Gangs of New York is a 2002 drama from director Martin Scorsese and starring Academy Award-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio and Academy Award-winner Daniel Day-Lewis in a story about a young man on a quest for vengeance during the American Civil War. The film begins in 1846 Manhattan, where a bloody feud between native American citizens and Irish Catholic immigrants is about to come to a head. William Cutting, also known as Bill the Butcher, leads the Natives to a violent victory over the immigrants, winning the territorial dispute once and for all. Years later, Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) returns to Manhattan to seek vengeance for his father, one of the many men Bill the Butcher killed years ago. As Amsterdam struggles to get close enough to the Butcher to safely kill him, he becomes tangled up in the local struggles and begins to see his nemesis as an unlikely father figure. Gangs of New York is a riveting historical drama about the development of democracy in New York City and received ten Academy Award nominations.moreless