Top 20 Mob Hits In Movies
#20: David Kleinfeld
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“Carlito’s Way” (1993) Carlito is a gangster with a code, and even his friends aren’t immune to his vengeance. When his crooked lawyer and presumed friend, Dave Kleinfeld, attempts to sell him out to the District Attorney, Carlito doesn’t take revenge with his own gun. He merely empties Kleinfeld’s own revolver so that when the mafia assassin tasked with killing him arrives, he’ll be left defenseless. And that is exactly what happens when the “policeman” enters his hospital room with a delivery. That delivery: a bullet to the head. This twist ranks it among the most thrilling scenes of its kind.
#19: Mac Keefer & Jim Frazier
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“Angels with Dirty Faces” (1938) Before he was the coolest man in American movies, Humphrey Bogart was just another low-level crook in a gangster flick. After realizing they’re planning to bump off him and his friend, notorious gangster Rocky Sullivan, played by James Cagney, pulls a fast one on a crooked lawyer, played by Bogart, and his partner. After tricking them into spilling their whole betrayal, Sullivan pumps them full of lead. There’s a reason Cagney became a legend of the genre. He’s the epitome of a cool-headed, cold-blooded gangster with no tolerance for cowards or rats.
#18: Seth & Old Seth
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“Looper” (2012) Rian Johnson’s futuristic sci-fi crime thriller features a time-bending twist to the genre. Mob assassins are sent back to the past to murder their younger selves once their career is over, thereby erasing their connection to the organization. Those who fail to do this pay the ultimate price. When hitman Seth is unable to “close the loop” on his younger self, his body begins to decompose right in front of him as he sustains the injuries being inflicted on his younger self in a past timeline. It’s a gruesome and creative twist on the standard mob hit.
#17: The Duke & Slasher
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“Layer Cake” (2004) Some movie mob hits are operatic, even beautiful some might claim. They remind us of the tragedy of organized crime, where people with loads of potential and unexpected compassion can become trapped in a life of crime. This next entry on our list is not that at all. In “Layer Cake,” the Duke and Slasher are two low-level crooks who find themselves caught up in drug-running that’s way above their pay grade. The squabbling couple eventually pays for their inexperience when they’re both shot mid-argument by an Irish gangster’s bodyguard.
#16: John Rooney
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“Road to Perdition” (2002) This is not just a movie about the mob, it’s about family and sacrifice. So, it seems appropriate that its climactic murder scene is much softer and plaintive than the others on this list. As mob enforcer Michael Sullivan ambushes mob boss John Rooney on the rainy streets of Chicago, he is also killing the man who has become his surrogate father. Rooney stands still as his bodyguards die around him, the gunfire lost to the plaintive piano score. His emotional last words, “I’m glad it’s you,” speak to the mob boss’ certainty that his life would always end with a bullet.
#15: Sonny LoSpecchio
“A Bronx Tale” (1993) When young Calogero meets Bronx crime kingpin Sonny LoSpecchio, he finds in the gangster a father figure and unexpected champion. Despite his illicit business dealings and Calogero’s father’s warnings, Sonny and Calogero form a tight bond. But as Calogero’s actual father has always told him, crime doesn’t pay. Like many a movie gangster before him, Sonny eventually pays for his sins with his life. All Calogero can do is watch as his mentor is murdered in the middle of a crowded bar by the son of a man Sonny once killed in broad daylight.
#14: Fredo Corleone
“The Godfather Part II” (1974) “The Godfather” gave new meaning to the word “family,” but “Part II” shows how ugly things can get when family gets in the way of “The Family.” When Michael Corleone realizes his brother, Fredo, has betrayed him, he gives the go-ahead for hitman Al Neri to carry out his own brother’s murder. In a departure for the trilogy, the hit is not shown. Fredo and Neri are seen in shadow as they sit on a fishing canoe and Fredo says a “Hail Mary.” Only the sound of the gun going off is heard as Michael watches. His transformation from all-American boy to cold-blooded crime lord that began in “Part 1” is finally complete.
#13: Markie Trattman
“Killing Them Softly” (2013) In this modern take on the mafia, Brad Pitt plays Jackie, a cold and detached assassin for hire who must find and kill the criminals responsible for robbing a high-stakes Mafia-run poker game. Jackie is ordered to take out Markie, a mafioso whose death is deemed necessary to serve as a warning against future heists. Jackie rides up next to Markie at an intersection on a rainy night and shoots him through his car window. The scene is played in vivid slow-motion, lingering on every bit of broken glass, every spent shell casing, and every spatter of blood.
#12: Bernie Bernbaum
“Miller’s Crossing” (1990) The first time enforcer Tom Reagan is tasked with killing Bernie Bernbaum, a crooked bookie, he can’t go through with it. When Bernie pleads with Tom to “look into his heart” and have mercy, Tom allows him to go free, and pretends to his superiors that he did indeed carry out the hit as ordered. But when the supposedly dead Bernie returns with blackmail on his mind, Reagan won’t make the same mistake again. They replay the failed hit in the woods. Only this time, when Bernie begs for his life, Tom is unmoved.
#11: Sonny Corleone
“The Godfather” (1972) Considered to be an all-time classic of the genre, “The Godfather'' rewrote the rules of the 20th Century mob movie. In what is arguably its most brutal and bloody scene, the eldest son of the Corleone crime family is gunned down at a toll booth. His assassins fire on him without mercy and we’re forced to watch as Sonny Corleone exits the car and is riddled with bullets until his bloodied body finally gives out. The silence after the gunmen depart and shots of the destroyed toll booth give the violence an eerie and poignant punctuation mark.
#10: “Spats” Colombo & His Crew
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) At the climax of this gender-bending romcom, an impromptu birthday celebration turns deadly. Spats Colombo and his crew are having a little trouble tracking down two witnesses to their St. Valentine’s Day-inspired Massacre. That’s because the two have been disguising themselves in drag to perform with a traveling all-female jazz band. Before they can catch up with their targets, Spats and his crew are gunned down in appropriately goofy fashion by a hitman hiding in a big birthday cake. When they say cake is bad for your health, they really aren’t kidding.
#9: Jimmy Hoffa
“The Irishman” (2019) The real-life disappearance of union organizer Jimmy Hoffa has been fodder for fictionalized portrayals of his life and death for decades. However, the details of his presumed murder at the hands of the mafia vary wildly from telling to telling. In Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” his death is carried out by his friend, Frank Sheeran, an enforcer for the Bufalino Crime Family. Even as Hoffa realizes a meeting with a mafia don is a set-up, he never suspects his friend of being in on it. He literally doesn’t see it coming when Sheeran shoots him twice in the back of the head. What sets the scene apart is Sheeran’s subtle emotional response to murdering his friend.
#8: Tom Powers
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“The Public Enemy” (1931) In the movie that made James Cagney a star, he plays Tom Powers, a ruthless bootlegger in Prohibition Era Chicago. A brush with death finds a hospitalized Tom promising his mother and brother he will give up his life of crime. Tom’s mother is overjoyed, humming to herself as she makes her son’s bed. Tom’s brother Mike answers a knock at the door to find Tom standing on their doorstep. His dead body falls into the foyer, having been delivered by a rival gang looking for revenge. The film ends as Mike goes upstairs to tell their mother the news. It’s a haunting scene, highlighting the emotional toll of a life lived in opposition to the law.
#7: Brett
“Pulp Fiction” (1994) Sometimes, a mob hit isn’t about the result. It’s about the execution–no pun intended. When Marsellus Wallace hires Jules Winnfield to kill someone, it’s not just a hit, it’s a performance. His menacing monologue to a double-crossing colleague includes a disarming his victims with a polite conversation, taking a bite out of his mark’s burger, a slurry of insults, and crescendos with a spirited recitation of the Bible perfectly-timed to coincide with his and his colleague’s hail of bullets. The nonplussed reactions of Jules’ partner in crime, Vincent Vega, are just the icing on the cake.
#6: Nicky & Dominick Santoro
“Casino” (1995) Nicky Santoro makes his living as the merciless enforcer for the Chicago mafia’s Las Vegas chapter. He’s not just good at torturing and killing people. He seems to revel in it. But if there’s anything mob movies tell us, it’s that those who live by the sword tend to die by the sword, too. When Nicky and his brother Dominick become too big for their britches, the Chicago bosses send them a message in the form of a baseball bat and an open grave in the Nevada desert. Nicky never spared his victims any undue suffering, and his own assassins returned the favor.
#5: Sonny Red
“Donnie Brasco” (1997) When Sonny Red and his two goons entered the dark basement, they were openly boasting about their plans to whack fellow gangster Sonny Black. In a delicious twist of fate and irony, Sonny Black and his crew are waiting in the dark for them, having suspected their betrayal. When the lights come on, the shooting starts. What makes the scene so memorable is how it just keeps going. After the first round of bullets, the hitmen reload their guns as their victims cry in agony. It’s just another day at the office for them.
#4: Jimmy Malone
“The Untouchables” (1987) In Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables,” maverick police officer Jimmy Malone is shown to be as hot-headed as any gangster. His Irish brogue and unorthodox methods earn him the respect of his new colleague, Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, but they also put him right in the sights of Chicago’s most nefarious crime boss, Al Capone. Even the clever Malone falls for a bait-and-switch hit carried out by a decoy assassin who draws the officer out into the open where infamous gangster Frank Nitti is waiting with a machine gun. With his last, desperate breaths, the dying Malone gives Ness the information to make a key arrest in Al Capone’s organization.
#3: Tommy DeVito
“Goodfellas” (1990) Tommy is one of the most volatile mobsters the movies have ever seen. We watch him go from a slick-haired young kid to a hot-tempered adult with dreams of making it big in the criminal organization he works for. But it’s his hot temper that eventually does him in. After carrying out a rageful, unsanctioned hit on a “made guy,” Tommy is led to what he thinks is own “making” ceremony, only to be met with an empty room and a gun to his head. It’s the suddenness of it and the true grief of his friends afterward that makes the scene so memorable.
#2: Tony Montana
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“Scarface” (1983) So many mob movies concern the struggle of immigrants trying to earn wealth and power in America. That’s never been more true, or tragic, than in “Scarface.” In one of the most quoted and parodied scenes in any gangster movie, crime kingpin Tony Montana finally goes off the deep end and earns the ire of his criminal colleague, Sosa. When Sosa’s henchmen raid his palatial Miami home, Tony does the only thing he can do. He grabs a grenade launcher. After taking out several of the men, Tony taunts the surviving assassins as they riddle him with bullets. It’s only after taking a shotgun blast from behind that Montana falls to his death… and even this, he does with style.
#1: Sollozzo & McCluskey
“The Godfather” (1972) “The Godfather” sees an idealistic, all-American boy transform into a cold-blooded mafia don who will go to any lengths to take care of the “family business.” The classic scene where Michael Corleone carries out the hit on Sollozzo and McCluskey is the first step in that transformation. Loaded with suspense and intrigue, the scene follows Michael as he meets the men who ordered the hit on his father, retrieves a gun planted in the bathroom, and shoots the men dead in the middle of a restaurant before fleeing. It’s a masterclass in tension, even if it probably tanked the restaurant’s Yelp score.
