Bugsy

Bugsy is a 1991 American crime drama directed by Barry Levinson, the ninth of the twenty-eight films he has directed, following Avalon and preceding Toys. The screenplay is by James Toback, and Levinson produced alongside Mark Johnson and Warren Beatty. Warren Beatty stars as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a New York gangster sent west by his partners Meyer Lansky and Charlie "Lucky" Luciano to expand their gambling operation into Los Angeles. There he is drawn into Hollywood society, begins an affair with the strong-willed Virginia Hill, and becomes fixated on building a lavish casino in the Nevada desert.

Annette Bening plays Virginia Hill, with Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould and Joe Mantegna among the credited cast of thirty-four. The film covers Siegel's rise within organized crime and his ambition to create a gambling resort on an empty stretch of desert, the project that would become the Flamingo and, eventually, Las Vegas.

Made for a budget of thirty million dollars, the film took about forty-nine million worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from over thirty thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.3 from fewer than five hundred. A critics' rating of 7 out of 10 from sixty-four reviews places it above the audience scores on both sites. The story ends before the consequences of Siegel's venture are fully settled.