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“Say hallo to my lil’ frien’!” screams Miami gangster Tony Montana (Al Pacino) before dispensing apocalyptic shotgun blasts into a violent mob barraging his gaudy mansion. With those immortal words, the cocaine huffing, Michelle Pfeiffer abusing, speech mangling sociopath notoriously nicknamed Scarface became firmly ingrained in American pop culture and the hearts of rappers everywhere.

From poverty to obscene wealth, career gangsters like Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) rose in the ranks. Montana was a Cuban refugee; Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) fled a Sicilian community ravaged by Mafiosos; Al Capone (DeNiro again) shucked papers on street corners. It’s the American Dream to ascend from relative obscurity to fabulous wealth and power. Whether it’s fact or fiction, the story’s more compelling when the protagonists rise above immeasurable adversity. But if you can defy establishment and rebel, then you’ve got something. These gangster sagas draw audiences because — let’s face it — rebellion is cool.

A strict moral code (whether it’s just, is debatable) underlines the motivations of the violent criminals depicted on screen. Honor and loyalty are especially revered attributes. Don Corleone may have had a studio exec’s prized horse killed, but he loves his family. “Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut,” invokes Jimmy Conway. A gangster’s empire is founded on the basis of dedication from every Soldier to the elite Capos. Diligent thugs like Collin Sullivan (Matt Damon) in The Departed advanced because their Dons deemed it necessary. Deny a man or family their respect and you go the way of Luca Brasi: sleeping with the fishes.

Gangster films are often noted for their realistic violence. It simultaneously repulses and excites. Vengeance drives the criminals. And the more creative the beating, the better. In American Gangster, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) repeatedly slams an enforcer’s head inside a piano. Musical justice. In Goodfellas, the psychotic Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) viciously beats a mocking Billy Batts (Frank Vincent), stabs him and then buries him. Apparently he didn’t find him “funny like a clown.” Martin Scorsese brilliantly directed some of the most shocking and brutal acts of violence ever captured on celluloid. In such compositions the characters’ anger boils to the surface and the subsequent explosion is a poetic exploration of reactionary animals fighting for survival in a world that won’t fully accept them.

Everyone knows the iconic scenes: DeNiro’s Capone bashes in a man’s skull with a baseball bat in The Untouchables; the baptism/execution finale of The Godfather; the impossibly long steadicam shot following Henry and Karen Hill into the Copacabana in Goodfellas. They’re woven into the fabric of our culture; subjects of pointed reverence respected by cinephiles and quoted around water coolers.

It’s not that they’re conventional because Bravo and A&E play them to death; but the charisma of the cast and the eternal themes of family, greed, glory and violence powerfully connect with viewers on some primal level. Whether you’re fascinated from a historical perspective or simply because you get off on seeing Montana chainsaw some dude in half, gangsters, their trials, and tribulations will forever be part of the American cinematic lexicon.