History YMMV / MillersCrossing

* BetterOnDVD: You'll need multiple viewings to understand the plot completely. The option to watch the film with subtitles also helps a lot, as there's plenty of very crucial information that's easy to miss the first time, thanks to the sometimes rapid-fire dialogue and period slang.

* BetterOnDVD: You'll need multiple viewings to understand the plot completely.

* TearJerker: Bernie's [[FaceDeathWithDespair desperate pleading when faced with execution at Tom's hands]]. It's not hard to understand why Tom [[spoiler:decides to spare his life and let him go]], nor to understand why [[spoiler: Tom is not nearly so forgiving the next time, after Bernie takes advantage of his mercy to blackmail him]].

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: "Danny Boy", which shows up in a scene that doubles as a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and a [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Funny Moment]] while featuring BottomlessMagazines. Carter Burwell's score is also impressive.

* WhatAnIdiot: Frankie and Tic-Tac, who don't bother to actually watch Tom make the kill that's supposed to prove his loyalty. The Dane later beats the crap out of them for their stupidity.

* FoeYay: Eddie Dane towards Tom Reagan. Actually, all of the sexual tension in the movie qualifies as FoeYay because almost everyone in the movie is pitted against everyone else.

* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/MichaelBadalucco as Kaspar's driver.

* MagnificentBastard: Tom Reagan is the right hand man to Leo O'Bannon, an Irish-American mobster, but it's clear who [[HypercompetentSidekick has the brains in the operation]]. Tom is a duplicitous alcoholic who's sleeping with Leo's fiancee and spends the movie [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder double-crossing everyone he meets]], regardless of the damage Tom suffers in the process. Then, at the end, it turns out the whole movie was a ZeroApprovalGambit on Tom's part. Everything he did, he did for Leo in the most unscrupulous way possible. He manipulates Leo's enemies into killing each other, having Leo's greatest rival murder his own terrifying enforcer Eddie Dane when Dane is distracted before leading said rival to his own death. Tom then personally murders his devious former friend, the smug Bernie Bernbaum to ensure Leo remains firmly in power.

* AwardSnub: Wasn't remembered at Oscar time, ignored in favor of ''Film/GoodFellas'' and ''Film/TheGodfatherPartIII''. Granted, ''Film/GoodFellas'' deserved the love, but ''Part III''? It was just a rough year to be an epic gangster film.

* MagnificentBastard: Tom Reagan is the right hand man to Leo, an Irish-American mobster, but it's clear who [[HypercompetentSidekick has the brains in the operation]]. Tom is a duplicitous alcoholic who's sleeping with Leo's fiancee and spends the movie [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder double-crossing everyone he meets]], regardless of the damage Tom suffers in the process. Then, at the end, it turns out the whole movie was a ZeroApprovalGambit on Tom's part. Everything he did, he did for Leo in the most unscrupulous way possible. He manipulates Leo's enemies into killing each other, having Leo's greatest rival murder his own terrifying enforcer Eddie Dane when Dane is distracted before leading said rival to his own death. Tom then personally murders his devious former friend, the smug Bernie Bernbaum to ensure Leo remains firmly in power.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome:
** Usually "Danny Boy" is there to heighten or foreshadow tragedy. Leo plays it while lounging around in his bathrobe when guys burst in with tommyguns in hand and their hats on their heads, he sure looks like the SacrificialLion. But not quite. For added Badassery, he casually relights his cigar with his smoking gun while gazing at the flaming wreckage. Also doubles as SoundtrackDissonance.
** "What heart?"

* OneSceneWonder: Film/SteveBuscemi as Mink.

* MagnificentBastard: Tom.

* HateSink: Bernie is a smirking, backstabbing waste of flesh.