Essential Gangster Collection, The (The Departed / GoodFellas / Heat / Once Upon A Time In America) (8 Disc Box Set)

The Departed:
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, The Departed is set in South Boston where the state police force is waging war on organised crime. Young undercover copy, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief, Costello (Jack Nicholson). While Billy is quickly gaining Costello’s confidence, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the gangsters and the police that there is a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being exposed to the enemy – and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself.

GoodFellas:
The lowly, blue-collar side of New York's Italian mafia is explored in this crime biopic of wiseguy Henry Hill. As he makes his way from strapping young petty criminal, to big-time thief, to middle-aged cocaine addict and dealer, the film explores in detail the rules and traditions of organized crime. Watching the rise and fall of Hill and his two counterparts, the slick jack-of-all-trades criminal Jimmy Conway and the brutish, intimidating Tommy DeVito, this true story realistically explores the core, blue-collar part of the mob.

Heat:
Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore and Ashley Judd are among the memorable supporting players in this tale of a brilliant L.A. cop (Al Pacino) following the trail from a deadly armed robbery to a crew headed by an equally brilliant master thief (Robert De Niro). Heat goes way beyond the expectations of the cops-and-criminals genre - and into the realm of movie masterpiece.

Once Upon A Time In America:
From Sergio Leone comes an immense saga which spans four decades in the lives of Jewish gangsters in New York's Lower East Side, starring Robert De Niro, James Woods and Joe Pesci. Leone's commanding epic traces the destinies of four men from childhood on the streets through their violent rise to power and maturity during Prohibition as fully fledged hoods. De Niro is magnificent as "Noodles" Aaronson, one of the four, forced by murder and betrayal to flee New York in 1933. When he is mysteriously summoned back in 1968, he discovers that the tragic and bloody events surrounding his betrayal are not as they once seemed...