Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) and mobster Ray Luca (Anthony Denison)—with an obsessive drive to destroy each other.

Torello, his friend Ted Kehoe, and Luca had grown up in Chicago's "The Patch" (Smith Park) neighborhood, also called "Little Italy" or "Little Sicily" and the haunt of the Forty-Two Gang.

At the beginning of the series Torello is the head of the Major Crimes Unit (MCU), a squad of hard-boiled cops that includes Detective Sgt.

Through his connection to Chicago crime boss Phil Bartoli, a boss or capo within the Italian-American Chicago Outfit, Luca catches the attention of not only the local Italian-American Mafia but also national crime figure Manny Weisbord, the head of a Jewish Mob organization and a character inspired by the legendary gangster Meyer Lansky.

However, this backfires when Torello gets wind of it and catches Frank Holman in the act, which results in the book falling into the hands of MCU.

When a crime war threatens to break out with Ganz's organization, Weisbord and Bartoli order Luca to clean up his mess.

Meanwhile, Holman, who escaped custody only to be hunted down again, has made a deal with U.S. federal prosecutor Harry Breitel to provide information about the mob in exchange for immunity.

The murders of Ted Kehoe, a childhood friend of Torello with ties to the organization, and his associate Marilyn Stewart convince Breitel to take Luca, Taglia and Bartoli to trial.

At a bar Luca casually asks strait-laced public defender David Abrams, whose father once had mob connections, for advice.

Manny Weisbord, in the meantime, is planning to relocate the majority of his organization to Las Vegas, with interest in having a legitimate business to launder money and provide future profits.

Assistant Attorney Gen. Patrick Hallahan offers Torello the chance to head up a new federal Organized Crime Strike Force to root out mob activities in Las Vegas.

In Vegas, Ray Luca sets about a takeover of the casinos in his usual violent, thuggish manner, which includes the murder of the resort-workers union leader and a federal agent planted by the Strike Force.

Luca goes on trial for multiple murders, but cleverly orchestrates a mistrial by having Holman tamper with the jury and making sure the judge learns of it.

The wounded Luca wakes up in an isolated desert shack thinking he is safe, only to discover that Taglia has brought them to a restricted government nuclear test area.

Assistant Attorney General Hallahan tells Torello that elements within the government have made a marriage of convenience for their own political agenda.

Luca finds him strung out on peyote and lies that it was Chicago crime boss Phil Bartoli who ordered the hit that accidentally killed Abrams's father.

In a small banana republic, Luca sets up a new base of operations for his international criminal empire, buying off politicians, military and police with the mob's money.

Later, however, the local army executes a coup and their ranking colonel appoints himself leader; while not receptive to Luca's influence, he tolerates him for the money he brings to the republic.

While Clemmons and Indelli race Abrams to a doctor, Torello and the others pursue Luca to an airfield, where he, Taglia and Goldman are about to leave the country.

Torello and Luca continue to wrestle as do Krychek and Goldman, while Taglia, in an attempt to fly the plane, accidentally takes out the yoke.

Like Miami Vice, Crime Story featured heavy use of up-and-coming actors; a number of them made appearances in both shows.

A small studio called New World Pictures Ltd. agreed to finance the show, with a chance to sell it overseas while Universal retained the domestic syndication rights.

[citation needed] According to Mann, the genesis of the project was to follow a group of police officers in a major crimes unit in 1963 and how they change over 20 hours of television, "in 1980, with very different occupations, in a different city and in a different time".

[2] Reininger researched Crime Story by winning the confidence of Detective William Hanhardt, who put him in touch with undercover officers in Chicago.

[3] Mann and Reininger's inspiration for the 1963–1980 arc came from their mutual admiration of the epic 15+ hour film, Berlin Alexanderplatz, by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

NBC head Brandon Tartikoff (who had started his career in Chicago) gave an order for a two-hour movie, which had a theatrical release in a handful of U.S. theaters to invited guests only.

[5] By the second season, an average episode cost between $1.3 and 1.4 million (roughly the same as Miami Vice) because it was shot on location, set during the 1960s (requiring period-accurate props and costumes), and featured a large cast.

[citation needed] John Haslett Cuff, in his review for The Globe and Mail, wrote, "The characters and locales are as greasy as the rain-soaked streets, and in the show's best moments there is a dangerous glitter that happily transcends the cartoon violence of too much television".

In addition, in another measure of this series' influence, numerous actors and actresses that originated on Crime Story in recurring or guest-starring roles later ended up on Wiseguy, including Ray Sharkey, Steve Ryan, Debbie Harry, William Russ, Anthony Denison, Stanley Tucci, Ted Levine, Patricia Charbonneau, Darlanne Fleugel, and Kevin Spacey.

On November 15, 2011, Image Entertainment released Crime Story- The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary Edition on DVD in Region 1.