9. Scarface (1983)
Brian De Palma’s Scarface is actually a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. However, it doesn’t quite follow the same story. The 1982 movie follows Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a Cuban refugee who arrives penniless in Miami. It chronicles his beginnings as a low-level crook as he climbs the ladder of criminal enterprise to become one of the most wealthy and powerful drug kingpins in the world.
After attempting to expand his empire, Tony falls foul of his supplier, Alejandro Sosa. Having grown increasingly paranoid, Tony finds himself estranged from his family and former friends. It’s at this point that Sosa sends a team of heavily armed men to attack Tony’s mansion compound. They infiltrate his home, and the ensuing firefight sees Tony die in a hail of bullets, alone in his giant house surrounded by his wealth.
Though it’s a relatively simple ending, it’s a powerful one. Scarface follows Tony as he becomes increasingly less concerned with morality and other people, and gets more and more cruel and violent. In the end, it’s his violent and selfish ways that lead to his murder, and he dies as violently as he chose to live.