Well, meself and a hundred more, to America sailed o’er, with our fortunes to be made, so we were thinkin’ / When we got to Yankee land, they shoved a gun into our hands / Saying “Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln.”/ There is nothing here but war, where the murderin’ cannons roar, and I wish I was back home in dear old Dublin

The result is a considerable achievement, a revisionist history linking the birth of American democracy and American crime (…). It is instructive to be reminded that modern America was forged not in quiet rooms by great men in wigs, but in the streets, in the clash of immigrant groups, in a bloody Darwinian struggle.All of this is a triumph for Scorsese, and yet I do not think this film is in the first rank of his masterpieces (…). The gangsters in his earlier films are motivated by greed, ego and power; they like nice cars, shoes, suits, dinners, women. They murder as a cost of doing business. The characters in Gangs of New York kill because they like to and want to. They are bloodthirsty, and motivated by hate. I think Scorsese liked the heroes of Goodfellas, Casino and Mean Streets, but I’m not sure he likes this crowd. — Roger Ebert, 2002.