White Heat

White Heat (1949) is Raoul Walsh's blistering gangster noir, free to watch online on iFILM. At its core sits Cody Jarrett, a gang boss crippled by splitting headaches and bound to his mother by something close to obsession.

James Cagney plays Cody like a lit fuse. He can gun a man down without blinking, then collapse sobbing in his mother's lap. To dodge the rap for a big job, he confesses to a smaller one and takes a light sentence, never suspecting that the cellmate who befriends him is an undercover treasury agent, played by Edmond O'Brien. When word reaches Cody that his mother is dead, the last thread of his sanity snaps.

Walsh delivered one of the toughest crime pictures of the decade, and the finale atop an exploding gas tank, with Cagney screaming "Top of the world, Ma!", remains one of cinema's most quoted endings. This is Cagney at his scariest and his most pitiful. Essential viewing for anyone who loves the genre at its sharpest. Stream White Heat (1949) online on iFILM.