein.
- Mumbai Mafia: Police vs The Underworld. A documentary film about a crime boss’s hold over 1990s Mumbai and the rise of the “encounter cops”.
Where to start
- If you want one film: The Irishman. It is the likeliest to be in your catalogue, and it puts De Niro, Pacino and Pesci in one film.
- If you want a true story: American Gangster, then Black Mass.
- If you have seen the American ones: Night in Paradise or The Drug King. Both are Netflix originals, so they should be in most catalogues.
- If you want Hindi: Gangubai Kathiawadi.
Quick answers
Are GoodFellas and The Godfather on Netflix?
It depends on your country. Netflix has a page for GoodFellas and one for The Godfather, and both said the film was not available to watch where we were. The Godfather: Part II was there.
Which gangster movies on Netflix are based on a true story?
Netflix lists American Gangster, Black Mass and The Drug King as based on real life. For the real thing, Fear City: New York vs The Mafia is a documentary series.
Are there Hindi gangster movies on Netflix?
Yes. Gangubai Kathiawadi and Agneepath (2012) are in Hindi, and the Tamil film Thug Life has Hindi audio.
Are there Korean gangster movies on Netflix?
Yes. Night in Paradise and The Drug King are both Korean and both Netflix originals.
Is there a gangster series on Netflix?
Several. Peaky Blinders has six seasons, and The Gentlemen, Griselda and MobLand were all in the catalogue we went through.
