داستان فیلم های جنایی ( گنگستری) حول محور اعمال شوم که به دست جنایت کاران و یا همان گنگستر ها انجام می شود می گردد. مخصوصا" سرقت بانک، معاملات و تجارت های زیر زمینی و یا اعمال بی باکانه چه اخلاقی و چه غیر اخلاقی که خارج از قانون انجام گیرد. (که به اینگونه افراد با توجه به ملاک های اخلاقی مخاطب اراذل و اوباش و یا قهرمان در ذهن مخاطب معنی می گیرد.)
دزدی و جنایت و کشتار روش آنهاست برای گذران زندگی.
فیلم های جنایی و گنگستری بر حسب فرم تصویر فیلم (سینماتوگرافی) به زیر مجموعه هایی تقسیم می شود.
1. Mob Film are films which focus on characters who are involved seriously with the Mafia or Gangs. Notable Gangster films are Goodfellas, The Godfather, Public Enemies, Once Upon A Time In America, Road to Perdition, White Heat, Bugsy, Carlito's Way, Pulp Fiction, Manhattan Melodrama, Angels with Dirty Faces, Little Ceaser. Mean Streets, Get Carter, Scarface, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Donnie Brasco, Gangs Of New York, The Untouchables, The Public Enemy, Layer Cake, Casino, Miller's Crossing, Scarface (1932), Reservoir Dogs, Bonnie & Clyde, Pusher trilogy and The Departed. Gangster films are widely regarded as the best Crime films.
2. Police procedural films - often with a surprise twist ending, have remained a mainstay with He Walked By Night (1948), Stray Dog (1949), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Madigan (1968), Klute and The French Connection (both from 1971), The Usual Suspects (1995), Lone Star (1996), and Blood Work (2002).
3. Detective films - professional private detectives hired to solve a crime, usually a murder or missing persons case, in such films as The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Harper (1966), Chinatown (1974), Twilight (1998 film) (1998).
4. Crime comedies - a hybrid of crime and comedy films. Mafia comedies look at organized crime from a comical standpoint. Humor often comes from the incompetence of the criminals or dark comedy. Examples include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, In Bruges and Mafia!.
5. Crime thrillers - thrillers in which crime plays a large part. Examples include Seven and Running Scared.
6. Crime horrors - horror films in which crime plays a major part. Examples include the Saw films, From Hell and the Hannibal Lecter film series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising).
7. Film noir - a genre popular in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, often fall into the crime genre. Neo-noir films refer to more modern films influenced by film noir such as Sin City.
8. Heist films - these films deal with a group of criminals attempting to perform a theft or robbery, as well as the possible consequences that follow. Heist films that are lighter in tone are called "caper films." Examples include Oceans 11, Dog Day Afternoon, The Sting and Reservoir Dogs.
9. Heroic bloodshed - a genre of Hong Kong action cinema revolving around stylized action sequences and dramatic themes such as brotherhood, duty, honour, redemption and violence, often featuring triads. Examples include The Killer and Hard Boiled.
10. Hood films - films dealing with African-American urban issues and culture. They do not always revolve around crime, but often criminal activity features heavily in the storyline. Examples include Menace II Society and Boyz n the Hood.
11. Legal dramas - films that are not usually concerned with the actual crime so much as the trial in the aftermath. A typical plot would involve a lawyer trying to prove the innocence of his or her client. Examples include Awaara, 12 Angry Men and A Time To Kill.
12. Yakuza films - a Japanese variant of the gangster film, dating back to the 1940s, one of the earliest examples being Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948). Other examples include Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Ichi the Killer.
13. Poliziotteschi - a type of crime film made in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. Typically these films are very gritty and violent. Examples include Violent Naples and High Crime.
14. Mumbai underworld films (also known as Mumbai noir) - an Indian variant of gangster films, revolving around crime in the slums of Mumbai, often involving the Indian mafia. The subgenre dates back to Hindi films of the 1950s, one of the earliest examples being Awaara (1951), and has evolved over the decades across the film industries of India and more recently international cinema. The style of Mumbai underworld films can vary from unrealistic Bollywood masala movies (such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Don) to realistic 'Parallel Cinema' films (such as Nayagan, Salaam Bombay!, Company and Black Friday), as well as films that blend the two styles together (such as Satya and Slumdog Millionaire).
15. Prison films - films that follow the life of the protagonists in prison. Examples include Escape from Alcatraz.
16. True crime - films are based on real events, though details may be altered for the purposes of storytelling. Examples include Public Enemies, Bonnie & Clyde, Goodfellas and Dog Day Afternoon.
