Gangs of New York (2002)

Martin Scorsese's sweeping, epic account of the Five Points section of New York during the 1860s, and the tensions between immigrant groups and the native-born Americans, stars Leonardo DiCaprio (in his first film for Scorsese) as an Irish priest's son who infiltrates the gang of crime boss Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a tour-de-force performance). Directed with a keen sense of period detail and atmosphere, this vivid re-creation of Civil War-era Manhattan (constructed on the massive stages at Cinecitta) is based on Herbert Asbury's account of the period in his book of the same name.