ⓘ Details

Movie TitleThe Untouchables

Release DateJune 3, 1987 in the United States

TaglineWhat are you prepared to do?

Runtime119 minutes / 1 hour 59 minutes

DirectorBrian De Palma

Screenplay Written ByDavid Mamet

Based OnLoosely based on the 1957 book The Untouchables by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley

Is It a Remake?No. It is a feature-film adaptation inspired by Ness’ book and the real Prohibition-era Untouchables, with many fictionalized elements.

BudgetApproximately $25 million

Box OfficeApprox. $76.3 million domestic / approx. $187 million worldwide

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👥 Main Cast

Kevin CostnerEliot Ness

Sean ConneryJim Malone

Robert De NiroAl Capone

Andy GarcíaGeorge Stone / Giuseppe Petri

Charles Martin SmithOscar Wallace

Patricia ClarksonCatherine Ness

Richard BradfordChief Mike Dorsett

Jack KehoeWalter Payne

Brad SullivanGeorge

Billy DragoFrank Nitti

Vito D’AmbrosioBowtie Driver

Steven GoldsteinScoop

Peter AylwardLt. Anderson

Don HarveyPreseuski

Robert SwanMountie Captain

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🏆 Awards

⭐ Academy Award Winner — Best Supporting Actor, Sean Connery

⭐ Academy Award Nominee — Best Art Direction

⭐ Academy Award Nominee — Best Costume Design

⭐ Academy Award Nominee — Best Original Score, Ennio Morricone

⭐ Golden Globe Winner — Best Supporting Actor, Sean Connery

⭐ Golden Globe Nominee — Best Original Score, Ennio Morricone

⭐ BAFTA Nominee — Best Supporting Actor, Sean Connery

⭐ Grammy Award Winner — Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television, Ennio Morricone

⭐ The film earned major recognition for Connery’s performance, De Palma’s period crime style, and Morricone’s memorable score.

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📖 Short Plot Summary

During Prohibition, federal agent Eliot Ness arrives in Chicago determined to bring down Al Capone, but his first raid is a humiliating failure and the city’s police force is riddled with corruption. With help from veteran cop Jim Malone, accountant Oscar Wallace, and sharpshooter George Stone, Ness builds a small team that cannot be bought. As they target Capone’s liquor empire and follow the money toward tax evasion charges, the fight becomes personal, bloody, and increasingly dangerous. To beat Capone, Ness has to decide how far he is willing to go when the law itself is not enough.

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❝ Key Quotes

“What are you prepared to do?” — Jim Malone

“They pull a knife, you pull a gun.” — Jim Malone

“He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.” — Jim Malone

“Here endeth the lesson.” — Jim Malone

“You got nothing! Nothing!” — Al Capone

“Never stop fighting till the fight is done.” — Jim Malone

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💡 Trivia

Director

The Untouchables was directed by Brian De Palma.
David Mamet wrote the screenplay, bringing a hard-edged moral code and sharp dialogue to the story.
De Palma stages the film like a heightened gangster opera, mixing suspense, violence, heroism, and old-Hollywood visual flair.
The famous train-station sequence pays visual tribute to Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
The movie remains one of De Palma’s most mainstream and widely loved films.

Cast / Casting

Kevin Costner stars as Eliot Ness, the federal agent trying to take down Al Capone.
Sean Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing veteran Irish cop Jim Malone.
Robert De Niro plays Al Capone and reportedly gained weight for the role.
Andy García plays George Stone, the young sharpshooter recruited into Ness’ team.
Charles Martin Smith plays Oscar Wallace, the Treasury accountant whose tax strategy becomes key to Capone’s downfall.

Soundtrack / Score

Ennio Morricone composed the film’s score.
Morricone earned an Academy Award nomination and won a Grammy for the film’s music.
The score blends heroic themes, period atmosphere, suspense cues, and tragic grandeur.
The music helps turn Ness’ crusade into something mythic, even when the story is rooted in crime, corruption, and compromise.

Location

The story is set mainly in 1930s Chicago during Prohibition.
Filming took place in Chicago, Illinois, and other locations, including Montana.
Chicago locations helped ground the movie in real city architecture and period gangster atmosphere.
Union Station in Chicago was used for the film’s memorable staircase shootout sequence.
The Canadian border raid scenes were filmed in Montana, giving the movie a wide-open frontier feel for one of its biggest set pieces.

Behind-The-Scenes

The film was produced by Art Linson.
Paramount Pictures released the film in the United States on June 3, 1987.
The reported budget was approximately $25 million.
Box Office Mojo lists the domestic gross at $76,270,454.
The film opened with just over $10 million domestically and became one of the stronger box-office performers of 1987.
The screenplay is only loosely based on real events, with many characters and incidents dramatized for the film.

Nostalgia

The Untouchables is one of the defining 1980s gangster films.
Sean Connery’s Malone became one of the decade’s most memorable mentor characters.
The movie’s blend of crime drama, shootouts, period design, quotable speeches, and sweeping music gives it a classic studio-adventure feel.
For many viewers, this is the movie that made Eliot Ness and his team feel like old-school American myth rather than just historical law enforcement.

Easter Eggs

The baby carriage on the train-station stairs is a deliberate nod to the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin.
Malone’s “what are you prepared to do?” line becomes the film’s moral test for Ness.
Capone’s baseball-bat dinner scene turns a sports metaphor into one of the movie’s most brutal power displays.
Oscar Wallace’s accounting strategy reflects the real-world fact that tax evasion was central to bringing down Capone.
The rooftop courtroom-adjacent finale pushes Ness into a morally gray space, showing how much Capone’s world has changed him.

Misc.

The Untouchables is rated R.
The movie runs 119 minutes.
The film won one Academy Award and was nominated for four Oscars total.
It is loosely based on Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley’s book, but the movie fictionalizes many details for dramatic effect.
Your 3 Guys and a Flick ratings page lists The Untouchables as Episode 43, with Don rating it 2.50, Ken rating it 4.00, Jon rating it 2.50, and an overall rating of 3.00.

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