A hitman usually is an assassin who is hired to assassinate a target via contract killing.

Hitmen in organized crime

Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. For notable examples see Murder, Inc. and Mafia hitmen and see Blood Killers.

Other cases involving hitmen

These are non-mafia killings, or attempted killings, that involved a hitman. In some of these cases the "hitman" was not necessarily a "professional" hitman, but a paid amateur.

Hitmen

• Christopher Dale Flannery: Reputed Australian hitman.
• Paul Glen: British hitman who killed a Robert Bogle by mistake as he was paid to kill a Vincent Smart.
• Charles Harrelson: He had connections to organized crime, but was also freelance. He was the father of actor Woody Harrelson.

Notable victims of hitman

• Shiori Ino: She was a 21-year-old University student killed by hitman Yoshifumi Kubota. Kubota served 18 years in prison for the killing. He was paid by her ex-boyfriend and his brother. The case gained some notoriety in Japan.

• Grady Stiles: Freak show performer. His family hired a hitman to kill him because of his abusiveness.

Notable cases of hiring a hitman

• Wanda Holloway: The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom is based on her hiring a hitman to kill the mother of a girl competing with her daughter at cheerleading.
• Lawrence Horn: Record producer whose hiring of a hitman led to the case Rice v Paladin Press.

Film

Hitmen have been at times been a notable part of crime film. A rise in such characters began in 1970s due to "mafia films" like The Godfather. A notable example from the 1980s is the final scene of Scarface, in which an assassination squad is sent to kill the protagonist, Tony Montana. In the early 1990s Jean Reno gained some attention as a hitman in The Professional.

In the mid-1990s to the 2000s several "offbeat" portrayals of hitmen arose. John Cusack plays a hitman named Martin Blank who attends his high school reunion in the comedy film Grosse Pointe Blank. Forest Whitaker portrayed an African American hitman influenced by Bushidō in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. In addition Jude Law, in Road to Perdition, played a hit man with a strong interest in photography.

A few portrayals of hit man have earned nominations or awards. In 1985 Jack Nicholson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a hitman named Charley Partanna in Prizzi's Honor. Javier Bardem played a ruthless assassin in search of a lost cache of money in the Coen Brothers' 2008 Academy Award-winning film No Country for Old Men.

Also John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson portrayed as two hitmen in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino smash-hit film Pulp Fiction