25 best Prohibition movies

Lawless (2012)

Where most Prohibition films follow the sharp-suited Chicago gangsters who deal in bootleg booze, Lawless explores the impact of the 18th Amendment on a family of moonshine producers in the decidedly more rural setting of Franklin County, Virginia. John Hillcoat's film is based on the real-life exploits of the Bondurant brothers – and at times it really does feel like you couldn't make it up. Tom Hardy steals the show with his performance as the burly "mother hen" of the Bondurant clan – which Hillcoat claims was based on "an aging lesbian."

What! No Beer? (1933)

Buster Keaton's "talkie" pairs him up with comedian Jimmy Durante – the two play wannabe entrepreneurs who buy up a brewery in a bid to be the first people selling beer after Prohibition's repealed. And all so that Keaton can win the heart of a gangster's moll. Ironically, Keaton – going through a messy divorce at the time – was working his way through a bottle a day during the shoot.

Road to Perdition (2002)

Tom Hanks stars as hitman Michael Sullivan, out for revenge against the mobster who killed his family, in this adaptation of Max Allan Collins' graphic novel. Set at the height of Prohibition, the film mixes fictional characters with real-life gangsters like Al Capone's under-boss Frank Nitti (played by Stanley Tucci). But the stand-out performance is a softly-spoken Paul Newman as mob boss John Rooney, an uncharacteristically villainous role for cinema's blue-eyed boy.

The Thin Man (1934)

Released between the end of Prohibition and the onset of the moralising Hays Code, The Thin Man features a husband-and-wife detective duo who gleefully ramp up the sexual innuendo while imbibing booze by the bucketload. Heaven only knows how Johnny Depp's planned remake will slip all that past the MPAA.

City Streets (1931)

A love story made during the height of Prohibition – and based on a treatment by Dashiell Hammett, no less – this proto-noir follows Gary Cooper and Sylvia Sydney as a pair of young lovers who become entwined with the mob. Director Rouben Mamoulien brought some unusual innovations to the gangster genre – City Streets was the first American film to feature voiceover, and although there are ten deaths in the film, not one is seen on-screen. City Streets was praised as an accurate depiction of the Prohibition-era gangster lifestyle by someone who knew what he was talking about – Al Capone.

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