Chapter 9
The central theme throughout is less “crime” itself than the tension between justice, survival, assimilation, memory, and moral responsibility. Unlike classic gangster traditions, Jewish crime cinema often asks not how criminals gain power, but how individuals and communities respond to wrongdoing—whether as perpetrators, victims, investigators, or seekers of restitution. [Google/AI]
Benya Krik (1927) — Soviet Union. This silent film classic, directed by Vladimir Vilner, explores the seamy Jewish underworld of the Moldavanka neighborhood in Odessa. Based on Isaac Babel’s stories, it follows the rise and fall of the legendary fictional gangster king Benya Krik (inspired by the real-life figure Mishka Yaponchik). [See related book]
The Illegals (1948) – one of the most important and historically valuable films ever made about the postwar movement of Holocaust survivors toward Palestine. Directed by author/journalist Meyer Levin, it was largely filmed in 1947 while the events it depicts were actually unfolding. A 77-minute documentary/docudrama, it is primarily in English, with dialogue in several European languages and Yiddish. Rather than using professional actors, Levin recruited actual Holocaust survivors living in displaced persons (DP) camps to reenact their own experiences. The film follows the clandestine journey of the survivors from the DP camps in Germany and Austria through to Italian ports, with the aid of the Zionist Bricha (“flight”) network. There they boarded overcrowded ships and sailed toward British Mandatory Palestine. Before they could get there, they are intercepted by British naval forces who board the ships by force and deport the survivor-passengers to detention camps in Cyprus. The film is particularly significant because it presents “crime” from the opposite moral perspective. Everything the refugees do is technically illegal including crossing borders without authorization and using forged documents, bribing officials, and blatantly violating British immigration regulations. Yet the film portrays these actions not as criminality but as moral necessity in the aftermath of the Holocaust. It argues that the British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine were morally indefensible. Although it never achieved the fame of later Hollywood productions, The Illegals strongly influenced later depictions of postwar Jewish immigration, especially Exodus, whose refugee-ship sequences and overall narrative owe much to Levin’s earlier work. Levin himself later maintained that his film had inspired aspects of both Exodus and its film adaptation. In highlighting the tension between legal authority and moral justice, The Illegals is a foundational film for understanding how postwar Jewish cinema reframed “illegality” as an act of survival and national redemption rather than criminality. [ChatGPT]
City Across the River (1949) – The movie adaptation of Irving Shulman’s The Amboy Dukes (1947 – see description of book under Shulman listing in the companion bibliography on American Jewish crime fiction), marking the screen debut of Tony Curtis. The Jewish dimension was entirely erased to broaden the film’s appeal and appease industry censors. The characters were given generic, anglicized, or Irish-Catholic names. For example, Frank Goldfarb became Frank Cusack. The neighborhood of Brownsville was transformed into a generic “any-slum” in Brooklyn. The film repositioned juvenile delinquency as a universal, colorblind social disease of the urban working class, rather than an affliction impacting a specific immigrant subculture. The radical rewriting of the film version reflects the broader cultural anxieties of 1949. In the immediate wake of the Holocaust and amid sensitive conversations about American antisemitism (captured in films like 1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement), Hollywood studios were profoundly uncomfortable projecting images of violent, murderous Jewish youths onto American screens. De-ethnicizing the Amboy Dukes was deemed necessary to protect the community’s fragile, hard-won postwar social standing. [See related book]
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) – an American crime film that chronicles the ruthless ascent and violent demise of real-life Prohibition-era gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond. Directed by acclaimed B-movie veteran Budd Boetticher and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film is highly regarded for its stark, minimalist black-and-white cinematography and its fast, “machine-gun” narrative pacing. Starring Ray Danton, Warren Oates and Karen Seele. The Diamond brothers arrive in a bustling, Prohibition-era New York City. Initially working as small-time “snatch and run” jewelry thieves, Jack is quickly caught and sent to prison. Upon his release, Jack hatches a brilliantly cynical business model: rather than dealing with the logistics of smuggling, he decides to steal directly from other thieves. He uses his smooth charm to work his way into the inner circle of kingpin Arnold Rothstein, acting as a bodyguard while secretly plotting to take over Rothstein’s massive bootlegging, gambling, and narcotics networks.
As Jack ruthlessly double-crosses friends, rivals, and mentors alike, he builds an empire. His astonishing ability to survive six separate assassination attempts earns him national media fame and the underworld moniker “The Clay Pigeon”. Believing his own myth that he is entirely invincible, Jack pushes his luck too far. When the criminal syndicate turns heavily against him, he finds himself abandoned, ultimately learning that he is no match for a final, lethal betrayal. [Google/AI]
Murder, Inc. (1960) - an American gangster film based on the notorious 1930s Brooklyn crime syndicate. The film is best known for its realistic, quasi-documentary style and for providing actor Peter Falk with his breakthrough, Oscar-nominated role, as the Jewish hitman, Abe Reles. . [See related book]
Portrait of a Mobster (1961) - American crime film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., adapted directly from Harry Grey’s 1958 novel of the same name (See Harry Grey entry in the companion bibliography of American Jewish crime fiction.) Dutch Schultz starts out by aligning himself with the established “Legs” Diamond gang. During a turf dispute, Schultz murders a bootlegger named John Murphy. He subsequently falls in love with the dead man’s daughter, Iris, who has no idea Schultz killed her father. Iris marries a clean police detective, Frank Brennan. Exploiting the young couple’s need for money, Schultz begins paying off Brennan, effectively corrupting him and absorbing him into his criminal syndicate. Schultz violently eliminates “Legs” Diamond, Mad Dog Coll, and anyone else standing in his way, seizing absolute control over the Bronx bootlegging and gambling rackets. The empire crumbles when Iris finally discovers Schultz murdered her father, driving her to alcoholism. Brennan vows to reform his life and win her back. Paranoid and surrounded by enemies, Schultz is informed that a hit has been put out on his life, and he is ultimately killed in a chaotic, accidental shooting by his own associate.
The film was part of a larger trend in the late 1950s and early 1960s where Hollywood studios pumped out biographical crime pictures profiling real-life Great Depression gangsters. Critics noted that the movie felt very similar to the gritty, black-and-white television crime procedurals Warner Bros. was making at the time (like The Untouchables). It was criticized for taking heavy creative liberties with real history, but praised for Vic Morrow’s intense, unhinged depiction of Schultz. – Google/AI] [See related book]
King of the Roaring ’20s: The Story of Arnold Rothstein (also known as The Big Bankroll) (1961) [ - biographical crime drama directed by Joseph M. Newman and starring David Janssen. The film serves as a highly stylized look into the life of the notorious real-life gambling kingpin and organized crime architect who allegedly orchestrated the fixing of the 1919 World Series. The narrative portrays Rothstein’s life as a journey of unchecked obsession with statistics, wealth, and the ultimate gambling payout.
Born into a traditional middle-class Jewish family, young Arnold rejects his father’s upright lifestyle to hustle on the streets of New York. His mathematical genius quickly catches the eye of corrupt political boss “Big Tim” O’Brien, who helps install him in major illicit gambling operations. As his financial empire expands, so does his ruthlessness. He manipulates his alcoholic business partner Jim Kelly into giving up his share of their business and pushes away those close to him. Rothstein’s ultimate undoing stems from his lifelong feud with a corrupt police detective named Phil Butler. Rothstein tricks his childhood best friend, Johnny Burke, into leaking Butler’s blackmail records to the media. This prompts underworld thugs to execute Burke. Though Rothstein successfully manages to use lawyer Tom Fowler to legally destroy Butler, his cutthroat tactics alienate his wife and anger the mob syndicate. He is eventually assassinated during a high-stakes poker game.] [See related book]
A House Is Not a Home (1964) – Biopic on Polly Adler, based on her autobiography (A House Is Not A Home, listed in the companion U.S. Jewish crime non-fiction bibliography), starring Shelley Winters. The film is noteworthy because it dramatizes the life of one of the most famous Jewish figures associated with American organized vice. In that sense, Adler’s Jewishness is historically significant, but within the narrative itself it is largely secondary and not a major theme. The movie treats her primarily as an immigrant woman and a successful madam rather than as a specifically Jewish character. [ChatGPT] [See related book]
The Pawnbroker (1964) - Directed by Sidney Lumet - a landmark American drama film based on the 1961 novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, starring Rod Steiger as Sol Nazerman.The film holds a monumental place in cinematic history for two primary reasons: It was one of the first major American feature films to directly confront the psychological trauma of a Holocaust survivor living in contemporary society. It was also a crucial film in breaking down the restrictive Hollywood Production Code (Hays Code). By including brief, non-erotic nudity during a traumatic flashback, it successfully challenged censorship boards, accelerating the birth of the modern MPAA film rating system. Stylistically, the film is famous for its gritty, on-location cinematography in East Harlem and its groundbreaking use of subliminal flash-frame editing. These rapid, micro-second cuts visually mimic the intrusive nature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), seamlessly blending the harsh realities of 1960s New York with Nazerman’s horrific memories of the concentration camps.
Sol Nazerman is an embittered, emotionally numb German-Jewish scholar who survived Auschwitz but lost his entire family to the gas chambers. Twenty years later, he operates a grim pawnshop in East Harlem, New York. Sol has completely detached himself from humanity, viewing his impoverished Black and Puerto Rican customers with icy indifference and cynicism. He believes only in money, stating that it is the only thing that never fails a man. Unbeknownst to the neighborhood, Sol’s pawnshop is a front for a powerful Black racketeer named Rodriguez. Sol accepts a comfortable lifestyle in suburban Long Island while quietly laundering the mobster’s illicit cash, completely indifferent to the illegal activities funding his livelihood. Meanwhile, Sol employs a young, ambitious Puerto Rican assistant named Jesus Ortiz. Jesus looks up to Sol as a mentor and wants to learn the business, but Sol treats him with cold detachment.
As the anniversary of his family’s deaths approaches, Sol’s carefully constructed emotional walls begin to crumble. Everyday urban events in Harlem trigger overwhelming, violent flashbacks to the camps: A ride on a crowded New York subway morphs into a memory of a packed cattle car. A chain-link fence in a
playground reminds him of the electrified fences of Auschwitz.A local prostitute offering herself to Sol in exchange for money triggers a devastating memory of being forced to watch Nazi officers assault his wife in a camp brothel.
The revelation about the brothel shatters Sol’s apathy. Realizing that his mob boss, Rodriguez, makes his money from prostitution, Sol confronts the gangster. Sol refuses to launder the money any longer, declaring that he no longer fears death. Intimidated by Sol’s absolute lack of fear, Rodriguez threatens to have him killed but leaves him to stew. Simultaneously, Jesus Ortiz—feeling rejected by Sol’s coldness—joins a local street gang to rob the pawnshop. During the heist, the gang pulls a gun on Sol. Sol, actively welcoming death, refuses to hand over the money and provokes the gunmen. At the last second, a remorseful Jesus leaps in front of the bullet meant for Sol.
The gang flees, and Jesus dies on the pavement outside the shop. Sol is left physically unhurt but utterly devastated. The sacrifice of the young man violently breaks through Sol’s decades of emotional numbness. In a famous, silent, agonizing close-up, Sol pierces his own hand on a metal spindle on his desk—using physical pain to anchor himself to the crushing weight of his rediscovered grief and humanity. He walks out into the Harlem streets, finally mourning his past and the loss of Jesus. [Google/AI] [See related book]
The Plot Against Harry (1969) - The “plot” in Michael Roemer’s (original screenplay and direction) 1969 deadpan comedy classic, is not a malicious criminal conspiracy, but rather the surreal, overwhelming forces of middle-class family life and changing urban demographics that pressure an aging, small-time Jewish gangster into going straight. The narrative functions as an existential satire of American Jewish assimilation, chronicling a schlemiel’s unwitting transformation into a mensch.
Dour numbers racketeer Harry Plotnick (played by Martin Priest) is released from a nine-month prison sentence. He steps out into a drastically changed Manhattan. Black and Latino operators have successfully taken over his old neighborhood gambling circuits. Meanwhile, a former underling is trying to muscle in on his remaining territory. While trying to coordinate his illegal numbers operation from the back of his luxury car, Harry’s chauffeur, Max, accidentally rear-ends another vehicle. The car Harry hits belongs to his long-lost ex-wife, Kay, and his brother-in-law, Leo. Through this literal collision, Harry is suddenly thrust into the middle-class suburban lives of the family he abandoned decades ago. Harry discovers he has a pregnant adult daughter (Margie) and another adult daughter (Millie) who is currently planning her wedding.
Desperate for cash and cajoled by his family, Harry is persuaded to invest his money into becoming a partner in Leo’s legitimate, suburban kosher catering business. As Harry tries to balance his illegal bookmaking with suburban family duties—attending bar mitzvahs, dog training classes, and lingerie fashion shows—the law begins to close in: The government initiates a tax audit on Harry’s financial books. In a panicked attempt to protect Harry, his loyal but foolish flunky, Max, burns the financial ledger containing twelve years of illegal payoffs to local police officers. Max is promptly arrested for arson. Overwhelmed by stress and believing he is suffering from a terminal heart condition, Harry collapses on live television while wandering into a musical number at a “Have-a-Heart” charity telethon. Convinced he is dying on the hospital stretcher, Harry decides to clear his conscience. He officially confesses to the police that he ordered the destruction of his financial books to protect Max. He also attempts to buy his way into heaven by donating $20,000 to the charity telethon.
Doctors evaluate Harry and inform him that his heart is perfectly healthy—he is actually just suffering from a severe, acute case of constipation. Because of his public confession, Harry is sentenced to an additional year in prison. However, his willingness to take the fall and his charitable act earn him the respect of his family. At Millie’s wedding, just before he begins his sentence, Kay embraces him and promises that the family will visit him every single Sunday. Harry is finally brought into the warm fold of the family he spent his life avoiding. [Google/AI]
The Policeman (Ha-Shoter Azoulay [Hebrew - השוטר אזולאי ] (1971) - A beloved cinematic landmark nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Written and directed by Ephraim Kishon, it stars Shaike Ophir as a kind-hearted but bumbling beat cop in Jaffa who is more respected by the local criminals than by his superiors. Plot: Officer Avraham Azoulay is an honest man, though extremely naive, and because of his character, has never been promoted during his twenty years on the force. He is married to a dull woman (played by veteran actress Zaharira Harifai); the couple have no children.
His superiors, Captain Levkovich and First Sergeant Bejerano, decide not to renew his contract, though they feel sorry for him. Azoulay falls in love with the simple but charming prostitute Mimi, and removes her photograph from the arrests billboard. His wife finds the photo and tears it to pieces, which Azoulay secretly glues together again. Nevertheless, this love will not be realized as Azoulay refuses to divorce his wife, claiming that “it will destroy her”. In addition, being a Kohen, he cannot marry a prostitute according to Halakha.
Azoulay shows some success at dispersing a haredi demonstration without resorting to violence because of his knowledge of the Bible and of Yiddish; he also charms a group of visiting French policemen who adore the French-speaking policeman. In an Arab-speaking club house he gives a speech in Arabic. Azoulay is able to see people for what they are and not what they represent. None of these events, however, helps to change his superiors’ decision to dismiss him. Azoulay strikes up a friendship with Amar, unaware that he is a notorious criminal. The criminal and his associates decide to fake a crime and allow Azoulay to catch them in the act so that he receives a promotion and regains his contract. They finally decide upon stealing ritual objects, including a large golden cross, from a monastery in the neighbourhood. Azoulay manages to catch the criminal in the act and is finally promoted to the rank of a sergeant, but his contract is not renewed and he is forced to retire from the police.
In the final scene, Officer Azoulay leaves the precinct with his new rank and policemen practising marches in the courtyard are being ordered to salute in his general direction by Bejerano. The final shot of the film presents Azoulay saluting the marching policemen, thinking that they are saluting him, as his eyes fill with tears. This image became one of the most memorable in Israeli cinema. [Wikipedia]
Romance of a Horse-Thief (1971) – screenplay by David Opatoshu, based on the novel by his father, Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu. The film is set in 1904 in Malava, a small Jewish village located in Russian-occupied Poland, right near the German border. It directly captures the period of geopolitical tension surrounding the Russo-Japanese War. The main community is explicitly comprised of Jewish peasants and outlaws. Eli Wallach stars as Kifke, a cynical, clever Jewish horse thief who leads the town’s operations. David Opatoshu also co-stars as Schloime Kradnik, an elder in the village’s trading network. The plot revolves entirely around these Jewish horse smugglers resisting Yul Brynner’s character, Captain Stoloff, an imperial Cossack officer who occupies the village and demands all their horses for the Czar’s army. Instead of portraying pious, passive shtetl life, the film captures Joseph Opatoshu’s unique “naturalist” literary voice. It highlights robust, illiterate, and highly aggressive Jewish criminals who rely on their wits and muscle to survive. Critics and film historians often describe it as an awkward but rollicking “folk tale” or a Western-style adventure with a distinct Yiddish flavor. – Google/AI] [See related book]
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) - a landmark 1974 Canadian drama film directed by Ted Kotcheff. The movie is based on the acclaimed 1959 semi-autobiographical novel by Mordecai Richler, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Micheline Lanctôt, Jack Warden and Randy Quaid. Set in post-WWII 1948 Montreal, the narrative follows David “Duddy” Kravitz, a brash and aggressive 18-year old, in his obsessive drive to acquire land in Quebec’s Laurentian tourist region. He cuts very close to the line of law violation, occasionally crossing it. See synopsis of the book in the entry on Mordecai Richler in the companion Canadian bibliography. [See related book]
The Godfather Part II (1974) - The character Hyman Roth (played by Lee Strasberg) is famously based on Meyer Lansky. Lansky reportedly once called Strasberg to compliment the performance but noted, “You could’ve made me more sympathetic”.
Judgment: The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1974): A made-for-television movie directed by Stanley Kramer as part of an ABC television event series. It stars Allan Arbus as Julius Rosenberg and Brenda Vaccaro as Ethel Rosenberg. The film functions as a courtroom drama detailing the highly controversial trial and the aggressive tactics used by prosecutor Roy Cohn.
The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1974): An early, ground-breaking documentary by Alvin Goldstein that analyzed the strict anti-Communist McCarthy-era environment surrounding the 1951 trial. It features interviews with jurors, FBI agents, and the co-defendant Morton Sobell.
Lepke (1975) - Focuses on Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the only American mob boss ever executed by the state, who led the notorious contract-killing squad known as Murder, Inc. Produced by Menachem Golan and starring Tony Curtis as Lepke.
Mr. Klein (1976) - Directed by Joseph Losey. Though technically a psychological mystery and neo-noir thriller, it is arguably the most definitive French film examining the dark economics of the Holocaust, specifically the profiteering off Jewish property. Alain Delon plays Robert Klein, a wealthy, indifferent Gentile art dealer in 1942 Paris who buys masterpieces on the cheap from desperate Jews fleeing the country. His life spirals into a Kafkaesque nightmare when a mysterious Jewish man with the exact same name (Robert Klein) begins using his identity, leading the French police to suspect the art dealer is actually Jewish. The film tracks his obsessive search for his criminal doppelgänger, culminating in a bleak look at systemic persecution.
Marathon Man (1976) - thriller directed by John Schlesinger, based on the novel by William Goldman. Set in the mid-1970s, the story follows Thomas “Babe” Levy (Dustin Hoffman), a graduate student and avid long-distance runner in New York City. His father committed suicide after being investigated during the anti-Communist hearings of the 1950s, and Babe remains haunted by questions about his family’s past. Babe’s older brother, Henry “Doc” Levy (Roy Scheider), appears to work in the oil business but is actually a covert government operative. Doc becomes involved in a dangerous international intrigue connected to a notorious former Nazi war criminal, Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), an Auschwitz dentist known as “the White Angel.” Szell has been living in hiding in South America since the war. When a series of events threatens his access to a cache of diamonds stolen from Holocaust victims, he travels to the United States. At the same time, Doc is murdered, leaving Babe unknowingly entangled in the conspiracy. Believing Babe may know the location of the diamonds, Szell’s associates kidnap him. Babe is subjected to one of cinema’s most famous torture scenes, in which Szell repeatedly asks, “Is it safe?”, while drilling into his teeth without anesthesia. Babe has no idea what Szell is referring to, making the interrogation both terrifying and futile.
As the plot unfolds, Babe discovers that people he trusted may not be who they seem. He must uncover the truth about his brother’s activities, survive repeated assassination attempts, and confront Szell directly. The story culminates in a tense showdown in which Babe turns the tables on the former Nazi and forces a reckoning with the crimes of the Holocaust. Marathon Man links the thriller genre to Holocaust memory, portraying a Jewish protagonist who confronts a Nazi criminal decades after World War II. It helped establish the Nazi-hunter/postwar-war-criminal thriller as a major subgenre of popular fiction and cinema. [ChatGPT]
Madame Rosa (1977) – based on Romain Gary’s La Vie Devant Soi. Directed by Moshé Mizrahi and starring Simone Signoret and Michal Bat-Adam. Set in the working-class Belleville district of Paris, the film tells the story of Madame Rosa, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor and former prostitute who earns a living by caring for the children of prostitutes. Her closest relationship is with Momo, an orphaned Algerian Muslim boy whom she has raised from infancy. As Madame Rosa’s physical and mental health deteriorate, Momo struggles to fulfill her wish to avoid dying in a hospital. Against the backdrop of a multicultural neighborhood of Jews, Arabs, Black Africans, and immigrants, the film explores compassion, memory, prejudice, aging, and the enduring effects of the Holocaust.
Madame Rosa is an Auschwitz survivor, and memories of the Holocaust profoundly shape her character. Her Jewish identity is explicit and central to the narrative rather than incidental. The relationship between the Jewish Madame Rosa and the Muslim Momo serves as a humanistic bridge across ethnic and religious divisions. Although there is no detective or espionage plot, the film portrays the lives of social outsiders—including former prostitutes, immigrants, and marginalized communities—and reflects on the long shadow of Nazi persecution. The film won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Foreign Language Film in 1977. [ ChatGPT]
A second adaptation, also titled The Life Ahead (La vita davanti a sé), was released in 2020, starring 86-year old Sophia Loren as Madame Rosa, and directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti. The story was relocated the story from Paris to contemporary Bari, Italy. The film was received as a lesser achievement than the first adaptation in 1977, though Loren’s performance was highly praised. See also the entry on Romain Gary in the companion International bibliography. [See related book]
The Boys from Brazil (1978) – adapted from the novel by Ira Levin. set in the mid-1970s, and starring Gregory Peck and Sir Lawrence Olivier, it follows Yakov Liebermann, an aging Nazi hunter modeled loosely on Simon Wiesenthal. He receives a disturbing report from a young investigator in Brazil who has secretly recorded a meeting led by the infamous Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. The investigator learns that former SS officers have been ordered to murder 94 seemingly ordinary civil servants living in Europe and North America. As Liebermann investigates, he discovers a bizarre pattern: each victim has an adopted teenage son, and the circumstances of the murders are carefully designed to replicate a key event from the childhood of Adolf Hitler. The shocking truth is that Mengele has used advanced genetic techniques to create numerous clones of Hitler and has placed them with carefully selected families whose environments resemble Hitler’s own upbringing. The murders are intended to reproduce the death of Hitler’s father at the same stage in the boys’ lives, in the hope that one or more clones will develop into a new Führer. The novel builds toward a confrontation between Liebermann and Mengele in the United States. Although Mengele’s scheme is largely thwarted, many of the cloned boys remain unidentified. In the novel’s unsettling conclusion, Liebermann destroys the list of their names, refusing to condemn innocent children for the crimes or ambitions of their creator. Yet the ending hints that heredity and environment may still combine to produce dangerous outcomes. The film sheds light on the overlap between Holocaust literature, political thrillers, and crime fiction. [ChatGPT]
Daniel (1983): This is the most famous cinematic adaptation related to the Rosenberg case. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film is based on E.L. Doctorow’s historical fiction novel, The Book of Daniel. It follows the children of “Paul and Rochelle Isaacson” (thinly veiled stand-ins for the Rosenbergs) as they try to come to terms with their parents’ execution amidst the radical politics of the 1960s. [See related book]
Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983, ITV) – 12-part British television miniseries starring Sam Neill, Leo McKern and Jeananne Crowley, chronicling his deep-cover infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917, his attempt to help overthrow Lenin and the Bolshevik regime, and his dramatic espionage exploits across Europe during the early 20th century.
Once Upon a Time in America [1984] - Directed by Sergio Leone, this epic follows a group of Jewish youths in New York’s Lower East Side who rise to power as bootleggers during Prohibition. It is widely considered a masterpiece of the genre, exploring deep themes of lifelong friendship and betrayal. In 1968, the elderly David “Noodles” Aaronson (Robert De Niro) returns to New York, where he had a career in the criminal underground in the ’20s and ’30s. Most of his old friends, like longtime partner Max (James Woods), are long gone, yet he feels his past is unresolved. Told in flashbacks, the film follows Noodles from a tough kid in a Jewish slum in New York’s Lower East Side, through his rise to bootlegger and then Mafia boss -- a journey marked by violence, betrayal and remorse. [See related book]
Beyond the Walls ]Me’Ahorei HaSoragim – Hebrew: מאחורי הסורגים] (1984) - Directed by Uri Barbash and written by his brother Benny Barbash and Eran Preis. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Plot: In Israel’s Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri’s daughter and Issan’s wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.
Wall Street (1987): Directed by Oliver Stone, this classic feature film is the definitive cinematic response to the Boesky and Milken affairs. The iconic villain Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) is a direct composite character heavily modeled after Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken (as well as corporate raider Carl Icahn). Gekko’s famous “Greed is good” speech was lifted directly from a real-life commencement address given by Ivan Boesky at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986, where he stated that “greed is healthy”. Gekko’s focus on merger arbitrage mirrored Boesky’s real illicit network. The film also heavily incorporates the high-yield “junk bond” financing structures pioneered by Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert to fund hostile corporate takeovers.
L’Union Sacrée (1989) -This is a foundational “modern” French crime thriller. It features a Jewish police inspector (Simon Atlan, played by Patrick Bruel) and a Muslim military intelligence agent who must overcome their mutual prejudices to stop a terrorist network.
Miller’s Crossing (1990) - an American neo-noir gangster film written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito, J. E. Freeman, and Albert Finney. A double-dealing bookie named Bernie Bernbaum (Turturro) and his sister, Verna, are pivotal characters in the 1929 power struggle between two rival criminal gangs.
Bugsy (1991) – Explores the life of Bugsy Siegel and his pivotal role in developing the Las Vegas strip. Directed by Barry Levinson, with Warren Beatty (Bugsy), Ben Kingsley (Meyer Lansky) Harvey Keitel (Mickey Cohen), and Annette Bening (Virginia Hill). [See related book]
Homicide (1991) - Written and directed by David Mamet, this film follows Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna), a Jewish homicide detective who feels disconnected from his heritage. This neo-noir police thriller serves as Mamet’s most direct exploration of Jewish identity intersecting with crime. Bobby Gold is tracking a violent, cop-killing Black gangster. He is reluctantly pulled off the high-profile case to investigate the seemingly minor murder of an elderly Jewish shopkeeper in a ghetto. Gold stumbles into clues indicating a massive, underground neo-Nazi conspiracy and an armed Zionist counter-resistance group operating in the shadows. In classic Mamet thriller fashion, the “Zionist conspiracy” and the “anti-Semitic plot” are exposed as a complete narrative trap. The shopkeeper’s murder was actually a random, apolitical crime of greed. Gold’s desperation to find a grand, tribal meaning blinds his detective instincts, ultimately destroying his career and his partner. [Google/AI] See additional comments on Homicide in the entry for David Mamet in the companion bibliography on U.S. Jewish crime fiction.
Billy Bathgate (1991) – Based on the 1989 novel by E.L. Doctorow (see entry for his name in companion Bibliography on American Jewish crime fiction). Set in 1935 New York, Billy Behan (Loren Dean) is a poor Irish-American teenager from the Bronx. He catches the eye of infamous mob boss Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman) with his street smarts and juggling skills. Billy changes his name to Billy Bathgate and joins the gang as a gofer. He quickly climbs the ranks to become Schultz’s protégé, entering a world of immense wealth and brutal violence.
Billy witnesses Schultz murder his former lieutenant, Bo Weinberg (Bruce Willis), by putting him in cement shoes. He is then tasked with protecting Bo’s upper-class mistress, Drew Preston (Nicole Kidman). Billy falls in love with Drew and secretly helps her escape Schultz’s lethal grasp. As the government—led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey—closes in on Schultz’s crumbling empire, rival Italian mobsters ambush and assassinate Schultz. Billy barely survives, inheriting the location of Schultz’s hidden fortune to start a new, legitimate life.
The film operates as a major window into Jewish-American organized crime during the 1920s and 1930s, a period when Jewish mobs rivaled and collaborated with the Italian Mafia. Billy’s birth name is Billy Behan. In the original text and film subtext, he takes the name “Bathgate” (after a Bronx street) to distance himself from his Irish roots and better blend into a Jewish-dominated criminal enterprise. Born Arthur Flegenheimer, Dutch Schultz was one of the era’s most notorious Jewish mobsters. The character showcases the intense paranoia, volatility, and ruthless ambition often explored in stories about first-generation immigrant crime lords. (Note: In a historical twist, the real Schultz actually converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, which is briefly weaponized as a cynical public relations stunt during his tax trial in the film).
Otto “Abbadabba” Berman” (played by Steven Hill): He is the mathematical wizard and accountant behind Schultz’s numbers racket. He serves as the intellectual anchor of the mob. Berman represents the stereotype of the calculating, highly organized Jewish “brains” behind the muscle of early 20th-century street gangs.
The “Kosher Nostra” Dynamic: The movie highlights the organizational structure of Jewish-American syndicates working in New York. It features other legendary Jewish mob figures (like Bo Weinberg) and details their complex, often fatal friction with Italian syndicates led by figures like Lucky Luciano. – Google/AI] [See related book]
Don’t Call Me Bugsy (1992) – a 70-minute true-crime documentary that chronicles the life of Bugsy Siegel. The title stems from Siegel's intense hatred of his nickname "Bugsy," which was given to him due to his notoriously wild and erratic temper. Features a blend of authentic archival newsreel footage, historic still photographs, and graphic crime scene images. The film covers his youth shaking down vendors in Brooklyn, his bootlegging operations during Prohibition, and his alliance with Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano to modernise organized crime. It also notes his role as a lethal enforcer for the infamous hit squad "Murder, Inc."; his migration to the West Coast, where he used his friendship with movie star George Raft to mingle with A-list actors, producers, and starlets; and his vision to transform a quiet Nevada "cowtown" into a gambling mecca by borrowing millions from the syndicate to construct the Flamingo Hotel—the first true luxury resort on the Las Vegas Strip. The documentary gathers testimony from a unique mix of authors, entertainment figures, law enforcement, and personal associates, including Max Allan Collins, an author included in our companion bibliography on American Jewish crime, fiction, above. - ChatGPT]
A Stranger Among Us (1992) – an American crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Melanie Griffith. It tells the story of an undercover police officer’s experiences in a Hasidic community, as she investigates the murder of a Hasidic diamond dealer.
Shining Through (1992) - an American World War II drama film written and directed by David Seltzer and based on the 1988 novel by Susan Isaacs. It stars Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson and John Gielgud. Exploits of an American woman of German-Jewish parentage who goes undercover in Berlin in search of the Nazi V-1 missile plans. [See related book]
Legacy of Lies (1992) – an American made-for-television crime drama that exemplifies author and executive producer David Black’s penchant for weaving generational Jewish identity with the grit of procedural crime fiction. {See also the listing for him on the companion U.S. fiction bibliography.] Produced for and broadcast on the USA Network; not easily accessible today. The cast included Martin Landau, Eli Wallach and Michael Ontkean. The film is a neo-noir crime thriller deeply rooted in family legacy, generational divides, and Jewish cultural ties within Chicago. Zach Resnick is an honest, dedicated homicide detective for the Chicago Police Department. The plot kicks off when Zach is assigned to investigate the murder of a man gunned down outside a restaurant. The investigation quickly reveals that the victim was actually a prominent, heavily corrupt politician. As Zach digs deeper into the systemic bribery and violence sustaining the city’s underbelly, the case hits painfully close to home. He uncovers a web of corruption implicating his own family across three generations: His father, Abraham Resnick, is a veteran, respected Chicago police officer who Zach discovers is actually a “dirty” cop embedded in the criminal conspiracy. His grandfather, Moses, is a retired, old-school Jewish racketeer and gangster who has spent years trying to distance himself from his criminal past. Zach is thrown into a massive moral dilemma. He is forced to choose between his sworn duty to uphold the law and his loyalty to a flawed family legacy built on a complex history of street crime, institutional corruption, and survival. [Google/AI]
Little Odessa (1994) follows a professional hitman who returns home to his estranged family. Directed and written by James Gray, and starring Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Moira Kelly, Maximilian Schell and Vanessa Redgrave.[2] The title is a reference to Brighton Beach, a Russian immigrant Jewish community in Brooklyn nicknamed “Little Odessa”.
Casino (1995) - Features Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a Jewish gambling expert managing a casino for the Italian Mafia. The character is based on real-life figure Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Ace comes from the world of Jewish bookmakers and gambling operators who worked alongside Italian-American organized crime figures. His expertise as a handicapper and bookmaker is portrayed as the reason the Midwestern Mafia trusts him to run casinos in Las Vegas.
La Haine (1995) – “Hate” - Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. This gritty, black-and-white film centers on a diverse trio of friends from a disenfranchised Parisian housing project. The volatile, aggressive protagonist of the group is Vinz (played by Vincent Cassel), an explosive working-class Jewish youth who finds a misplaced police revolver and vows to shoot a cop if their hospitalized friend dies. The film highlights how class alienation and urban decay cross cultural lines, showing a distinctly raw, non-traditional side of French-Jewish identity.
Liberty Heights (1999) - In Barry Levinson’s semi-autobiographical film, set in 1954 Baltimore, the intersection of Jews and crime is presented not through violent gangster tropes, but through a lens of mid-century community integration, survival, and family provider dynamics. The non-violent patriarch, Nate Kurtzman, is an observant Jew, a loving father, and a well-regarded pillar of his local community. However, his fading burlesque house serves as a front for his actual primary income: running a local illegal numbers game. His criminal enterprise is a localized, gentler version of a crime family, unlike The Godfather or The Sopranos. Crime is treated merely as a trade to guarantee financial stability for his upper-middle-class household.
The narrative’s main criminal conflict arises when Little Melvin (Orlando Jones), a Black drug dealer, unexpectedly hits a massive 50-to-1 payout bonus on Nate’s numbers game. Unable to pay out the $100,000 cash prize immediately, Nate is forced to form an uneasy business alliance with Melvin, setting off a chain reaction of cross-cultural tensions. When Melvin retaliates against Nate’s financial stalling, he kidnaps Nate’s son Ben and his friends. Instead of escalating into an expected Hollywood shootout or bloody mob war, the conflict is resolved peacefully, reinforcing the film’s theme that these are fundamentally regular people caught in difficult circumstances.
The law eventually catches up with Nate’s operation. He and his crew are arrested and booked for tax evasion, prostitution, and racketeering. True to his characterization as a family man first, Nate goes to prison with a calm, dignified acceptance of his fate after getting permission to attend his son’s high school graduation. Ultimately, Liberty Heights offers a nostalgic, bittersweet perspective. It reframes mid-century Jewish minor-league crime not as a threat to societal morals, but as an integrated facet of immigrant and second-generation survival as the insular neighborhood boundaries of Baltimore began to dissolve. [Wikipedia]
Lansky (1999) - HBO movie written by David Mamet and starring Richard Dreyfuss. It chronicles Lansky’s life from his childhood as a Jewish immigrant through his years as the brain behind the National Crime Syndicate. It emphasizes his intellectual approach to crime and his later attempts to find safe harbor in Israel to avoid U.S. prosecution. [See related book]
Summer of Sam (1999): Directed by Spike Lee, this is the most famous feature film centering on the 1977 terror in New York City. While the movie focuses heavily on an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, Berkowitz (played by Michael Badalucco) appears as a looming, symbolic entity. The film highlights his name and his acute isolation as an outsider, but it focuses more on his psychological delusions and the community’s paranoia than an explicit exploration of his heritage.
The Investigation Must Go On (Hebrew: הבולשת חוקרת, translit. Haboleshet Hokeret) is a 2000 Israeli drama film directed by Marek Rozenbaum, which was nominated for 8 Israeli Film Academy Awards. Plot: Police investigator Micha Stein receives a tip that a singer, Shalom Shalom, is responsible for a recent robbery. Stein, who is excessively ambitious, arrests Shalom. A cat-and-mouse situation follows, with two equally stubborn men playing off the contradictions of the characters. A wedding photographer with a crush on Shalom, Shalom’s unconventional relationship with his wife, his line of work, his sliding moral compass - all work against the inflexible Stein, who becomes captivated by Shalom’s wife. [Wikipedia]
Snatch (2000) - This iconic British crime comedy is heavily driven by Jewish characters and motifs centered around London’s Hatton Garden diamond district. The film kicks off with a heist where thieves disguise themselves as Orthodox Hasidic Jews to steal an 84-carat diamond. The plot features Cousin Avi (played by Dennis Farina), a New York Jewish mob boss who flies to London to secure the stone, and Doug “The Head” (Mike Reid), a local gold-and-diamond fence who isn’t actually Jewish but aggressively pretends to be because he believes it is “good for business”.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) – film adaptation of the Hubert Selby novel (see synopsis in the US Fiction Bibliography) by Director Darren Aronofsky. The Jewish characteristics of the three Jewish protagonists are significantly downplayed in order to make them more universally American and to focus greater attention on their disastrous addictions. Starring are Ellen Burstyn (Sara Goldfarb), Jared Leto (Harry Goldfarb), Jennifer Connelly (Marion Silver, her surname changed from “Kleinmitz” in the book) and Marlon Wayans (Tyrone C. Love). [See related book]
The Yards (2000) – A Jewish family network entangled in bribery, contract-rigging, sabotage, and cover-ups. Frank Olchin (James Caan) is a morally compromised Jewish businessman who controls a corrupt transportation-contract empire. The film’s criminality is largely white-collar and political rather than ethnic-mob related. Also starring Mark Wahlberg, Ellen Burstyn and Faye Dunaway.
The film was written and directed by James Gray, who comes from a Jewish family in Queens. Much of his early work—including Little Odessa {1994), The Yards, and We Own the Night (2007) [see comments on these other two films in this Filmography]—draws on Jewish and immigrant New York family networks, The corruption plot of The Yards was reportedly inspired in part by scandals connected to Gray’s father’s business world. These works shift attention away from the Jewish gangster of the early twentieth century and toward Jewish businessmen, contractors, politicians, and families operating in morally ambiguous urban environments. Frank Olchin’s business empire depends not on ethnic gangs but on access to politicians, regulators, and government contracts. The film thus reflects the sociological shift from street-level and underworld crime toward economic and institutional forms of illegality. In this sense, The Yards belongs to a tradition of Jewish-American fiction in which crime serves as a lens for examining ethical failure within successful Jewish communities. Upward Jewish mobility may have transcended an older generation of mobsters and violent criminals, but Jewish criminality has hardly disappeared, it has just “upgraded” and altered its format. In that sense, The Yards is one of the clearest cinematic examples of the evolution of Jewish crime narratives from the underworld of the immigrant era to the white-collar and political corruption of contemporary America. [ChatGPT]
Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story (2004): This deeply personal HBO documentary was directed by Ivy Meeropol, the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The film focuses on the human element, featuring interviews with the Rosenbergs’ surviving sons (Michael and Robert) and tracking the multigenerational trauma left behind by the execution.
Munich (2005) – an epic historical drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, co-written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. It is based on the 1984 book Vengeance by George Jonas, an account of Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. The film chronicles the pursuit and execution of most of the Palestinian terrorists behind the massacre by a covert Mossad squad, at major psychological and moral costs to its members.
The Lost City (2005) - Dustin Hoffman portrays Lansky in a fictionalized account of his gambling interests in pre-revolutionary Cuba.
Lucky Number Slevin (2006) - a black comedy neo-noir crime thriller film about a man named Slevin (Josh Hartnett) who, due to mistaken identity, becomes entangled in a war between two rival New York crime bosses, “The Boss” (Morgan Freeman) and “The Rabbi” (Ben Kingsley). Directed by Paul McGuigan, the film features a star-studded cast including Bruce Willis as a hitman and Lucy Liu as Slevin’s neighbor, and is known for its intricate plot, witty dialogue, and a major twist revealing Slevin’s true motive for revenge. Directed by Paul McGuigan and written by Jason Smilovic.
Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006) - Directed by Paul Verhoeven, this intense, fictionalized thriller is heavily inspired by real events in the Dutch Resistance. It follows Rachel Stein, a young Jewish singer who dyes her hair blonde and takes on a false identity to infiltrate the German Gestapo headquarters in the Netherlands to help the underground movement.
Tell No One (French title: Ne le dis à personne, 2006) - a French thriller directed by Guillaume Canet, adapted from the novel by Harlan Coben. The narrative deals with a pediatrician whose wife was murdered 8 years ago, the facts of which are called into doubt by the sudden reappearance of video evidence that she is in fact still living. Police begin to suspect foul play by the pediatrician, who goes on the run while trying to prove his innocence. Police investigator Eric Levkowitch slowly and methodically works through the case and gradually realizes that the facts do not point to the pediatrician’s guilt. His clearly Jewish name does not correspond to any specific expressions of his Jewish identity. This is actually fairly typical of French thrillers, in which Jewish-coded surnames often appear, but identity is treated as assimilated/background rather than thematic. There is no overt exploration of his presumed Jewishness. Levkowitch’s likely Jewish background is mostly part of the texture of cosmopolitan Parisian elite/professional society rather than a distinct feature of the police procedural narrative.
In adapting Coben’s novel from a New Jersey to a Parisian setting, the screenwriters (including the Director, Canet) changed the main police protagonist from a Chinese-American (Eric Wu) to an Ashkenazi-background French Jew. This was not to spotlight his Jewishness because, unlike American genre fiction, French thrillers usually do not foreground ethnicity explicitly unless it is central to the plot. ChatGPT rather attributes this to French Jewishness functioning, on the stereotypic level, as a marker of urban cosmopolitanism, intellectual or professional class, Parisian establishment background, or Eastern-European immigrant ancestry. [ChatGPT]
The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) (2007) - An Oscar-winning drama based on Operation Bernhard, a secret Nazi espionage plot to destabilize the Allied economy using counterfeit currency. The film centers on Salomon Sorowitsch, a brilliant Jewish master forger imprisoned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, forced to run the operation while covertly trying to sabotage the German war effort.
American Gangster (2007) - Russell Crowe plays real-life detective Richie Roberts, a Jewish lawman known for his uncompromising honesty, who works to take down drug kingpin Frank Lucas.
The Champagne Spy (2007) – Directed by Nadav Schirman, this feature-length documentary explores the extraordinary dual life of Ze’ev Gur-Arie, who operated under his real birth name, Wolfgang Lotz. See his autobiography in the Israeli non-fiction companion bibliography. Rather than a standard espionage thriller, the film focuses heavily on Oded Gur-Arie, Lotz’s son. Oded was 12 years old when his father swore him to absolute secrecy before vanishing into Egypt. The documentary covers the psychological toll, estrangement, and profound family heartbreak hidden behind the glamour of espionage. The film incorporates rare 8mm home movies shot by Oded during secret family visits to Paris, original footage from Lotz’s 1965 public show trial in Cairo, and unprecedented on-camera interviews with veteran Mossad handlers. [Google/AI] [See related book]
We Own the Night (2007) – a crime drama centered on a clash between a family of NYPD officers and the Russian mafia in late-1980s Brooklyn. In 1988, Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the successful manager of the El Caribe nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The club is owned by a Russian immigrant, Marat Buzhayev, whose nephew Vadim is a ruthless drug lord using the club to traffic heroin. To protect his career and lifestyle, Bobby uses his mother’s maiden name to hide a massive secret: his father Burt (Robert Duvall) is an NYPD Deputy Chief and his brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) is a rising star on the police force. When Joseph leads a high-profile narcotics raid on the club, Bobby’s two worlds violently collide. The Russian mob retaliates by shooting Joseph and later assassinating Burt. Devastated and forced to choose a side, Bobby abandons his neutral stance, joins forces with his brother, goes undercover with a wire, and eventually joins the police department to take down the syndicate from within.
The entire film takes place in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, a neighborhood famous for its massive population of Soviet and Russian-Jewish immigrants who arrived in the late 20th century. The “Russian Mafia” portrayed in the film is specifically representative of the Russian-Jewish mob that operated out of Brighton Beach during that era. The club owner, Marat Buzhayev, is played by the prominent Israeli-Jewish actor Moni Moshonov. Characters in the syndicate speak Russian and exhibit the distinct cultural mannerisms of Soviet-era Jewish immigrants. Writer-director James Gray is Jewish and the grandson of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Critics and film scholars frequently note that Gray’s crime films - including Little Odessa [1994] and The Yards, listed in this Filmography - use the genre to explore deep Jewish immigrant experiences, generational alienation, and themes of destiny heavily influenced by Old Testament narratives.
Ajami (Arabic: عجمي, romanized: ʿAjamiyy; Hebrew: עג’מי) is a 2009 Palestinian Israeli Arab drama film directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani. Its plot is set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Holy Rollers (2010) - an American independent crime drama film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Bartha, directed by Kevin Asch. Inspired by actual events from the late 1990s, the film follows a young Hasidic man from Brooklyn who is lured into the dangerous world of international drug smuggling.
The Debt (2010) - an espionage thriller film directed by John Madden. It stars Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, and Sam Worthington. The movie focuses on three Mossad secret agents who lied about successfully completing a 1965 mission to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal, only for their dark secrets to catch up with them 30 years later. It is a British-American remake of the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov.
Barney’s Version (2010) – a Canadian comedy-drama film directed by Richard J. Lewis and adapted from Mordecai Richler’s 1997 novel. The film offers a messy, sprawling portrait of Barney Panofsky, played by Paul Giamatti in a role that earned him a Golden Globe. Spanning four decades and two continents, the story details his career as a cynical television producer, a lifelong murder mystery involving his best friend, and his relationships with three distinct wives. The film functions as a candid, bittersweet confessional narrated by Barney as he begins to suffer the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The primary timeline shifts between his past memories and his present-day attempts to look back on his tumultuous adult life. Barney’s best friend, Boogie (Scott Speedman), mysteriously disappears after an argument at a lake house, leaving Barney as the prime suspect in a murder investigation that haunts him for decades. Dustin Hoffman plays Izzy Panofsky, Barney’s fiercely loyal, foul-mouthed, and deeply loving father. A retired Montreal police detective, Izzy serves as the emotional anchor of the film and Barney’s closest confidant. Izzy accepts Barney unconditionally, providing a warm, grounded contrast to Barney’s cynical and chaotic lifestyle.He is unapologetically vulgar, hyper-sexual in his humor, and frequently tells inappropriate, colorful stories from his days on the police force. Despite his rough exterior, Izzy holds a strict moral code and offers Barney genuine, unfiltered wisdom about love and family.
Boardwalk Empire (HBO, 2010–2014) - Probably the finest screen portrayal of Arnold Rothstein, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. He appears throughout the first four seasons as the calculating financial genius behind much of organized crime during Prohibition. The series depicts his relationships with Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, and Enoch “Nucky” Johnson (fictionalized as Nucky Thompson). It also explores his reputation as a gambler, strategist, and mentor to younger gangsters.
Drive (2011) - Features Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose, a ruthless and pragmatic Jewish gangster in Los Angeles who serves as the film’s protagonist.
Policeman (Ha-shoter - השוטר [ (2011): Directed by Nadav Lapid, this modern drama explores the life of an elite anti-terrorist unit officer whose worldview is challenged by an encounter with a group of young anarchist revolutionaries.
The Gatekeepers (2012) – (Hebrew: שומרי הסף, Shomrei HaSaf) is a 2012 internationally co-produced documentary film by director Dror Moreh that tells the story of the Israeli internal security service, Shin Bet (known in Hebrew as ‘Shabak’), from the perspective of six of its former heads. The film combines in-depth interviews, archival footage, and computer animation to recount the role that the group played in Israel’s security from the Six-Day War to the present. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
The problem with making the film, according to Moreh, was getting the “Gatekeepers”, or former heads of the Shin Bet, to agree to appear on camera and discuss their work and opinions. Given the secretive nature of the organization, none of them had ever done this before, and many of the topics he hoped to discuss with them were either classified or highly sensitive.
Despite this initial difficulty, Moreh contacted one of the “Gatekeepers”, Ami Ayalon, who had since been elected to the Knesset for the Labor Party and was serving as a Minister without Portfolio in the Security Cabinet. Much to his surprise, Ayalon not only agreed to participate, he also helped Moreh contact the other surviving former heads of the Shin Bet: Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon, and Avi Dichter. The sixth participant in the film, Yuval Diskin, was still serving as head of the Shin Bet at the time.
Though all of them agreed to participate, some were reluctant initially to discuss various incidents associated with their careers. Shalom, for instance, did not want to discuss his role in the hijacking of the 300 bus and summary execution of two of the terrorists, though the ensuing scandal ultimately led to his resignation. Over time, however, and with careful prodding, he agreed to discuss even that, and it now features as one of the film’s seven segments. The Gatekeepers “gave me an unprecedented, intimate opportunity to enter the inner sanctum of the people who have steered Israel’s decision-making process for almost half a century,” Moreh has said.
Moreh told The Economist that after interviewing the Shin Bet heads, he decided that Netanyahu “poses a great threat to the existence of the state of Israel.” He said that he seeks “to change the point of view of young Israelis. To tell them a story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has not been told before.”
He told The Times of Israel that making the film “changed me a lot [...]. It made me more desperate, more bleak. I saw from their eyes how our leaders really don’t want to solve this problem. They do not have the audacity, the temerity, the will, the courage that we need from a leader.” He added, “I am not putting the blame only on the Israeli leaders. I think the Palestinian leaders suffer from the same horrible disease. I think that what [former Israeli foreign minister] Abba Eban said about how the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity applies to both sides. The film achieved generally high marks from foreign critics. Not surprisingly, it aroused considerable controversy among Israeli commentators, both for and against. [Wikipedia]
Jews and Money: Investigation of a Myth (2013) – Canadian documentary film directed and written by Lewis Cohen. The 90-minute film explores the origins, history, and real-world consequences of the anti-Semitic stereotype that links Jewish people with immense wealth and greed. It focuses on the tragic 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi in Paris. Halimi, a 23-year-old Jewish cell phone salesman from a modest working-class background, who was targeted by a criminal gang called “The Barbarians.” The gang held him for a 500,000 Euro ransom under the false assumption that because he was Jewish, his family must be wealthy. The case exposed severe undercurrents of modern anti-Semitism and tension within France. Includes interviews with Ruth Halimi, the mother of the victim; Abraham Foxman, former National Director of the Anti-Defamation League; Jacques Le Goff, a renowned French historian; Francis Szpiner, a prominent French lawyer involved in the Halimi trial; and Jerry Z. Muller, author of Capitalism and the Jews.
Big Bad Wolves (2013) (Hebrew: מי מפחד מהזאב הרע? - Mi Mefakhed MeHaZeev HaRa – “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”) an Israeli black-comedy thriller/horror film directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado. It combines crime, revenge, dark humor, and moral ambiguity. A series of brutal child murders has shocked Israel. The prime suspect is Dror, a quiet religious-studies teacher who has been arrested but released because the police lack sufficient evidence. A hot-headed detective, Micki, is convinced that Dror is guilty and is suspended after using illegal violence during the investigation. At the same time, Gidi, the grieving father of one of the murdered girls, becomes obsessed with obtaining a confession. Convinced that the legal system has failed, he kidnaps Dror. Circumstances soon bring Micki into the plot as well, and the three men find themselves trapped together in an isolated house. Most of the film unfolds as Gidi and Micki torture and interrogate Dror, trying to force him to reveal the location of the victim’s missing head and to confess to the murders. As the ordeal continues, the audience is repeatedly led to question whether Dror is actually guilty or whether the two avengers have become monsters themselves. The film mixes shocking violence with absurdly comic situations, creating an unsettling blend of horror, suspense, and black humor. In an ambiguous conclusion, it is implied that Dror really was guilty, but that Micki and Gidi’s vigilantism may have backfired terribly and undermined the chance of saving the last victim. The ending is deliberately unsettling: the “monster” is real, but the men hunting him have themselves become wolves. [ChatGPT]
Gangster Squad (2013) - chronicles a secret team of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers trying to dismantle the powerful criminal empire of real-life mob boss Mickey Cohen (played by Sean Penn) in 1949. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, the movie is loosely based on a non-fiction book by Paul Lieberman. Set in 1949 Los Angeles, the narrative centers on Brooklyn-born mobster Mickey Cohen, who holds the entire city in a tight grip. He profits massively from drugs, guns, prostitution, and illegal gambling operations west of Chicago. Because Cohen has paid off corrupt judges, politicians, and police officers, he operates with near total immunity. In response, LAPD Police Chief William Parker forms an underground, off-the-books unit tasked not with arresting Cohen, but with waging guerrilla warfare to violently destroy his operations.
Peaky Blinders (2013–2022) – Extraordinary British television crime series following the Shelby crime family’s violent ascent from Birmingham bookmakers to powerful political figures, prominently featuring Jewish elements through the iconic character Alfie Solomons. The narrative spans six seasons and concludes its storyline in the 2026 feature-length film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. Led by World War I veteran, Thomas “Tommy” Shelby, the Birmingham Peaky Blinders gang start as an illegal betting business and expand their empire to London, through conflicts with rival Italian and Jewish syndicates. Tommy enters Parliament as a Labour MP, operating to undermine the rising British fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. In the 2026 film conclusion (“The Immortal Man”), set years later, Tommy and the surviving Blinders dismantle a high-stakes Nazi counterfeiting plot trying to destabilize the British economy.
The Jewish component of the series is Alfie Solomons (portrayed by Tom Hardy), the leader of a powerful Jewish crime syndicate based in Camden Town. Alfie is an eccentric, highly intelligent, and unpredictable operator who balances absolute brutality with sharp theological and philosophical humor. He dresses in a distinct, semi-religious aesthetic resembling Hasidic attire. Despite his cutthroat nature, Alfie is fiercely protective of his community. He enforces strict rules regarding the protection of Jewish women, donates heavily to Jewish charities, and explicitly references his mother’s history as a refugee fleeing Tsarist persecution in Russia.
The series parallels the experiences of the Jewish community with those of the Shelby family, who are of Romani descent. Both factions operate as societal outsiders in post-war Britain, fighting systemic prejudice. This mutual baseline of cultural displacement creates a fragile, transactional, yet uniquely enduring alliance between Shelby and Solomons through years of mutual betrayals. In the later seasons, the Jewish narrative shifts from street-level racketeering to political survival as the timeline approaches World War II. Alfie willingly finances and facilitates Tommy’s undercover plot to assassinate Oswald Mosley, driven purely by the existential threat posed by the British Union of Fascists’ virulent antisemitism. In Season 6, the narrative expands to include the “Solomon family” of Boston’s Eastern Jewish community, who are locked in a proxy gang war against Jack Nelson, an influential, fascist-sympathizing Irish-American broker. The 2026 film directly integrates Operation Bernhard, a historical Nazi plot that forced over 140 Jewish concentration camp prisoners to forge British banknotes. The film depicts the weaponization of these fake pounds by fascist sympathizers in England, grounding the climax of the franchise heavily in the grim realities of Holocaust history. [Wikipedia]
Sidney Korshak, Hollywood’s Fabled Fixer (2014) - originally titled “Sidney Korshak, la face cachée d’Hollywood”, was written, directed, and produced by the acclaimed filmmaking sister duo, Clara and Julia Kuperberg. The project was produced by the French production house Wichita Films and was a 52-minute television documentary Although it was a French-commissioned production, it was filmed entirely in English on-location in Los Angeles, California. The film functions as an investigative dive into how the Chicago Outfit successfully infiltrated the movie business. It heavily centers on how Sidney Korshak used his background as a labor lawyer to weaponize Hollywood’s unions. By controlling the unions, Korshak could instantly freeze or greenlight movie sets, making himself indispensable to legendary studio heads (like Lew Wasserman) while keeping massive profits flowing back to mob bosses in Chicago.
24 Days (French: 24 jours, la vérité sur l’affaire Ilan Halimi — lit. 24 Days: The True Story of the Ilan Halimi Affair- 2014) is a French drama film directed by Alexandre Arcady released in 2014. It examines The Affair of the Gang of Barbarians of January 2006. [Wikipedia]
A Grain of Truth (2015) – a Polish crime thriller film directed by Borys Lankosz. It is a direct cinematic adaptation of the bestselling detective novel of the same name written by Zygmunt Miłoszewski. [See the entry for this book in the companion bibliography on International Jewish Detectives, Spies, Criminals, etc.] The film stars prominent Polish actor Robert Więckiewicz as the brilliant but cynical state prosecutor Teodor Szacki, who leaves Warsaw following a messy divorce and a ruined career to start fresh in the picturesque, provincial town of Sandomierz. His quiet new life is quickly upended when a local woman is found brutally murdered outside a former synagogue. The killer uses a specialized knife meant for kosher slaughter, draining the victim’s body of blood. As the bodies pile up, the bizarre clues appear to mimic ancient, anti-Semitic legends of blood libel—historical myths claiming Jews used Christian blood for religious rituals. Szacki must navigate a wave of rising hysteria, deep-seated local prejudices, and a toxic mix of modern politics and historical ghosts to uncover the actual human culprit before the town tears itself apart. [Google/AI] [See related book]
Woman in Gold (2015) – a biographical drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Alexi Kaye Campbell. The movie stars Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, chronicling the story of an elderly Jewish refugee’s decade-long legal battle against the Austrian government to reclaim iconic family artwork stolen by the Nazis. The story follows Maria Altmann (Mirren), an octogenarian living in Los Angeles who fled Nazi-occupied Vienna during World War II. Following her sister’s death, Maria discovers documents detailing her family’s past ownership of several priceless paintings by Gustav Klimt. The crown jewel among them is the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, a breathtaking gold-leaf depiction of Maria’s beloved aunt. The painting, dubbed the “Mona Lisa of Austria,” was hanging in Vienna’s famous Belvedere Gallery, where the Austrian establishment considered it a national treasure. Backed by a young, inexperienced but determined lawyer named Randy Schoenberg (Reynolds)—the grandson of the famous Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg—Maria embarks on an audacious legal campaign. The journey forces her to confront painful memories of her escape and eventually takes them all the way to the United States Supreme Court. [Google/AI]
Beyond the Fear (2015) - a highly controversial biographical documentary directed by Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko that explores the private life, marriage, and family built by Yigal Amir, the radical right-wing extremist who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Rather than focusing strictly on the political fallout of the assassination, the 80-minute film examines the complex, real-life drama surrounding Larisa Trembovler, a Moscow-born intellectual and divorced mother of four. Moved by pity for Amir, she began visiting him, eventually marrying him in 2005 while he served a life sentence. Following a high-profile legal battle for conjugal visits, she gave birth to their son, Yinon Amir, in 2007. The documentary centers heavily around this child, exploring the moral and emotional reality of growing up as the son of Israel’s most notorious prisoner.
The documentary ignited fierce public outrage across Israel. Critics and public figures heavily condemned it for humanizing an assassin, with Yitzhak Rabin’s granddaughter publicly calling the film a “cynical use of freedom of expression with intent to harm it”. The intense backlash led to official threats of defunding and political pressure regarding its screening at local festivals [Wikipedia]
Madoff (2016) - ABC television miniseries aired as a highly publicized, two-night television event. It adapted the Shakespearean downfall of the Madoff family into a fast-paced, stylized crime drama. Adapted from The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth, written by ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross. Ross was one of the lead journalists on the ground when the scandal broke in December 2008. Directed by indie filmmaker Raymond De Felitta, the show mirrors the flashy, fast-tempo energy of The Wolf of Wall Street and stars Richard Dreyfuss as Bernie and Blythe Danner as Ruth (with Ben Dreyfuss, Richard’s son, playing the younger Bernie in flashbacks). It frequently breaks the fourth wall, featuring Dreyfuss speaking directly to the camera in voiceover to explain complex financial concepts and reveal his sociopathic inner thoughts. The four-hour broadcast is broken down into a tight, four-episode narrative arc:
“Millions to Billions”: Focuses on Madoff’s institutional rise, building his immense wealth, and cementing his elite social status.
“Catch Me If You Cancer”: Chronicles the early warning signs of the fraud and the internal health and stress crises within the firm.
“Redemptions”: Explores the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis, which triggered an avalanche of client withdrawal requests that Madoff could not fulfill.
“Fallout”: Covers the final collapse, where Madoff’s sons discover the trading firm is a front and turn him in to the FBI, leading to total family estrangement.
Charles Grodin appears as Carl Shapiro: A powerful multi-millionaire, philanthropist, and one of Madoff’s earliest, most fiercely loyal real-life investors who lost vast fortunes in the crash. [See related book]
Fauda (2016–2026) - an Israeli political thriller series that centers on an elite, undercover counter-terrorism unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) known as the Mista’arvim. The show follows Doron Kabilio, a veteran commander who repeatedly finds his personal life shattered as he is drawn back into active duty to combat high-stakes terrorist threats. The series explores the brutal reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, depicting how the cycle of violence traps and humanizes individuals on both sides of the fence. The series offers no pure heroes or good guys vs. bad guys simplistic scenarios: It portrays the moral decay, mental trauma, and ruthless tactics utilized by both sides. It gives deep emotional backplots, family dynamics, and romantic layers to characters on both sides, revealing how everyone loves their families but keeps their hands dirty. A recurring theme is that every action has an immediate, violent reaction. Operational successes for the IDF usually trigger a devastating personal loss for Doron or his teammates. [Google/AI]
The Wizard of Lies (2017) - biographical drama television film produced by HBO Films. It chronicles the rise and devastating fall of financier Bernie Madoff, the mastermind behind the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro as Bernie and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff. Primarily based on the 2011 non-fiction book The Wizard of Lies by journalist Diana B. Henriques, with additional material from Truth and Consequences by Laurie Sandell. Rather than solely focusing on the financial mechanics of Wall Street, the film serves as an intimate family tragedy. It explores the psychological toll and absolute destruction left in Madoff’s wake. The narrative highlights the intense blind trust and family dynamics between Bernie and his childhood sweetheart, Ruth, as the family is catapulted into an unrelenting global spotlight. It heavily examines the question of how much his immediate family truly knew about his multibillion-dollar fraud. [See related book]
Maktub [[מכתוב (2017) - an Israeli comedy film directed by Oded Raz and co-written by Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon, the latter two also starring in it. The plot revolves around two gangsters, Steve (Hanan Savyon) and Chuma (Guy Amir) attempt to fulfill wishes they find in notes left in crevices of the Jerusalem Western Wall. [Wikipedia]
Street Justice: The Bronx (2017) - an American Discovery Channel true-crime documentary/docudrama television series built around retired NYPD detective Ralph Friedman and his experiences policing the Bronx during the exceptionally violent 1970s and early 1980s. The series is the television companion to Friedman's memoir, Street Warrior, also published in 2017. [See the book synopsis in the Law-Enforcement section of the companion Jewish Crime non-fiction bibliography.] Friedman appears as himself, looking back on actual cases from his NYPD career. His interviews and narration are combined with dramatic reenactments and period material to reconstruct arrests, investigations, shootouts, confrontations with violent street gangs and rapists, riot control and other incidents. Actor Timothy Weinert portrays the younger Friedman in the dramatizations. [See related book]
Mindhunter - Netflix Series (2017–2019): In Season 2 of this critically acclaimed series, FBI agents interview David Berkowitz (played by Oliver Cooper). The show highlights his psychological fabrications—specifically how he made up the “dog demon” story—but also contextualizes his background and demeanor as a troubled youth from New York.
Operation Finale (2018) - an American historical drama thriller film directed by Chris Weitz about a 1960 clandestine operation by Israeli commandos to capture former SS officer Adolf Eichmann, and transport him to Jerusalem for trial on charges of crimes against humanity. The film stars Oscar Isaac (who also produced) as the Mossad officer Peter Malkin, and Ben Kingsley as Eichmann, with Lior Raz, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson. Several source materials, including Eichmann in My Hands, by Peter Malkin and Harry Stein, provided the basis for the story.
The Angel (2018) - an Israeli spy thriller film directed by Ariel Vromen and starring Marwan Kenzari and Toby Kebbell among others. It is an adaptation of the non-fiction book The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel by Uri Bar-Joseph (see listing in companion Israeli bibliography). It is a fictional account of Ashraf Marwan, a high-ranking Egyptian official who became a double agent for both countries and helped achieve peace between the two. [See related book]
The Catcher Was A Spy (2018) – directed by Ben Lewin and starring Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels and Paul Giamatti. telling the story of Moe Berg, a professional baseball catcher with the Boston Red Sox. On a goodwill baseball exhibition tour of Japan in 1936, Berg sneaks onto the roof of a Tokyo hospital to covertly film Tokyo’s harbor and Navy shipyards. The Office of Strategic Services Chief to whom he presents the film is impressed by Berg’s enterprise, as well as the extensive language skills that Berg has picked up at Princeton and elsewhere, and Berg is hired in 1943. He is subsequently smuggled into Europe on a mission to discover how far the Nazis have progressed in their work on developing the atomic bomb, and hopefully to assassinate their leading scientist.
The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst-Kept Secret (2018) - Feature-Length Documentary. Examines the immediate cultural shockwaves of the October 2017 exposes. Directed by Barry Avrich, this film uses the Weinstein scandal as a launchpad to analyze systemic sexual harassment across the entertainment industry. It highlights how the initial breakthrough regarding his behavior catalyzed a broader domino effect, exposing predatory behavior by other powerful men globally.
Citizen Harvey (2018) - Television Documentary (BBC Panorama) - A British investigative perspective on Weinstein’s operations overseas. Reporter Jane Corbin details how Weinstein utilized the UK film industry and the London legal system to silences victims using aggressive British libel laws and restrictive NDAs.
Untouchable (2019) – documentary on the rise, absolute dominance, and ultimate legal ruin of Harvey Weinstein.Directed by Ursula Macfarlane, this Hulu-backed documentary serves as the definitive macro-view of his career. It charts how he weaponized his status as an indie-cinema kingmaker to abuse women. It relies heavily on emotional, raw camera interviews with high-profile accusers (such as Rosanna Arquette and Hope d’Amore) alongside former Miramax employees who detail the psychological toll of working under his volatile regime.
The Assistant (2019) - A direct, fictionalized look at the systemic enabling environment inside a company heavily modeled after Miramax. Written and directed by Kitty Green, the film stars Julia Garner as Jane, an entry-level junior assistant to a powerful, unseen media mogul. Instead of focusing on the physical acts of abuse, the narrative meticulously tracks the soul-crushing routine of a single day—cleaning stains off the boss’s couch, organizing hotel bookings for young women, and being systematically gaslit by Human Resources when trying to report the misconduct.
Chichinette: The Accidental Spy (2019) - a French-German biographical documentary film directed by Nicola Hens that chronicles the extraordinary life of Marthe Cohn, a 98-year-old French-Jewish woman who operated as an undercover spy in Nazi Germany during World War II.
The documentary highlights how Cohn, standing barely 4.5 feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes, utilized her fluent, bilingual German upbringing to slip behind enemy lines. Enlisting in the French Secret Service after the 1944 liberation of Paris, she successfully infiltrated Nazi Germany on her 14th attempt. Posing as a German nurse looking for her missing fiancé, she gathered critical intelligence on German troop movements and uncovered a secret military encampment in the Black Forest, ultimately saving countless Allied lives.
The film’s title, “Chichinette,” stems from the affectionate French slang nickname given to her, which translates roughly to “little pain in the neck”. For over 60 years, Cohn kept her harrowing espionage past a complete secret, even from her own close family. The documentary follows her later in life as a feisty, vibrant grandmother who travels the globe to share her incredible story and promote a message of courage to younger generations. [Google/AI] See the listing of her memoir - Cohen, Marthe with Wendy Holden, Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany [2002] - in the companion bibliography on International Jewish Detectives, Spies, etc. [See related book]
Vienna Blood (2019–2024) (BBC/PBS series based on the Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis – see entry on Frank Tallis in the companion International Jewish crime bibliography) - a British-Austrian historical crime drama set in early 1900s Vienna, following a psychological doctor and a police detective as they investigate complex, disturbing murders. The show centers on the birth of modern psychiatry and neurology. It juxtaposes traditional, old-school police work with early psychoanalysis. Dr. Max Liebermann, a young British-Jewish student of Sigmund Freud, applies psychological profiles and forensic insights to catch killers. He works alongside Detective Inspector Oskar Reinhardt, a gruff, lapsed Catholic detective who initially dislikes Max’s methods but grows to respect them. The series is deeply anchored in the vibrant, high-culture world of Vienna’s grand cafés, opera houses, and elite academic circles. It highlights a clash of cultures and features a recurring sub-theme tracking the rise of anti-Semitism targeting Max’s liberal family. [See related book]
Uncut Gems (2019): A high-tension modern thriller starring Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, a Jewish diamond dealer in New York City whose gambling addiction leads him into increasingly dangerous criminal situations.
The Spy (2019) - A six-part Netflix mini-series starring Sacha Baron Cohen. It depicts the exploits of Eli Cohen, a Mossad spy. The story takes place during the years leading to the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Syria. It follows Cohen’s recruitment into Mossad after previously being rejected twice, to his infiltration of the Syrian government. He assumes the identity of Kamel Amin Thaabet and establishes himself in Syrian high society, first in Buenos Aires, then in Damascus. After having befriended people who would eventually take over Syria, Cohen is appointed as the country’s Deputy Defense Minister and becomes a close confidant to the future president, Amin al-Hafiz Assad, before his cover is blown and he is publicly executed.
The Operative (2019) - written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Yuval Adler, based on the Hebrew novel The English Teacher (המורה לאנגלית) by Yiftach Reicher-Atir, a former intelligence officer. It stars Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman and Cas Anvar. A Mossad agent operating as an English teacher in Teheran becomes romantically involved with her target, a player in the Iranian nuclear-development program. She goes rogue, leading to numerous complications when she later tries to resume her former identity. [See related book]
An Officer and a Spy (2019) – French title: J’Accuse. A historical drama focused on the infamous Dreyfus Affair in late 19th-century France. It follows the wrongful conviction and political conspiracy surrounding Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish artillery officer falsely accused of spying for the German Empire. The film was directed by Roman Polanski, with a screenplay by Polanski and Robert Harris based on Harris’s 2013 novel (first UK edition) of the same name. See the entry on Robert Harris in the companion Bibliography on international fiction on Jews and crime/espionage. The French title has its origins in the “J’Accuse...!”| open letter Émile Zola wrote in 1898 in which the author accused many people in France of continuing to support the increasingly blatantly erroneous accusations against Dreyfus. [See related book]
The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) – espionage thriller based on the real Israeli covert missions known as Operation Brothers, Operation Moses, and Operation Joshua, in which Mossad agents helped rescue Ethiopian Jews (the Beta Israel community) from refugee camps in Sudan and bring them to Israel in the early 1980s. The film stars Chris Evans, Michael K. Williams, and Ben Kingsley. It was written and directed by Gideon Raff. Set mainly in Sudan in 1980–84, the film follows Mossad agent Ari Levinson (Chris Evans), who devises an audacious cover operation: reopening an abandoned Red Sea diving resort as a fake tourist hotel while secretly smuggling Ethiopian Jewish refugees out of Sudan by night. The agents pose as resort staff and diving instructors while coordinating clandestine evacuations by sea and later by air. Major themes include: Rescue and ingathering of endangered Jewish communities; Ethiopian Jewish identity and persecution; Jewish solidarity across racial and geographic lines; and Mossad operations and Israeli intelligence culture. See two books in the companion Israeli bibliography, Raffi Berg, (Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort [2020]) and Gad Shimron, (Mossad Exodus: The Daring Undercover Rescue of the Lost Jewish Tribe [2007]). [See related book: Red Sea Spies] [See related book: Mossad Exodus]
Incitement (Hebrew title: Yamim Noraim, ימים נוראים, translating to “Days of Awe”) 2019) - Israeli thriller film that explores the psychological and societal forces leading to the November 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Directed by Yaron Zilberman, the movie shifts standard historical narratives by unfolding entirely from the worldview and perspective of the assassin, Yigal Amir. The film acts as a meticulous “tick-tock” chronicle documenting the single year leading up to the assassination. It opens in September 1993 with Prime Minister Rabin announcing the Oslo Accords, which aimed to establish peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Yemenite Jewish law student, views ceding any biblical land as a betrayal of God. Driven by personal rejection—such as being dumped by his Ashkenazi girlfriend due to ethnic disparities—he becomes increasingly isolated and bitter. Amir attempts to establish a vigilante militia and deep-dives into ancient religious texts. He ultimately interprets the “Law of the Pursuer” (Din Roder) to justify that Rabin is a traitor whose execution is mandated to save the Jewish people. The film fluidly blends narrative drama with real historical archival footage from 1994–1995 anti-peace rallies. It depicts how right-wing politicians, aggressive rhetoric, and ambiguous interpretations by local rabbis passively validated Amir’s escalating extremism. Run Time & Language: 123 minutes, completely in Hebrew with English subtitles.
The HBO alternate-history miniseries The Plot Against America (2020) – 6 episodes, directed by Minkie Spiro and Thomas Schlamme. The television adaptation was created and written by David Simon and Ed Burns, based on Philip Roth’s 2004 novel. (See the entry on this novel in the U.S. fiction bibliography.) The series features an ensemble cast depicting a working-class Jewish family in New Jersey experiencing the rise of a fascist political regime: Morgan Spector as Herman Levin, the fiercely principled, opinionated father and insurance agent; Zoe Kazan as Elizabeth “Bess” Levin, the protective, increasingly fearful mother; Winona Ryder as Evelyn Finkel, Bess’s impressionable older sister who becomes romantically entangled with the administration; John Turturro as Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, a conservative rabbi who aligns with and legitimizes the new populist president. The miniseries was highly praised by critics for its production values, acting, and structural relevance. Most critics, including writers for The Guardian and Vanity Fair, noted that the show felt chillingly prescient. They highlighted how easily a democratic society could slide toward totalitarianism, making direct comparisons to modern-day populist landscapes. [See related book]
Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (2020) - 4-part Netflix docuseries. Based on a 2016 book by James Patterson, this high-profile series is directed by Lisa Bryant. It primarily centers on first-hand accounts from survivors like Virginia Giuffre and Maria Farmer. The series tracks how Epstein constructed a “pyramid scheme” of abuse, his 2008 lenient plea deal, and his ultimate arrest and suspicious death in 2019. [See related book]
Surviving Jeffrey Epstein (2020) - 4-part Lifetime documentary miniseries. Directed by Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern, this series emphasizes the systemic failures of law enforcement and the justice system. It focuses heavily on how female recruiters lured underage victims to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, while also tracking the subsequent arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein: Behind the Facade (2020) - Brief documentary film (40 minutes). This film provides a timeline-driven overview of Epstein’s life, mapping his sudden rise into elite social circles and concluding with the conspiracy-laden details of his death at age 66.
Tehran (2020–2025) – An international Emmy Award-winning espionage thriller on Apple TV+ that follows Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish Mossad hacker-agent born in Iran but raised in Israel. She is sent on a mission to Tehran to hack into the Iranian power grid and disable the military’s air defense systems. The series follows her exploits season by season as she liaises with family members and local resistance militants while evading capture by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards. The series is widely praised for its moral ambiguity. It portrays both the Mossad and the Iranian intelligence agencies as ruthless entities, leaving regular civilians, student activists, and low-level agents caught in the dangerous crossfire.
Lansky [2021] – directed by Eitan Rockaway, son of researcher Robert Rockaway, who co-wrote the screenplay with Eitan), and starring Harvey Keitel as an aging Meyer Lansky, this film uses interviews with a biographer to recount his life story. It highlights his role in building modern organized crime, his involvement in brawling with Nazi sympathizers in pre-WWII America, and his complex relationship with the early State of Israel. A powerful flashback sequence shows Lansky and his crew violently raiding a pro-Nazi meeting in New York City. Keitel explicitly speaks to this history in the film’s press interviews.
The Crime of the Century (2021): A comprehensive, two-part HBO documentary directed by Alex Gibney. It details how corporate forces, political operatives, and government regulations enabled the epidemic, with a heavy spotlight on the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma.
Dopesick (2021): This acclaimed Hulu series stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Richard Sackler and Michael Keaton as a small-town doctor. It traces how Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin and heavily examines the corporate decisions of the Sackler family. [See related book]
The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness (2021): This multi-part Netflix docuseries tracks journalist Maury Terry’s obsessive investigation into the theory that Berkowitz did not act alone. The series details Berkowitz’s upbringing. It covers how he was born Richard David Falco to a Jewish mother (Betty Broder) following an affair with a Jewish man (Joseph Kleinman), and was subsequently adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, a working-class Jewish couple in the Bronx. [See related book]
Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes (2021): Another definitive Netflix documentary directed by Joe Berlinger that uses archive audio of Berkowitz. It directly addresses how his identity as an adopted child in a Jewish household shaped his early feelings of alienation, resentment, and a deep-seated inferiority complex.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022): Directed by Laura Poitras, this Oscar-nominated film chronicles the life of photographer Nan Goldin and her activist group, P.A.I.N.. It focuses directly on her targeted fight to shame major museums into removing the Sackler family name from their wings.
Pollard (2022 Docuseries): Directed by Shany Haziza and Gilad Tocatly, and created by Israeli investigative journalist Omri Assenheim, this four-part project is the most complete screen treatment of the scandal. It features exclusive interviews with high-ranking U.S. and Israeli officials, including former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and the FBI agents who arrested him. It explores his childhood, his motivations, the intelligence breach, and the diplomatic fallout. In the United States, it is available to stream on the Jewish-focused platform ChaiFlicks.
She Said (2022) - Based on the non-fiction book by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the movie stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan and chronicles the investigative journalism that exposed Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual abuse. Directed by Maria Schrader, the film acts as a procedural newsroom thriller. It painstakingly recreates the timeline of tracking down terrified sources, navigating corporate non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and convincing actresses like Ashley Judd (who plays herself) to go on the record. Weinstein is kept intentionally off-camera or shown only from behind, framing him as an institutional force of terror rather than the protagonist.
Regarding references to his Jewish origins, these elements appear directly in She Said and are presented through a highly specific cultural lens rather than as a central focus of his crimes: Weinstein and his legal team attempt to leverage his shared Jewish heritage with reporter Jodi Kantor to influence the investigation. Kantor later confirmed that Weinstein explicitly put their shared background “on the table,” seemingly expecting a sense of “tribal loyalty” to protect him—an expectation she firmly rejected.
The film features subplots where Kantor’s Jewish identity—such as a scene showing her family lighting Shabbat candles—serves as a bridge to crack the case. A critical investigative breakthrough occurs because Kantor is able to build an authentic connection with Irwin Reiter, a whistleblower and accountant for The Weinstein Company, based on their shared Jewish background and family connections to the Holocaust. [See related book]
Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich (2022) - Netflix documentary film. A direct, feature-length follow-up to the 2020 series. It focuses entirely on Epstein’s primary accomplice, exploring how her high-society upbringing, class, and privilege allowed her to facilitate and conceal a massive sex-trafficking operation.
Painkiller (2023): A Netflix scripted limited series directed by Peter Berg. It features Matthew Broderick portraying Richard Sackler and explores the origins, victims, and legal investigations surrounding the crisis. [See related book]
Pain Hustlers (2023): A Netflix crime drama starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans. It does not focus on the Sackler family directly, but rather targets a different part of the crisis, loosely basing its story on the corrupt pharmaceutical practices of Insys Therapeutics.
Last Man Standing: The Chronicles of Myron Sugerman (2023) - Available on Amazon Prime, this film follows the life of second-generation gangster Myron Sugerman. It details his activities as the “godfather of illegal slot machines” while highlighting his clandestine work funding efforts to hunt down Nazis. [Note: See reference to Sugerman’s memoir, above in this bibliography] [See related book]
The City [better translated as “This City” - Ha’Ir Hazot - העיר הזאת] (2023) - The first ever Hebrew rap musical inspired by black music, film noir, and detective films, the plot focuses on the character of Joe, a cynical and bitter detective working in a corrupt, decaying city. One stormy night, a young woman named Sarah Bennett comes to Joe’s office and tells him about the mysterious disappearance of her sister. Joe decides to take the case, a decision that could cost him his life.
The Goldman Case (French: Le Procès Goldman, 2023 - A courtroom thriller focused on the 1976 retrial of Pierre Goldman, a Jewish revolutionary and small-time criminal. The film explores his refusal to accept an antisemitic justice system while maintaining his innocence regarding a double murder, despite admitting to several armed robberies. [See related book]
Blood Coast (French: Pax Massilia, 2023) - In this Netflix series, the Jewish content is subtle and integrated into the multi-ethnic landscape of Marseille. The series reflects Marseille’s reality as home to France’s second-largest Jewish community (70-80,000 in number), many of whom are of North African, Sephardic descent. The narrative is “cops vs. drug lords”. Arno Cabella is a core member of the “Crazies” police unit. While the show focuses on his role as a gritty, rule-breaking detective, his character adds to the diverse cultural fabric of the team, which includes officers of North African, African-French, and Arab descent. The portrayal of Marseille highlights the city’s cosmopolitan nature, where Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities live in close proximity, a dynamic that often surfaces in French crime dramas. The city has a deep history, from serving as a 6th-century refuge to being a major transit port for Holocaust survivors and North African immigrants.The focus is on the “grey zone” where the methods of the police and criminals overlap. The Jewish presence is part of this “street-level” realism, representing the integrated yet distinct identity of the local population. – Google/AI]
Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street (2023) - his comprehensive, four-part Netflix true-crime documentary series was directed by acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger. It uses real financial forensics, whistleblower testimonies, and Madoff’s own video depositions to reveal how the $64 billion Ponzi scheme functioned. Crucially, it highlights how regulators and competitors deliberately ignored massive red flags. Includes interviews with Diana B. Henriques, author of the book on which the documentary series is based (The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust), and forensic accountant Harry Markopolos, who blew the whistle on Madoff many years before his downfall – and was ignored. [See related book]
RUIN: Money, Ego and Deception at FTX (Bloomberg Originals, 2023): This is widely considered the most authoritative and comprehensive feature-length documentary on the Bankman-Fried scandal. Directed by Shern Sharma, the 1-hour and 48-minute film leverages Bloomberg’s entire investigative newsroom. It features extensive commentary from central figures in the digital asset sector and details the structural math SBF used to siphon customer capital.
The Collapse of FTX: Insiders Tell All (CNBC Digital, 2023): Led by CNBC technology reporter Kate Rooney, this investigative special centers on a single tweet that catalyzed the global bank run. It features exclusive interviews with high-level corporate insiders, including former FTX US President Brett Harrison and high-profile investor Anthony Scaramucci, who recount their direct dealings with Bankman-Fried as his empire imploded.
FRONTLINE: Weinstein (2018 / Updated 2023) – an Investigative Television Documentary (PBS). Focuses on the elaborate, legally backed machinery Weinstein built over four decades to enforce silence. Produced by Jane McMullen and Dan Edge, this deep-dive journalistic piece investigates how a vast network of high-priced lawyers, private investigators (including former Mossad agents), and complicit corporate executives actively helped suppress allegations dating back to Weinstein’s early music promotion days in Buffalo, NY.
Downfall of the Crypto King (BBC / Fulwell 73, 2024): A theatrical, feature-length British documentary mapping out the inside story of the collapse. It focuses heavily on the psychological profile of Bankman-Fried, the frantic nature of the 10-day bank run, and firsthand accounts from the international retail investors who lost their life savings.
Highway 65 (Hebrew: Kvish HaSargel - כביש הסרגל) (2024) - An Israeli noir thriller that follows Daphna, a gifted detective in the town of Afula who investigates the disappearance of a former beauty queen. An Israeli-French drama film written and directed by Maya Dreifuss and starring Tali Sharon and Idan Amedi.
Caught Stealing (2025) - Directed by Darren Aronofsky, this thriller features unique protagonists in the form of two Hasidic Jewish drug-dealing killers known as the Hebrews.
Lansky: The Zionist Gangster (2025) - A multi-part miniseries exploring Meyer Lansky’s deep ties to the founding of Israel and his role as the financial architect of the National Crime Syndicate. Director and screenwriter: Avi Maor-Marzuk. Documentary, based on archival footage, so no leading actors. Spotlights Lansky’s heavily overlooked contributions to Israel’s founding, detailing how he and fellow Jewish mobsters used their underground networks to raise massive funds and illegally procure weapons for the nascent state. It tracks his dramatic escape and short-lived attempt to seek asylum in Israel under the Law of Return to evade American tax evasion charges. The series challenges standard definitions of heroism and morality, examining how a brutal Prohibition-era crime boss simultaneously acted as a covert benefactor to a geopolitical movement [Google/AI]
Guns & Moses (2025) (formerly titled Man in the Long Black Coat) - an American crime thriller film written by Nina Davidovich Litvak and Salvador Litvak. [The philanthropist-benefactor of a Jewish synagogue community in a small California town is murdered by an unknown assailant. The local police arrest Clay Gibbons, who has a history of Nazi-like threatening of the Jewish community. Everyone except Rabbi Moses (Moyshe) Zaltzman, the community’s leader, thinks Clay is guilty. The Rabbi had an experience of welcoming Clay when he was threatening the community, and teaching him about the Holocaust and Jewish history. After additional murders of key characters, the issue appears to be about a land deal. The synagogue’s security person insists that the Rabbi carry a gun and get training in how to shoot. In the end, the local police and mayor, who had been in the military together, had framed Clay and they try to kill the Rabbi and his family. With the help of allies including Clay and his father, the Rabbi and his family win out in the end, and the bad guys are killed. [Google/AI]
The Rosenbergs: Atomic Spies (2025): A comprehensive French-American documentary directed by Julia Bracher. Built using archival footage and animated illustrations, it analyzes declassified FBI files to outline how Julius acted as an espionage recruiter, while highlighting evidence that Ethel was largely innocent of the spying charges.
Jeffrey Epstein: The Unredacted Story (2025) - Documentary feature film (45 minutes) Written by Macready Massey, this project uses newly unsealed court records, investigative journalism, and survivor interviews to pull back the curtain on the broader networks of money and power that shielded Epstein for decades
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The Last Spy (2025/2026) - documentary film directed by Katharina Otto-Bernstein. A riveting biographical portrait of Peter Sichel (a German-Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany and became a top CIA spymaster). The film follows Sichel’s fascinating life from his intelligence work during World War II to the beginnings of the CIA and his pivotal operations during the Cold War, as the first CIA station chief in Berlin. Often affectionately referred to as the “Jewish James Bond”, Peter Sichel sat down to recount his extensive history before his passing at the age of 102. The documentary (running 106 minutes) is part historical drama, part political thriller, and part personal biography.
The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin (Reveal / Mother Jones, 2026): A multi-part investigative broadcast series that aired in July 2026. It provides a retrospective of the trial and features exclusive prison interviews and fresh, legal post-mortems of the asset recovery saga, tracking where the final billions went.
The Altruists (Netflix, In Production/Upcoming- 2026-27): Netflix formally ordered an eight-episode limited dramatic series about the multi-billion-dollar fraud. Formatted as a high-stakes psychological drama, it is executive-produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. It stars Anthony Boyle as Sam Bankman-Fried and Julia Garner as Caroline Ellison, tracking their personal relationship, their shared obsession with effective altruism, and the final panic of stealing $8 billion. Filming wrapped in late 2025, with final casting updates locked in early 2026.]
Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie (2026) [- directed and produced by Steven Pressman, it explores the little-known, deep connection between the legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie and Jewish culture. While Guthrie is famously recognized as the Oklahoma “Dust Bowl balladeer” who wrote “This Land Is Your Land”, the documentary recasts his legacy by focusing on his life in New York City during the 1940s. After marrying his second wife, Marjorie Greenblatt, Guthrie moved to the vibrant Jewish neighborhood of Coney Island, and later, Queens. The central narrative anchors around Guthrie’s close relationship with his mother-in-law, Aliza Greenblatt, a prominent Yiddish poet. Despite different backgrounds, they shared a deep bond over storytelling, humor, and social justice. Guthrie extensively integrated Jewish history, holidays, and folklore into his work. He wrote songs about Hanukkah, latkes, borscht, and even the Holocaust.
Decades later, his daughter Nora discovered these forgotten lyrics, which were eventually recorded by the modern klezmer group, The Klezmatics, on the Grammy-winning album, Wonder Wheel. The film illustrates how Guthrie found striking parallels and “kinship” between the displaced American migrant workers of the Dust Bowl and Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. It also details his collaborations with key Jewish figures in music, such as Moses “Moe” Asch (founder of Folkways Records and son of Yiddish author Sholem Asch) and the legendary folk manager, Harold Leventhal.
In truth, the film has no connection to Jews and crime or espionage, but I wanted to end this survey on a positive note. It also includes the fact that Arlo had a Bar Mitzvah in 1960, attended by many of his father’s folk-music friends. His Bar Mitzvah teacher was a young rabbi at the Howard Beach Jewish Center in Queens, by the name of Meir Kahane! This was long before Kahane’s founding of the Jewish Defense League (in 1968) and later political activities. Arlo Guthrie later converted to Roman Catholicism (1977) and eventually developed a broad inter-faith credo combining his Jewish upbringing, Catholic faith, and elements of Eastern mysticism and Christian Gospel tradition. – Google/AI]