This Open Call was made for me. However, I'm going to cheat because I can't choose a favorite.  Instead, I'm going to highlight the movies that mean the most to me.  There will be very few Oscar weiners here, and there will be some disreputable types, but judge not lest ye turn out to be a big fat jerk.

In the early 90's there seemd to be a mini-Renaissance of the mob film.  Of course ,films about mobsters and crime had never died, but they seemd to have fallen out of favor with the vast majority of the film going public.  When I refer to mob films, I mean movies that deal with themes of loyalty and "Family" using the milieu of organized crime.  Most films used the mob as target practice and lacked the respect usually afforded these characters.  For proof of this you need look no further than the Patrick Swayze time waster Next of Kin, which featured Ben Stiller as one of the least plausible thugs ever. 

By 1990, though, the mob was back in business.  Scorsese and Coppola both had serious films out about the families.  One is a classic and one hurt.  You decide which is which.  The real news however was that others were getting into the act, and they were bringing fresh perspectives to it, as well as fresh filmmaking tricks.  Two of these films The Krays and Miller's Crossing centered on off-kilter elements that hearkened back to an era before even the Corleone family set up shop.  The former had echoes of White Heat with its inclusion of twisted mother love, and the latter was actually arather loose remake of a semi-obscure noir film entitled The Glass Key.  The Krays was well made and featured interesting perfromances ,bu the mob movie chapeen of this period goes to Miller's Crossing .

Fro mthe opening monologue delivered by Jonny Caspar to the "Should-have been" iconic image of the black hat being tossed about by thewind in a lonely wood this film has style, charisma, and moxie to spare. 

In nutshell, it's about a mob war between the Irish and Italian gangsters in

Prohibition era Chicago.  There are tried and true tropes here, but what makes the film work is the way they are played.  To use a sports analogy anyone run a hundred meters, but someone like Hussein Bolt can make it look special.  That's what the Coen brothers do here.  They take wha tcould have been a programmer and give it soul and wit.  They make it about something and not just about busting heads or Machivellian machinations. 

That something is the cost of having ethics in a world where it's just a word that people use to prop themselves up.  Johnny Caspar's opening monologue, in which  he decries Bernie Bernbaum's lack of ethics as a reason for top dog Leo to allow him to bump off the bookie, is a masrter piece of irony delivered with relish b ythe excellent Jon Polito.  The only character i nthe entire film with any ethics is Tom (Gabriel Byrne), who sticks by his ethics and his code while everyone turns their back on him.  He is the whore with a heart of gold that keeps that golden secret.  Tom is a ethical because he makes choices that are his own and not dictated by business or greed.  He sees his plans throuhg because they are his plans and no man is going to queer the deal he sets into motion.

The film is also one of the most gorgeous of crime films.  It's warm hues counteract the heartless behavior of most of the characters. It also a offers a backdrop for some of the most wonderful well seasoned tough guy palaver ever filmed.  Any exchange between Eddie Dane and Tom  is pure gold. 

Speaking of the Dane, the Coens go a step further and offer insight into the lives of these characters by giving them all lives outside of crime.  Johnny Caspar is a family man. Leo (Albert Finney) is in love with a conniving moll named Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), who is also sleeping with Tom.  Eddie Dane ( amenacing and never better J.E. Freeman) hasa nervous lover named Mink (Steve Buscemi), who is also mixing it up with John Turturro's Bernie Benrbaum. That is what makes the flm fascinating.  It acknowledges that these characters have desires outside of their lives of crime.

Ultimately, all of the philosophical blather is just hat unless the movie engages, and this one does.  It is one of theimmensely quotable films ever made ,and the action is brutal and beautiful.  A shoot out set to the song "Danny Boy" ranks as one of the greatest sequences in film.  I stand by that statement. 

Check it out, homies.