1996·Crime·1h 57m
7.1
★
John Gotti, the head of a small New York mafia crew breaks a few of the old family rules. He rises to become the head of the Gambino family and the most well-known mafia boss in America. Life is good, but suspicion creeps in, and greed, rule-breaking and his high public profile all threaten to topple him.
Directed by Robert Harmon
new york city
crime boss
biography
based on true story
IMDB
N/A
Cast
Armand Assante
John Gotti
William Forsythe
Sammy Gravano
Frank Vincent
Robert DiBernardo
Vincent Pastore
Angelo Ruggiero
Anthony Quinn
Neil Dellacroce
Richard C. Sarafian
Paul Castellano
Dominic Chianese
Joe Armone
Robert Miranda
Frank DeCicco
Scott Cohen
Gene Gotti
Raymond Serra
Frank LoCascio
Marc Lawrence
Carlo Gambino
Tony Sirico
Joe Dimiglia
Crew
Robert Harmon
Director
Mark Isham
Original Music Composer
Zach Staenberg
Editor
Alar Kivilo
Director of Photography
Avy Kaufman
Casting
Kyle Cooper
Title Designer
Popular Reviews
25 reviews
Nathan Byrne
8.9★ · 11/10/25
Been on my list for a while as I absolutely love gangster movies set in New York. A HBO mafia biopic about the rise and fall of John Gotti. You can see it’s not a multi million dollar budget movie, it was obviously low budget, but that didn’t take away at how great this really was.
Armand Assante delivers a powerhouse performance that is grounded and brilliant. The film spans decades showing the start of his rise as the ambitious soldier to his reign as the dapper don. Assante really does capture Gotti’s menace ans swagger and his chemistry with William Forsythe who plays his underboss Sammy The Bull, it’s certainly one of the strong points of the movie.
Robert Harmon kept the pacing really well in this movie and not once did it feel slow, he really did make this biopic his own, and done a really great job. The dark cinematography really stood out for me and really added to the movie itself, for a TV movie, you would think this was a movie made for the big screen.
You can really see the inspiration The Sopranos got for Tony Soprano with John Gotti, while he was one of many mob bosses they based his character around, you can see the glimpses of him in this movie. The cast is great, and know them mostly from The Sopranos which makes sense with HBO doing both.
This for me is certainly an underrated mob movie judging by the review it’s well acted and authentic.
Armand Assante delivers a powerhouse performance that is grounded and brilliant. The film spans decades showing the start of his rise as the ambitious soldier to his reign as the dapper don. Assante really does capture Gotti’s menace ans swagger and his chemistry with William Forsythe who plays his underboss Sammy The Bull, it’s certainly one of the strong points of the movie.
Robert Harmon kept the pacing really well in this movie and not once did it feel slow, he really did make this biopic his own, and done a really great job. The dark cinematography really stood out for me and really added to the movie itself, for a TV movie, you would think this was a movie made for the big screen.
You can really see the inspiration The Sopranos got for Tony Soprano with John Gotti, while he was one of many mob bosses they based his character around, you can see the glimpses of him in this movie. The cast is great, and know them mostly from The Sopranos which makes sense with HBO doing both.
This for me is certainly an underrated mob movie judging by the review it’s well acted and authentic.
Been on my list for a while as I absolutely love gangster movies set in New York. A HBO mafia biopic about the rise and fall of John Gotti. You can see it’s not a multi million dollar budget movie, it was obviously low budget, but that didn’t take away at how great this really was.
Armand Assante delivers a powerhouse performance that is grounded and brilliant. The film spans decades showing the start of his rise as the ambitious soldier to his reign as the dapper don. Assante really does capture Gotti’s menace ans swagger and his chemistry with William Forsythe who plays his underboss Sammy The Bull, it’s certainly one of the strong points of the movie.
Robert Harmon kept the pacing really well in this movie and not once did it feel slow, he really did make this biopic his own, and done a really great job. The dark cinematography really stood out for me and really added to the movie itself, for a TV movie, you would think this was a movie made for the big screen.
You can really see the inspiration The Sopranos got for Tony Soprano with John Gotti, while he was one of many mob bosses they based his character around, you can see the glimpses of him in this movie. The cast is great, and know them mostly from The Sopranos which makes sense with HBO doing both.
This for me is certainly an underrated mob movie judging by the review it’s well acted and authentic.
Armand Assante delivers a powerhouse performance that is grounded and brilliant. The film spans decades showing the start of his rise as the ambitious soldier to his reign as the dapper don. Assante really does capture Gotti’s menace ans swagger and his chemistry with William Forsythe who plays his underboss Sammy The Bull, it’s certainly one of the strong points of the movie.
Robert Harmon kept the pacing really well in this movie and not once did it feel slow, he really did make this biopic his own, and done a really great job. The dark cinematography really stood out for me and really added to the movie itself, for a TV movie, you would think this was a movie made for the big screen.
You can really see the inspiration The Sopranos got for Tony Soprano with John Gotti, while he was one of many mob bosses they based his character around, you can see the glimpses of him in this movie. The cast is great, and know them mostly from The Sopranos which makes sense with HBO doing both.
This for me is certainly an underrated mob movie judging by the review it’s well acted and authentic.
Impagzz
8.0★ · 10/16/25
most accurate depiction
most accurate depiction
BleedInGrey
6.0★ · 07/08/25
Good crime film that tries to be grounded yet even as a warning, they place too much charisma in Gotti in a way similar to the pilot version of Tony Soprano
Good crime film that tries to be grounded yet even as a warning, they place too much charisma in Gotti in a way similar to the pilot version of Tony Soprano
Christopher Russell
9.0★ · 05/05/25
Finely got round to seeing this, I’ve heard Michael Franzese talk so much about it on his YouTube channel and thought I would give it a try, he was not wrong about it.
Finely got round to seeing this, I’ve heard Michael Franzese talk so much about it on his YouTube channel and thought I would give it a try, he was not wrong about it.
Richard
9.0★ · 02/27/25
7.8/10
7.8/10