Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld is the father of the modern gangster film. Before Little Caesar, this film established the genre’s tropes: the tragic anti-hero, the gun moll, and the violent urban setting. Sternberg overlaid the crime plot with his signature atmospheric style, using shadow and smoke to create a poetic, dreamlike underworld. It won the first Oscar for Best Original Story. By humanizing the criminal and focusing on loyalty and betrayal, it elevated pulp fiction into art, setting the visual and thematic template for Film Noir decades later.