Entertainment
10 Most Perfect Heist Movies of All Time, Ranked
In many ways, filmmaking is a heist in its own right. Pulling off a score in a bank, cash depository, or warehouse full of valuables requires similar levels of trickery, deception, cunning tactics, and even brute force that goes into making a movie. A heist is only as good as its crew, and the same is true for a movie, from the director and leading star to the camera grips.
Being so analogous to the criminal act, it’s no surprise that the heist genre, a general subgenre of crime movies, has resonated since the dawn of the medium, with one of the original narrative films in 1903 being The Great Train Robbery. While there are plenty of entertaining and enduring heist movies, these 10 ranked below are as close to perfect as they get.
10
‘Going in Style’ (1979)
.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2)
Before redefining action comedies with beloved classics such as Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run, Martin Brest kicked off his feature filmmaking career with the most unexpected batch of thieves: senior citizens. This rag-tag group of criminals, played by showbiz legends George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg in the supremely underrated Going in Style, shows that a bag of cash is nothing compared to the thrill of living on the edge before your demise.
Not to be confused with Zach Braff‘s remake in 2017, 1979’s Going in Style is both a darkly funny romp about three old rapscallions in Queens collecting Social Security who are sick of elderly life. To spice up their lives, the trio successfully orchestrate a bank robbery and subsequently splurge the cash on a gambling binge in Las Vegas. The concept of Going in Style practically writes itself, with the prospect of old men turning into criminals susceptible to many cheap punchlines. However, the shrewd Brest underscores the bitterness and alienation of aging, and he deploys the team’s frustration for comedy and a mournful exploration of mortality. Retirement is painted as a warm, autumnal era for peace and reflection, but the boredom can also drive you to commit felonies.
9
‘Set It Off’ (1996)
Like with most crime-oriented films, the heist subgenre is predominantly centered around men and grapples with traditional masculine ideas. With Set It Off, women were not in marginalized positions as victims or romantic partners of the criminal men, but instead, leading the scores. F. Gary Gray‘s timeless 1996 heist movie has become increasingly beloved in recent years, but it’s not just because of the swapped gender dynamics.
The anchor of Set It Off‘s excellence is the sparkling chemistry between its four leads: Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise. They play lifelong friends who convene to perform a bank robbery for their own respective motivations, but the end goal triggers chaos and builds to a fatalistic end. You believe that they share a strong bond, even if their short-sighted urges are responsible for the friendship’s demise. The film allows the individual characters to blossom as fleshed-out people. Crackling with a relentless vigor, fluid pacing, and just the right level of endearing charm, Set It Off proves that heist movies are only as good as the chemistry between its stars and authenticity of personal relations. Gray would receive bigger budgets along the way, but he still has never topped this archetypal but inventive heist thriller.
8
‘The Town’ (2010)
By 2010, the heist genre appeared to have no room to expand or push the genre’s template. However, this didn’t mean that the well had run dry. Despite all the towering influences lingering over him, Ben Affleck boldly gave us a heist classic for a new generation with The Town. Not only is Affleck’s crime thriller about an expert thief and his tried-and-true “one last job” a love letter to the subgenre, but it has also become a calling card for all Boston cinephiles, who now wear the film as a badge of honor.
Set in Charlestown, a Boston neighborhood, The Town is one part Heat, mixed with Rififi, and another part The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Call it a rip-off all you want, but the movie fires on all cylinders as a heist thriller and character study. Doug MacRay (Affleck) was raised in a life of crime, but upon finding true love in a bank teller of a place he robbed, Claire (Rebecca Hall), he’s ready to settle down. Staying true to your neighborhood and roots versus taking the bold step of reforming your life is the compelling dynamic at the heart of The Town, which features a superb performance by Jeremy Renner as the menacing thief “Jem” Coughlin, the symbol of Charlestown’s self-destructive path. Affleck, perfectly capturing the aesthetic and tone of his hometown, reinvigorated the heist genre with newfound layers of grit, realism, and pathos.
7
‘Inside Man’ (2006)
As was the case for The Town, sometimes, when making a heist movie, it’s better to just play the hits. This doesn’t mean your film is reductive or frivolous, but rather, it’s using a solid template to adhere to a visionary director’s style and reflect the moment. Inside Man executes this formula to a tee, as Spike Lee‘s homage to Dog Day Afternoon and ’70s New York crime movies is a blast to watch, rich with in-depth commentary about corporate conspiracies and the post-9/11 angst of America.
Like any Spike Lee joint, Inside Man, starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster, features the city of New York as its main character. From inside the bank that’s being taken hostage by Owen’s eerie theft conductor, Dalton, to the negotiation team on the street led by Washington’s Keith Frazier, NYC culture and sense of distress and annoyance run through everything, including the surprising moments of levity, to the intense, life-or-death circumstances of the robbery. Expertly crafted and incredibly acted, Inside Man proved that Lee could’ve been a phenomenal genre journeyman director if he wasn’t so gifted as a commentator on social issues and complex characters. This film underlines that the heist is often secondary to the immersive world-building and unorthodox character relationships between cops and crooks.
6
‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ (1973)
There’s something about the city of Boston that makes for the ideal heist movie. Before The Town, The Friends of Eddie Coyle was synonymous with Boston bank robberies on the big screen. An essential film of the gritty New Hollywood of the 1970s that has increasingly become a fan favorite, the 1973 heist movie by Peter Yates and starring Robert Mitchum has impeccable vibes. They truly don’t make em’ like they used to, but in fairness, nothing will ever match the aesthetic of the ’70s.
If you ever wanted confirmation that movie stars are too pretty and glossy these days, watch just a few minutes of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Everyone looks tired, beaten down, grimy, and looking a decade older than their actual age. The king of the hangdog expression, Robert Mitchum, is at his peak as the titular character, a gunrunner for the Irish mob who turns the tables on his colleagues to avoid jail time and start a new life. Echoing the style that was en vogue upon release, Eddie Coyle is equally melancholic and stylized, with the harsh sensibilities being a product of the upending of American values occurring throughout the decade. Shot on location in Boston, the film treats heists as mundane, thankless work, but someone has to get the job done. Otherwise, all parties will meet their demise at the hands of ruthless crime organizations.
5
‘Inception’ (2010)
Many films throughout the years have tackled the abstract concept of dreams, regarding how we process them or how they enter our subconscious. However, only Christopher Nolan (perhaps with assistance from Satoshi Kon‘s Paprika) would’ve thought to turn dreams into an elaborate action-heist epic. While most of us probably couldn’t relate to the grandeur and spectacle of the dreams in Inception, everyone can agree that Nolan’s monumental blockbuster is a rip-roaring success.
One can only imagine the kinds of things Nolan conjures in his sleep based on what we see in Inception, which sees the director cranking up his intricate narrative arcs and intersecting action set pieces to an unfathomable degree. On first watch, you may not follow everything transpiring on screen, but you’ll be completely transfixed by Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his band of mind bandits, who are hired to upend the corporate control of a massive company. Told with Nolan’s signature calculating precision and operatic emotional wavelength, the 2010 film clouds its exciting heist numbers in a shadow of perpetual uncertainty, as Nolan demands that the audience questions the line between reality and fantasy. Between show-stopping choreography and production design and the tragic undertones of the story, you won’t be dozing off and having dreams of your own when watching Inception.
4
‘Thief’ (1981)
You can’t talk about the heist genre without celebrating the genius of Michael Mann. While most directors take a few entries in their filmography to find their groove, Mann burst onto the scene with the craft, idiosyncratic vision, and assurance of a 20-year veteran with his debut feature, Thief, the Rosetta Stone for the rest of his work. Mann’s 1981 heist movie and stirring character drama is one of the most exquisitely made and meditative films in the genre’s history.
James Caan plays Frank, a career jewel thief ready to start a new life for himself and walk away from the criminal underworld. Of course, this mission is only possible by completing an ill-fated “last job” and tying up loose ends with his family and colleagues. From the opening minutes, with the Tangerine Dream score echoing over the dark and rain-soaked streets of Chicago, Thief is an unparalleled achievement in cinematography. The slick, neon-induced aesthetic popularized in Miami Vice was first established by Mann in his debut picture. His fascination with the life of crime and heist affairs shows in the film’s demonstration of cracking vaults, which is deliberately executed and engrossed in the little details of Frank’s occupation. Caan, in his finest performance, straddles the line between embodying tough, no-nonsense professionalism with a tender yearning for a more fulfilling life. This paradox is the nucleus of Mann’s poetic voice and the pathos of crime.
3
‘Ocean’s Eleven’ (2001)
Is Ocean’s Eleven the “coolest” movie ever made? It’s hard to deny it. Steven Soderbergh‘s breakthrough box-office success put him on the map in mainstream Hollywood, and also firmly cemented the movie star persona of George Clooney, who leads a Hall of Fame cast that includes Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon. There’s only one place that can handle all this star power: Las Vegas.
Is Ocean’s Eleven the “coolest” movie ever made? It’s hard to deny it.
A remake of the vastly inferior 1960 film starring the Rat Pack, Ocean’s Eleven announced itself as an instant heist classic in 2001, shaping an alternate side to the genre less reliant on brute force and more on suave and trickery. Danny Ocean’s (Clooney) band of thieves tries to pull off the impossible by orchestrating a heist past the tight, ruthless security at a Vegas casino owned by Ocean’s rival. Throughout the story, they make it look easy, which approximates the effortless direction and acting in the film’s production. The unfussy but controlled Soderbergh lets the style and vibrant energy emanate from his all-star cast, who are both equally adept at harmless robbing and eccentric characters. While the stakes are personal for Ocean, the film never overstays its welcome with its dramatic language. Ocean’s Eleven is a subtle exercise in craft and execution without breaking a sweat.
2
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975)
Although it’s best remembered for its audacious feats of screen acting and astute social commentary, let’s not forget that Dog Day Afternoon is about a pulled-from-the-headlines heist that was just as wild in real life as it was depicted in Sidney Lumet‘s 1975 classic. Starring Al Pacino at arguably his apex as a leading man, the film is just as stirring as a story of rebellion, identity, and cultural clash set inside a bank on a blisteringly hot day in August.
When the temperature reaches sweltering heat in New York City, things quickly unravel. This sense of societal combustion is confronted head-on in Dog Day Afternoon, the most socially conscious heist movie made in Hollywood. Because the film is primarily set in one location, the viewer can grasp the claustrophobic tension and lingering doom of both the bank tellers and the amateur criminal masterminds, Sonny (Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale). Lumet crafts the initial holdup and climactic escape scene with a two-fisted swagger, never dismissing the stakes of the heist. However, he lets Sonny literally and figuratively shed layers, and we recognize that he is a man disillusioned by the world, and his desire to use the money to pay for his partner’s sex change operation makes him a folk hero among LGBTQ subcultures. Sonny’s not taking over a bank—he’s taking control of this cruel world. Attica, indeed.
1
‘Heat’ (1995)
How can you talk about the heist genre without recognizing the immortality of Heat? To this day, Michael Mann’s magnum opus is the blueprint for all heist movies in its wake. The 1995 Los Angeles crime epic that finally pitted Al Pacino and Robert De Niro against each other was taken for granted by critics and the Academy Awards upon release, but today, Heat is synonymous with cinematic perfection.
On the surface, Heat is too bloated, sprawling, and dense with plot and character information to work. However, Mann turned his failed TV pilot into a sweeping but streamlined portrait of the duality of human beings on opposite sides of the law. Cops and criminals developing a strange kinship is a recycled archetype now, but Mann delivers this scintillating dynamic between Vincent Hanna (Pacino) and Neil McCauley (De Niro) with the soulfulness of an opera. Supporting casts don’t get much better than Heat‘s troupe, which features stellar work by Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenneman, and Ashley Judd, which enhances Mann’s kaleidoscopic vision without compromising their own autonomy. As for the heists, the medium itself entered a new stratosphere of spectacle and immersive fury in the film. Mann magically strikes a perfect balance between gritty realism and heightened formalist bravura. In Mann’s world, crime is a den of sin, but it is also the life force that drives devout professionals like Vincent and Neil.
- Release Date
-
December 15, 1995
- Runtime
-
170 minutes
- Director
-
Michael Mann
- Writers
-
Michael Mann
You must be logged in to post a comment Login