Gangs of New York

Set against the squalor and chaotic vitality of lower Manhattan's Five Points during the American Civil War, Martin Scorsese's operatic crime drama introduces a fledgling nation tearing itself apart from the inside. Following the violent death of his father, 'Priest' Vallon—the devout leader of the Irish Catholic Dead Rabbits—young Amsterdam Vallon is exiled to a reformatory. Years later, he re-emerges into the teeming streets under an assumed name, consumed by a singular, burning ambition: to avenge his father by executing the charismatic tyrant who struck him down, William 'Bill the Butcher' Cutting. Yet revenge proves far more complicated than a simple thrust of the blade. As Amsterdam infiltrates Cutting's circle, he finds himself dangerously drawn to the Butcher's perverse charisma, twisted paternal affection, and fierce code of honor. Complicated further by an enigmatic pickpocket named Jenny Everdeane and the looming catastrophe of the 1863 Civil War Draft Riots, the film explores the razor-thin line between righteous vengeance and the brutal birth of modern political machinery.