Gangster No. 1

Gangster No. 1 follows a London criminal known as Gangster 55, whose settled life is disturbed by news that his old boss, Freddie Mays, is about to leave prison after thirty years inside. The announcement pulls him back through his own history in the city's underworld, where he started out as an ambitious young man drawn into Freddie's circle. He wanted everything Freddie had: the money, the position, the respect. That envy hardened into betrayal, and the younger man's ruthless climb through the gangland ranks was built on it. The film moves between the present-day gangster and his younger self, tracing how the man he became was shaped by what he did to the man he once served.

Paul McGuigan directed, working from a screenplay by Johnny Ferguson. It was his second feature, following The Acid House (1998), and it sits ahead of Wicker Park (2004), The Reckoning (2004), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Push (2009), Victor Frankenstein (2015) and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017). Paul Bettany plays the younger Gangster, with Malcolm McDowell as the older Gangster 55; David Thewlis is Freddie Mays, and Jamie Foreman, Saffron Burrows and Kenneth Cranham appear as Lenny Taylor, Karen and Tommy. The production was a German, British and Irish co-production.

On IMDb the film holds 6.7/10 from around 16,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.4/10 from roughly 249 votes. A critics' rating of 6.4/10 from 52 reviews places it close to the audience scores, suggesting a reasonably consistent reception rather than a sharp divide between reviewers and viewers.