Paper Moon (1973), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Scarface (1932), The Public Enemy (1931), To Each His Own (1946), Legends of the Fall (1994), The Great Gatsby (2013), Lawless (2012) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Bootlegger movies.
Storyline: When Pete's plane crashes in the swamp, he's rescued by young Tammy, an unsophisticated backwoods girl who lives with her lay-preacher-cum-moonshiner grandfather. When Pete's well, he goes back home to his fiancée. But then Grampa gets sent to jail and he sends Tammy to stay with Pete. At Pete's house, Tammy's home cooking, enthusiasm and quaint sunshiny personality bring about changes in Pete's family and in Pete himself.—Kathy Li
Plot Keywords: swamp, louisiana, rural setting, southern u.s., based on novel, costume, applause ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Frisco Jenny was orphaned by the 1906 earthquake and fire and has become the madame of a prosperous bawdy house. She puts her son up for adoption and he rises to prominence as district attorney dedicated to closing down such houses. When her underling Dutton proposes telling the DA that Frisco Jenny is his birth mother, she kills the underling not to cause trouble for her son now the successful DA, she must face execution.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: character name as title, prohibition, election, detention, accidental death, prostitution, building collapse ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the mid-1990s, two inmates bury the burned bodies of two lifers at Mississippi's infamous Parchman Farm; a third old-timer relates their story. They'd served 65 years for a murder they didn't commit, framed by a local sheriff while buying moonshine whiskey for a Manhattan club owner to whom they owed money. In flashbacks we see this odd couple thrown together (Ray is a fast-talking con man, and Claude is a serious man about to start work as a bank teller), the loss of Ray's watch (sterling silver, from his daddy), the murder and trial, the hardships of Parchman, and the love-hate relationship of Claude and Ray as they spend 65 years bickering and looking for a way to escape.
Plot Keywords: baseball, 1990s, affection, black humor, death, escape attempt, fat man ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: "Jigger' Lane forms a band that includes singer Ginger 'Character' Powell, wife of the trumpeter Leo Powell, and Nickie Haroyen and Peppi. All of them dedicate themselves to work as a unit and to play 'blues' music. The dedication isn't paying off in money and, while riding the rails in a boxcar, they meet and befriend a gangster named Del Davis. He offers them a job at a New Jersey roadhouse, where Powell falls in love with Kay Grant, a former 'real-good friend' of Davis. But when Powell learns that 'Character' is about to have a baby, he returns to her. "Jigger" tries to make Kay the band's singer and, when this fails, runs off with her. She leaves him with nothing to show for him except a nervous breakdown.Back at the roadhouse, after his recovery, Kay shows up, has a quarrel with Davis, shoots and kills him and plans to take back up with "Jigger", who knows better but just can't help himself. While she is waiting in a car for him, along comes cripple Brad Ames, who she put in that condition, and he gets in and drives the car over a cliff, leaving no survivors in the two-passenger crash. The band is back together at the end, still using boxcars as their transportation, but happy playing the blues.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: new jersey, racketeer, racial stereotype, prisoner, police officer, missouri, liquor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran's rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: gangster, crime boss, murder, cold blooded killer, drive by shooting, gang violence, mobster ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Robin Hoodish gangster in 1929 Chicago is an object of affection, kind to New York hood and bad to a bad crook.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: christmas, prohibition, bootlegger, damsel in distress, deception, boarding house, military academy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Glen Tyler (Elvis Presley), a down on his luck young man, is sent to counselor Irene Sperry (Hope Lange) to begin battling his personal demons. While under her tutelage a flair for writing emerges. Can she guide him down the right path or will her interference lead to his demise?—Conroys
Plot Keywords: guitarist, dancing, false accusation, singing, chandelier, pet dog, prisoner ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.
Plot Keywords: based on novel, gas station, high society, jealousy, loss of wife, love triangle, murder suicide ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This is the story of Jody, an unemployed young black man, who's been living with his mother for several years, even though he's got a child of his own. Romantically, he's having relationships with two women: Yvette, the mother of his son, and a new interest.
Plot Keywords: title spoken by character, cheating, domestic violence, abortion, beating, dominoes, ex convict ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: John Smith is an amoral gunslinger in the days of Prohibition. On the lam from his latest (unspecified) exploits, he happens upon the town of Jericho, Texas. Actually, calling Jericho a town would be too generous--it has become more like a ghost town, since two warring gangs have 'driven off all the decent folk.' Smith sees this as an opportunity to play both sides off against each other, earning himself a nice piece of change as a hired gun. Despite his strictly avowed mercenary intentions, he finds himself risking his life for his, albeit skewed, sense of honor....
Plot Keywords: spaghetti western, cowboy hat, cowboy, cowboy shirt, neo western, 1920s, 1930s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1931, Elizabeth Rambeau comes from England to live in California with her aunt and uncle of a winemaking dynasty, who are still wealthy despite 12 years of Prohibition. Object: marriage to the heir of another vineyard, to further consolidate holdings in the Valley. But John Rambeau, Elizabeth's illegitimate cousin, has other ideas about who she should marry, and sharply opposes patriarch Philippe's refusal to sell wine grapes to bootleggers. John's activities bring soap opera to the Rambeau family and violence to the valley.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: vineyard, based on novel, paralysis, night club, dance hall, italian american, shot in the back ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Newly inaugurated President Judson Hammond is content to live out the next four years exercising a hands-off approach and leaving the problems of Depression America to local authorities. But after a miraculous recovery from an auto accident, Hammond is ready to take on every social ill and neither Congress, gangsters nor the nations of the world will stop him.—Erik Gregersen <erik@astro.as.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: bribery, hunger, yacht, dictator, prohibition, firing squad, organized crime ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Tough mobster Mahlon Keane practically runs crime in New York City. He meets broke ex-society girl Rhoda Philbrooke at a society fundraiser and helps her cheat her way to some winnings in poker. Rhoda needs the money to help nurse broken alcoholic concert violinist Tony Vaughan back to health. In between his criminal dealings, Keane takes up Rhoda's cause and helps promote Vaughan's return to public performance. Rhoda agrees to marry Keane but still harbors unrequited love for Tony Vaughan. On the eve of her marriage, Vaughan confesses his love to Rhoda. Now how will she handle her mobster fiancée?—Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>
Plot Keywords: violinist, drunkenness, doctor, brooklyn bridge, bootlegger, love triangle, gang violence ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It's 1930. Claire (Liza Minnelli), an American living in Tijuana, Mexico, has just buried her husband Harry, who owned a dive bar there. Walker Ellis (Burt Reynolds), a loser with whom she has long had a thing on the side, agrees to wrap up her affairs in Tijuana for her so that she can move stateside before they be together after an appropriate grieving period. Wrapping up those affairs includes smuggling one last truckload of illegal Mexican immigrants across the border. In that job not going quite according to plan, Walker is forced to go into business rum running across the border with Kibby Womack (Gene Hackman), one of those he was trying to smuggle across the border, Kibby an American in trouble with Uncle Sam. Instead of via overland, Walker has hired Billy Mason (Robby Benson) to Captain the sailboat to transport the goods via water, Billy a young, quiet man unwise to the ways of the world, but wise when it comes to the sea. As Walker, Claire, Kibby, and Billy navigate the waters on this venture, they will find two inherent risks. The first is the U.S. Coast Guard, officious Captain Moseley (Geoffrey Lewis), who patrols these waters. Moseley and the Coast Guard can do nothing if they're in international waters unless there is a sign of illegal cargo or a sale of illegal merchandise. As such, Moseley can usually just "starve" rum runners who just sail up and down the coast unable to dock in a U.S. port. And second is other rum runners. While the small players generally leave each other alone, the east coast mob has sent Christie McTeague (John Hillerman) to place first a foothold then second a stranglehold on the entire west coast Mexico-U.S. trade. Through it all, Claire has convinced Kibby and an initially reluctant Walker that their three partner business should extend into the bedroom.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: 1930s, love, love triangle, lawyer, lady, gigolo, gangster ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In Georgia's dusty Hazzard County, the close-knit Duke cousins, Bo and Luke, deliver Uncle Jesse's fine moonshine. Zooming down the rough backwoods on their powerful muscle-car--the tangerine 1969 Dodge Charger, General Lee--the boys easily outrun the corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg's forces, and his loyal henchman, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane. However, when the clan of moonshiners are left with nothing, only Bo, Luke, and Daisy Duke can save their farm, as the day of the annual road rally approaches. Can the Dukes of Hazzard beat Hogg's champion, Billy Prickett, save the day, and their beloved home?
Plot Keywords: misogynist, bikini, cleavage, panties, redneck, dumb cop, waitress ...
Movie Details Click Here!