Robert De Niro plays Noodles, who rises from the Ghettos to become a prominent Jewish gangster in the 1920s, gave a performance to rival The Godfather II, although the film was a box-office bust thanks to a truncated edit for American release. Sergio Leone moved from his usual Spaghetti Western fare to Once Upon a Time in America, a four-hour epic about the Jewish immigrant experience during Prohibition. The following are the 20 greatest films about the Prohibition Era. These gangster films became a genre all their own, and have remained prevalent in movies even today, as filmmakers continue to tap the keg of Prohibition's famous criminal enterprises. Robinson and James Cagney played iconic roles that canonized criminals as filmmaking shifted from silent films to 'Talkies' and studios created compelling narratives around folk tales about the likes of John Dillinger and Al Capone. In the 1930s, as gangster movies became popular respites from the life of Depression Era Americans, movie stars like Edward G.

After the passage of the Volstead Act, law enforcement squared off with organized crime groups, bootleggers, and outlaw heroes like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, creating incredible stories that Hollywood has sought to capture ever since.

In 1917, Charlie Chaplin contributed to the topic with a film called The Cure, which lampooned drunks and the archaic early attempts at rehabilitating alcoholics. In the lead up to Prohibition, the debate over alcohol consumption became the focus of newspapers, literature, and the growing silent movie industry. The move backfired, creating an onslaught of organized crime groups that could now bootleg alcohol and sell it more cheaply, spurning clashes between law enforcement and a new brand of American outlaw. Under pressure from lobbying religious groups, the House and Senate voted to ratify the amendment in response to growing alcoholism and political corruption involving the saloon industry.

The Prohibition Era in the United States spanned from 1920 to 1933 with the passage of the Eighteeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibited the sale, import, and manufacture of all alcoholic beverages.

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