10 Movies Where The Good Guy & Bad Guy BOTH Lose

5. The Irishman

The Departed
Netflix

Martin Scorsese's The Irishman serves as a brilliant companion piece to Goodfellas, stripping away all the sexy flashiness and lingering instead on the empty inevitability of a criminal's life.

On one hand, the FBI never learns the location of labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa's (Al Pacino) body, a mystery which remains up in the air to this very day.

And on the other, though hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) lives to a ripe old age, he outlives all of his friends while being a pariah to his own family - especially daughter Peggy (Anna Paquin), who realises that he killed Hoffa.

As a result, the film's chilling coda sequence sees Frank destined to end his life alone in a nursing home, deprived of contact with those he cares about most and set to be lost to time in short order.

All in all, this was a brilliant riposte to decades of accusations that Scorsese has spent his career glamorising the gangster's life, instead flipping the script and showing what happens if a mobster is "lucky" enough to become elderly.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.