The Many Saints of Newark

Michael Gandolfini steps into his famous father James's shoes to play the young Tony Soprano in this hugely satisfying prequel to lauded TV crime drama The Sopranos. However, the central character is Alessandro Nivola's Dickie Moltisanti (the father of Christopher from the show), who's juggling a complicated home life and power struggles within the Mob against a backdrop of New Jersey race riots in the late 1960s and early 70s. Parallel to those headaches is Dickie's reluctant mentorship of the teenage Tony, identified as a born leader by his schoolteachers and seemingly earmarked as a future foot soldier within the organisation. Regular series director Alan Taylor, working from a screenplay co-written by Sopranos creator David Chase, fashions an atmospheric, visually spellbinding origin story that, although peppered with familiar characters from the small-screen hit, is robust enough to stand on its own merits and doesn't alienate viewers new to the saga. Gandolfini is a captivating screen presence, while Nivola gives a nuanced portrayal of a mid-ranking mobster facing pressures in all aspects of his life, and Vera Farmiga plays notoriously difficult matriarch Livia Soprano.