After the movie adaptations of The Many Saints of Newark.
Praised as a welcome addition to the Sopranos canon, Many Saints has reinvigorated interest in the DiMeo crime family, and in the gangster film genre in general. After watching The Many Saints of Newark, there are countless other great mobster epics and fact-based dramas to check out.
A Bronx Tale (1993)
Robert De Niro’s directorial debut, A Bronx Tale, is a tragic gangster saga about the fate of a mixed-up kid being seduced by the mafia lifestyle. De Niro co-stars as the boy’s father, a bus driver who wants to keep his son on a wayward, legitimate path.
It’s a lot like The Many Saints of Newark’s Tony Soprano origin story, which focuses on his questionable adult role models and how they swayed him from the straight and narrow.
Detroit (2017)
After her filmmaking career took a political turn with the true events-based war thrillers a fact-driven drama about the 1967 Detroit riots starring John Boyega and Anthony Mackie.
Similar to The Many Saints of Newark’s depiction of the 1967 Newark riots, Detroit dramatizes real-life riots motivated by racial violence (riots that took place in the same year, no less).
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, chronicling Michael Corleone’s rise as a mob boss, has been praised as one of the greatest sequels ever made. Like The Many Saints of Newark, the Godfather follow-up is set across two time periods, as it also acts as a prequel charting Michael’s father Vito’s own rise.
Whereas Many Saints starts off in one time period before jumping to another at the midpoint, Coppola’s sequel cuts back and forth between its two period settings, drawing parallels between the stories of a father and son’s rise through the same criminal enterprise.
Down To The Bone (2004)
Vera Farmiga gives one of the most memorable performances in The Many Saints of Newark as a young Livia Soprano. Farmiga originally got her breakthrough in 2004 with her powerful portrayal of a drug addict in the indie drama Down to the Bone.
Down to the Bone marked the directorial debut of Debra Granik, who went on to helm another harrowing drama that gave a different acclaimed actor their breakout film role: Winter’s Bone, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Rocco And His Brothers (1960)
Directed by Luchino Visconti, Rocco and His Brothers charts the complicated conflicts within an Italian family, particularly a love triangle as two relatives fall for the same woman. There are clear parallels with this movie in the Dickie/Giuseppina storyline in The Many Saints of Newark.
It also has a similar tone to the Sopranos spin-off, thanks to Visconti’s sobering social realism. Many Saints’ harrowing beach murder scene evokes a similarly haunting sequence toward the end of Rocco and His Brothers.
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
The final movie of Sergio Leone’s career, years in the making, is a crime saga following several generations of organized crime. Much like The Many Saints of Newark, it has unexpected time jumps.
While Once Upon a Time in America is too bloated and disted to rank among Leone’s greatest movies, it’s still a masterfully crafted gangster epic nonetheless. Robert De Niro gives one of the finest performances of his career in the role of mafioso “Noodles.”
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
The subject matter of Straight Outta Compton is very different than The Many Saints of Newark. It’s not a crime movie; it’s a brilliantly made biopic of groundbreaking hip-hop group N.W.A. But it does share one key parallel with Many Saints, as O’Shea Jackson, Jr. gives an uncanny performance as his own father.
Just like Michael Gandolfini’s revelatory performance as a teenage Tony Soprano, the younger Jackson’s turn as Ice Cube is strong enough to offset any complaints about nepotism.
Miller’s Crossing (1990)
After making their directorial debut with the grisly neo-noir Blood Simple and following it up with the slapstick comedy Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers found a middle ground between those two tones with their Depression-era gangster saga Miller’s Crossing.
Like The Many Saints of Newark, Miller’s Crossing charts a series of gangland betrayals and double-crosses between two rival criminal enterprises. Plus, the two movies share a dry comic sensibility.
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Hailed as one of the greatest British crime movies ever made, John Mackenzie’s tightly structured ‘80s classic The Long Good Friday stars Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren as a London gangster and his girlfriend, respectively.
Hoskins’ mob boss has to figure out who he can and can’t trust as his top guys are picked off one by one. The plot is reminiscent of Many Saints’ story of a handful of DiMeo associates breaking away and starting their own competing criminal organization.
Goodfellas (1990)
Ray Liotta plays not one, but two roles in The Many Saints of Newark. The actor’s finest performance, and the one that ensured the three decades of fame that led to his casting in Many Saints, was in Martin Scorsese’s hugely influential mafioso biopic Goodfellas.
Goodfellas was a major influence on David Chase’s conception of The Sopranos. The movie’s groundbreaking sense of verisimilitude surrounding the daily lives of mobsters permeates throughout The Many Saints of Newark, too.
