Roberto Saviano's award-winning expose into the dealings of the Mafia-like Comorra earned him a permanent police escort after threats from several godfather-like figures in the organisation. Matteo Garrone's film adaptation loses none of the violence and corruption in Saviano's book, showing that mingling with the infamous Neapolitan crime empire is a very dangerous affair.

The film weaves the lives of five Italians from different walks of life together as they become involved in the Camorra's dealings in various ways. The influence of the Camorra leads them to unexpected and dangerous places and not everyone survives.

Gomorrah dispels many of the long held pop culture impressions of crime families in order to portray a grittier and far more dangerous underworld. The oppressive and powerful nature of the organisation means that these characters have no real chance of escape, only to do the Camorra's bidding and hope for the best. It is a tense, foreboding affair, helped by the increasingly evident fact that death is a common fate for people who involve themselves in the affairs of the empire.

Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and garnering large amounts of critical praise, Gomorrah has been hailed as an almost documentary-style look into the lives of people whose existences become influenced by the Camorra, the suspenseful nature of their individual worlds and the accompanying, inevitable human loss.