Gangs of New York

Set in Manhattan's Five Points during the 1860s, the film follows Amsterdam Vallon, an Irish immigrant who has spent years away and returns home with a buried motive. He aims to avenge his father's death at the hands of Bill the Butcher Cutting, a brutal and influential gang lord who embodies xenophobia and power. To get close enough to act, Vallon blends into Cutting's world, earning trust and watching the underworld at close range. The city pulses with street politics, corruption, and shifting alliances as communities contend with poverty, rival gangs, and the consequences of violence on their fragile neighborhoods. Its soundtrack and period detail help immerse viewers in a world where loyalties shift as fortunes, and fates change today.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and released in 2002, the film draws on material inspired by Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York, with a screenplay by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, for an epic period drama on screen today.

With a budget of 100 million, it grossed about 193.8 million worldwide, indicating a solid return for a large scale historical crime drama from the early 2000s. The production earned more through international markets and the domestic box office. Overall.

Over time the film is remembered for its immersive production design, Daniel Day-Lewis's magnetic performance, and Scorsese's bold fusion of spectacle with social bite. It helped define a visual language for scaled historical crime stories and left a mark on how audiences picture 19th century New York, shaping period dramas.

Critics lauded Scorsese's audacious direction and the strong ensemble, though some noted the film's sprawling length. The work probes immigration and assimilation, political corruption, loyalty, and the birth of organized crime, framing a city as a battlefield where power and identity collide. The film's ambition endures in modern cinema globally.