12 Ridiculous Moments In Mob Movies That Actually Happened

Whether you think Martin Scorsese's movies glorify violence, condemn it, or merely explore it, the director definitely isn't shy about depicting mobsters' depravity. The scene in Goodfellas when Tommy shoots Spider seems designed to show just how warped Tommy's sense of morality really is. Tommy and his friends are playing cards, and when Spider is slow to bring him a drink, Tommy pulls a gun and shoots at Spider's feet to get him to dance. One bullet hits Spider, but he reappears later with a heavy bandage on his foot. Tommy makes fun of the bandage, but this time, Spider stands up for himself. Tommy responds by shooting Spider dead - all because Spider mouthed off to Tommy in a fight that Tommy started. 

But according to Henry Hill, the real-life inspiration for Ray Liotta's character, this all pretty much happened just as it's depicted in the movie. Tommy and Spider were both real members of Jimmy Conway's (Robert De Niro) crew, as was Hill. Tommy did heckle and wound Spider before fatally shooting him weeks later over a perceived insult. According to Hill, this was the moment everyone realized Tommy was "a total psychopath."

Casino has one memorable scene in which Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is furious to discover that a blueberry muffin made by his kitchen barely has any blueberries in it. Rothstein finds the chef and demands that every blueberry muffin must have the same number of blueberries. It seems absurd that a casino manager and gangster like Rothstein would care about a blueberry muffin, but it's not really about the muffin. It's about quality control. 

The real-life basis for the character, Lefty Rosenthal, confirmed that he did, in fact, demand that each muffin include at least 10 blueberries. Rosenthal started his career as a low-level staffer at the Stardust Hotel in 1968 before pioneering the practice of sports betting in casinos. As De Niro says during the blueberry muffin scene, casinos are operations that involve hundreds of people and thousands of customers, all of whom want to bilk the casino out of as much money as possible. Protecting the casino requires constant vigilance. No detail is insignificant, and even a poorly made muffin reflects badly on the house. The scene feels like it was written to show the audience Rothstein's obsessive, borderline-overbearing meticulousness, but it's a perfectly valid business technique, whether it's a Mafia-owned business or not.

It might seem unlikely that America's most powerful union boss and a notorious figure in the criminal underworld like Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) would have such a sweet tooth, but according to The Irishman, the guy loved ice cream. He's seen eating ice cream sundaes throughout the movie, no matter what else is happening. In one scene, he has a sundae while taking Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and his daughter mini-golfing. In another scene, Tony Provenzano (Stephen Graham) angrily confronts Hoffa in jail about missing money, but Hoffa never stops eating his frozen treat. 

And it's not a random character quirk thrown in to humanize him. The real Jimmy Hoffa's love of ice cream was well documented throughout his life. Hoffa lived a healthy lifestyle and avoided alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and even caffeine, but ice cream was his one indulgence. From an acting standpoint, Al Pacino considered the ice cream eating central to the character. "Ice cream was a pause in his life where he could think and just sit with it - at least, that’s the way I thought of it," Pacino said.

While Boardwalk Empire isn't entirely historically accurate, it does largely portray its main character, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), as he really was. On the show, the Atlantic City treasurer Nucky uses his position to build a criminal empire that includes everything from gambling to bootlegging to prostitution. He's so powerful that Atlantic City is essentially his own fiefdom, and he's so wealthy that he can afford to live in the Ritz-Carlton year-round. 

The real Nucky's real surname was Johnson, but he really was as powerful and rich as the show suggests, and he really did live at the Ritz. Like the fictional version, the real Nucky occupied the entire ninth floor of the luxury hotel. At the hotel, Nucky ran his criminal empire and entertained high-profile guests, such as actress Sophia Tucker and possibly mobster Al Capone. It's estimated that the Ritz cost him about $5,000 a year - and his on-the-books treasurer's salary was just $6,000 annually. Also like his fictional counterpart, the real Nucky used the hotel to host America's first organized crime summit. He lived at the Ritz from 1921 when it was built until 1941, when he was arrested for tax evasion. 

Early in Black Mass, it's mentioned that notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp) won $14 million in the state lottery. It might seem like the wildest of coincidences that the state's biggest criminal would just happen to buy a winning lottery ticket. And no, it actually wasn't a coincidence. But the real Whitey Bulger really did try to claim $14 million in lottery winnings. And as the movie implies, Bulger wasn't being entirely honest. 

The lotto scam started in 1991, when a man named Michael Linskey claimed to have bought the winning ticket in a liquor store Bulger owned. After Linskey came forward, he announced that he'd be splitting the winnings with Whitey Bulger, Bulger's friend Kevin Weeks, and Linskey's brother Patrick. Linskey claimed that Bulger and his associates had paid him $2 million in cash in exchange for half of the winnings, which would be paid out in installments over the next 20 years. 

Although Bulger was known to be a crime boss, the lottery had to accept him as the winner. However, the FBI was skeptical, and four years later they seized the money and accused Bulger of using the lotto scheme to launder money. Law enforcement still doesn't know whether Linskey forged the winning ticket or whether he genuinely won.

The death of Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) in Casino also happened much like it did in real life. Nicky is Ace's enforcer, and not a very subtle one. Towards the end of the movie, Nicky is facing several lawsuits related to his organized crime activities, and he also tries to blow up Ace with a car bomb. Eventually, the Kansas City mob bosses have had enough and order a hit on Nicky and his brother Dominick. A crew brings them to a cornfield in Indiana, beats them with baseball bats, strips them to their underwear, and buries them alive. 

Nicky Santoro was based on Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, Lefty Rosenthal's real-life right-hand man. Like Nicky, Tony was a flashy and violent mobster who skimmed money from Vegas casinos. Also like Nicky, Tony's schemes frequently brought the wrong kind of attention. After Chicago mob boss Joey Aiuppa landed in jail during one of Nicky's escapades, the Chicago mob boss decided to whack him and his brother Michael. The real Nicky and Michael were slain in a basement, not a cornfield, but they were buried in an Indiana cornfield in their underwear. A little over a week later, a farmer discovered their shallow grave. In 2005, 14 Chicago mobsters were indicted for these murders and 16 others.