Turnbull's right to mention French film noir. Big up to Jean-Pierre Melville: Le samourai (1967) and Le cercle rouge (1970) are both pretty amazing. I called the former film my favourite for quite some time; not seen it in a while though. Melville made others, too.

Elsewhere in France, Godard's debut feature À bout de souffle (1959) is a homage to Monogram; it oozes cool, with Jean-Paul Belmondo basing his style and mannerisms on the Bogart of The Harder They Fall. If you like that, you'll enjoy Bande à part (1964), another "gangster B movie" in similar vein to À bout de souffle, and a film that heavily influened Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955) is a great, tense heist film, in which the heist is some sort of silent ballet. In terms of neo-noir, France's new New Wave, of sorts, exploded with the incredibly stylish (if now quite dated) Diva (1981).

I'd check out Takeshi Kitano's films, too. Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990) and Sonatine (1993) represent a sort of Yakuza trilogy; they're all offbeat, charismatic gangster films. Once you check them out, see Kitano take his style to America with Brother (2000).

The UK has its fair share of gangster flicks. Turnbull would recommend The Krays (1990), but I'm not a fan. Likewise, I remember not liking Gangster No. 1 (2000) that much either, but it has its fans. Sexy Beast (2000), though, is a great, thrilling, well-acted take on the "retired gangster" genre. Also an interesting heist film. The Long Good Friday (1980) is brilliant, from what I can remember (not much). But the pinnacle of the no-shit, nuts-and-bolt British gangster flick is Get Carter (1971).

Not quite a "gangster film", but a fascinating flirtation with the seedy London milieu, is Roeg and Cammel's Performance (1970), starring Mick Jagger and James Fox.