Bieber help me, I do like stories like this:
In a meticulously planned heist that took barely five minutes to execute, armed men disguised as police officers drove onto the tarmac at the international airport in Brussels Monday night and stole diamonds worth around $50 million as they were being loaded onto a plane bound for Switzerland, officials said.
What are the best theft movies ever btw?
Shawn
Asphalt Jungle is my favorite black and white heist film.
Roger Moore
The Castle of Cagliostro.
Higgs Boson's Mate
“Snatch”
Bobby Thomson
Stacks better remember to ditch the truck.
Sanjuro
The Score (Robert DeNiro, Ed Norton)
Kelly’s Heroes (Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland)
The Great Train Robbery (Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland)
dmsilev
I remember years ago reading about a gang that tried to pull a similar heist. Everything went fine for them, except that their intelligence was off and what they ended up with was several bags full of industrial diamond dust. Useful, yes, but just slightly less valuable than gem diamonds…
I’m not really sure it qualifies as a heist movie, but To Catch A Thief is pretty darn good.
Gregory
@Roger Moore: Yup.
Also “Once a Thief,” “It Takes a Thief,”,”A Fish Called Wanda” and “Reservoir Dogs” (though the theft itself isn’t shown).
comrade scott's agenda of rage
How does one fence $50 million in diamonds?
Surely we have some retired heisters here who could at least speak in broad generalities.
Or anybody with an opinion.
Hawes
The Killing Sterling Hayden, enuff said
Quick Change “What kind of clown are you?” “Crying on the inside kind, I guess.”
Inside Man was decent
And while I didn’t like the movie, I liked the capers in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.
Ohh. Late addition: The Usual Suspects.
Omnes Omnibus
The best? I don’t know. Some of my favorites: Topkapi, To Catch a Thief, How to Steal a Million, The Lavender Hill Mob, Heist, Thief, and The Great Train Robbery.
Gregory
@Roger Moore: Yup.
Also “Once a Thief,” “It Takes a Thief,”,”A Fish Called Wanda” and “Reservoir Dogs” (though the theft itself isn’t shown).
Raven
The Killing Kubrick
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049406/
Egypt Steve
A couple of weeks ago saw “How to Steal a Million” with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. Kind of silly, but I like anything with Audrey Hepburn.
“Heat” is a damn fine heist film, except for DeNiro’s cliched final line: “I told you I wasn’t ever going back!”
The Dangerman
Another vote for “The Score” and one for “Heat” (DeNiro and Pacino make it great).
General Stuck
Sexy Beast
Tokyokie
Du rififi chez les hommes, Le cercle rouge et Bob le flambeur, although that last one is sort of the anti-caper caper movie. I’d say the French do them better, but Rififi was made by an exiled American (although one of French descent), and the director of the other two was the most Americanized of French film directors.
Raven
Sexy Beast and the Croupier
Lee Rudolph
Didn’t Michael Moore make one, about the theft of the 2000 Presidential election?
BGinCHI
See the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, almost all of it.
The master of heist films.
MikeJ
Rififi
Bob le flambeur
Bande à part
Ocean’s Eleven (the original)
Fish Called Wanda
The Italian Job (w/ Michael Caine)
Point Blank (Lee Marvin)
The Hot Rock
Maude
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Most likely, they have a buyer.
Gregory
I agree with Roger Moore. Also “Once a Thief,” “It Takes a Thief,”,”A Fish Called Wanda” and “Reservoir Dogs” (though the theft itself isn’t shown).
JPL
The Town might not be the best heist film but it’s the most recent one that I’ve seen.
BGinCHI
Also: Ronin.
carolus
Hands down, it’s Thief starring James Caan, Robert Prosky and Tuesday Weld.
Great soundtrack to boot.
Doug Galt
@Egypt Steve:
I liked that one with Audrey and Pete.
jh
Mamet’s ‘Heist” with is one of my faves. Watching Hackman, DeVito, Delroy Lindo and Sam Rockwell go at it is awesome.
The HBO movie of the same name with Pierce Brosnan was pretty good too.
And somebody said Topapki, which is one of was one of my alltime faves.
Punchy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Doug said “theft” movie, not adult movie.
Doug Galt
@Raven:
Love Croupier.
Gregory
Gah, sorry for the duplicates. My phone kept saying comment posting failed. Stupid mobile WordPress.
Roger Moore
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I’m guessing they either had a buyer lined up before the theft or were hired by the person who wants the diamonds. If you sell diamonds at retail (e.g. you’re a jeweler) it should be easy enough to push them into legitimate commerce slowly enough to avoid notice.
R-Jud
@Punchy: I thought it was a weightlifting movie.
Raven
The Pink Panther
henrythefifth
@Egypt Steve: I agree with “Heat.” I immediately thought of that film when I read this.
Bruuuuce
Assuming you’d count it, I’m in for The Sting, as well as A Fish Called Wanda.
wasabi gasp
This one was a little racy for its time.
Omnes Omnibus
Also, The Good Thief; it is a pretty decent remake of Bob le Flambeur.
schrodinger's cat
Inside Man
Jewel Thief (60s Hindi movie)
ETA: Ocean’s 11 (DS9 version is fun if you are a DS9 fan)
Roger Moore
@R-Jud:
I liked the sequel “Clean and Jerk” better.
Chat Noir
Don’t know if this qualifies as a theft movie per se, but I love “Dog Day Afternoon.” Top notch cast and writing.
Kay Eye
The Grifters.
AliceBlue
A Fish Called Wanda
Quick Change
The League of Gentlemen (a b/w film I had never heard of and saw on TCM a few weeks ago. It’s about a group of ex-British army officers planning a bank heist; really enjoyable. Funny in spots too).
vagabundoloco
Michael Manns’ Heat and Peckinpaw’s The Wild Bunch
Two of the all-time best heist movies.
cmorenc
I liked “Ruthless People”, although it is a black comedy built around a hostage-and-ransom plot theme rather than a true straight heist movie. It features Danny DeVito and Bette Midler at their best.
Yutsano
@Roger Moore: Also, if the diamonds are larger, they can be split into smaller stones and sold that way. There’s lots of ways of getting around the DeBeers monopoly if you look hard enough.
OT: That’s a lotta porpoises.
Davis X. Machina
@Chat Noir: I’m waiting for the remake, set in an ATM vestibule, in which a much older Pacino leads the much older crowd outside in chants of “Sciatica!”
PeakVT
I know it’s a minute fraction of the global economy, but that still seems like a lot of money for little shiny rocks.
Cassidy
Hackers
Hoodie
Maudlin’s Eleven with Bobby and Skip Bittman, William B. Williams and the immortal Bill Needle.
Tod Westlake
The Usual Suspects, Thief, and, if you’re looking for one waaaay off the beaten path, Bellman and True.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I liked a Polish film called Vinci pretty well when I saw it a few years ago. It borrows a little from the remake of the Italian job, but has a major plot device (making several high quality forgeries of the Da Vinci painting they’re planning to steal) that I’d never seen used in a heist film before.
Not sure if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid counts as a heist film, but they do steal stuff, and it is an excellent movie.
I think To Catch a Thief counts, and even if it doesn’t it’s worth watching just to ogle Grace Kelly, who was absolutely gorgeous in that film.
pamelabrown53
@Omnes Omnibus: I like your list although I’d add “The Usual Suspects”, and “The Thomas Crown Affair” and the 1932 movie “Trouble in Paradise (Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins) because they include some romance.
Cris (without an H)
Come on, make that coffee to go.
becca
@Sanjuro: Always with the negative waves, Moriarty, always with the negative waves….
Egypt Steve
btw, does “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” count as a theft movie? If so, it’s definitely on my list. Even if we all do hate Clint now.
Omnes Omnibus
@pamelabrown53: I did think about the putting in the Steve McQueen version of “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
GregB
The Killing.
The Bank Job.
Goodfellas.
kdaug
Don’t call me stupid.
El Cid
I’ll wait until someone makes a movie about the guys in the Atlanta area who stole the $65,000 worth of chicken wings from cold storage.
Think of the drama — the robbers coming up with the plan in the midst of low-wage jobs, the pressure of the upcoming superbowl for the wing market, the environmental pressures of drought limiting our chickens!
Okay, they were caught soon after, but the exciting part of the movie would be these guys coming up with the plan.
Cassidy
National Security
Blue Streak
What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
WereBear
The Maltese Falcon has a theft, central. You’ll get slapped and like it.
But a lot of great ones have already been mentioned.
Asphalt Jungle; still extraordinary. I must have seen it twenty times.
It’s really funny that “the caper” is a mainstay of Hollywood; yet there hasn’t been that many movies to get it just right.
For instance, the movie The Hot Rock had a lot going for it, but never quite gelled, while the book is awesome.
mainsailset
“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” with Jane Curtin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-77VpXSygs just as funny today as it was in the way back.
Legalize
I love heist pictures. These are all good for a variety of reasons:
Rififi.
Inside Man.
Inception.
Heat.
The Good, the Bad, and the Weird.
Oceans 11 (Clooney version).
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
The Sting.
The Score.
The Killing.
Sexy Beast.
Thief.
The Town.
Tokyokie
@Yutsano: And uncut stones are even easier to move into legitimate commerce, while smaller stones are not particularly distinguishable. There’s a reason that diamonds have long been a preferred currency of black marketeer types: They’re far more valuable than gold by weight (about $1600/oz. for gold and north of $6000/carat for a diamond, and there’s about 142 carats in an ounce) and they’re difficult to trace.
ranchandsyrup
Atlas Shrugged part un.
Taxation is theft, y’all.
wasabi gasp
Corvette Summer
R-Jud
60+ comments and nobody mentioned the Ladykillers? Peter Sellers wept.
WereBear
Charley Varrick.
gogol's wife
I’m with all those who mentioned Topkapi and How To Steal a Million and Trouble in Paradise. I’d add Gambit.
Warren Terra
How do you define “heist film”? I’d think you could make a pretty good case for The Great Escape – ensemble cast assembles a scheme to pull of a grand transgression, then tries to execute their plan.
Omnes Omnibus
@R-Jud: We were trying to be nice and saving it for you, but then you had to be a jerk about. Thanks a lot.
MikeJ
I think we could dig up the thread we had back in January when we were talking about TCM’s month worth of heist films.
WereBear
Point Blank, with Lee Marvin, is a classic. His part of the heist gets stolen from him, and he has to get it back. From the Mob. And, he does.
piratedan
lots of good ones already mentioned…. but I’ll add some unconventional ones too….
The War Wagon
The Bank Job
Heist
The Hot Rock
The Anderson Tapes
Ron Thompson
Well, since there are three references to it here, I’ll just note that the title of the 1950 classic is “THE Asphalt Jungle”.
hildebrand
Sneakers
Legalize
@Warren Terra:
Agreed.
Cassidy
Any Vin Diesel movie involving theft.
Joel
Why are diamonds so damn valuable anyways? Can’t Kyocera make synthetic diamonds that look just like the real thing, flaws and all?
Higgs Boson's Mate
White Heat
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
How about The Producers? It’s more a con than a heist, but so is The Sting, and that’s been mentioned by many.
Hvillachez
Don’t know about the best heist movie evar, but quite enjoyable was The Maiden Heist. Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden, William H. Macy.
Roger Moore
@Joel:
A combination of slick marketing and careful management by a cartel to control the supply.
Merfy
Not a movie, but did anyone else watch “The Knights of Prosperity”? It was a tv show a few years back that starred Donal Logue (The Tao of Steve) and a then-unknown Sofia Veraga as part of a group of misfits planning to rob Mick Jagger. I remember really enjoying the first few episodes, but I lost interest once the group changed their target to Kelly Ripa or Ray Romano or some other snoozer. I think it got cancelled pretty soon after that.
Hvillachez
Oh and, as several have already mentioned, any Jean-Pierre Melville movie… And Rififi.
Raven
Ladykillers, I like the Cohen’s version.
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven:
Yes, the depictions of the theft in the Panther movies are always very entertaining. Then there’s the investigation that follows, of course.
“Do you have a lee-sance for your minkey?”
Also, too, “Ruthless People”.
SatanicPanic
Does The Bank Dick count?
MikeJ
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: The Producers is great but more problematic as a heist film in that it was essentially a nickle and dime con repeated over and over.
When Cool Hand Luke cut the heads off parking meters it didn’t make that great film a heist film.
Cassidy
Fast Five…hell, the whole Fast & Furious franchise.
Paulk
My God, this sounds like the plot to Rough Cut, an 80s Burt Reynolds/David Niven caper.
Actually, despite the mustached smirker, a pretty entertaining little flick with some good twists, if you’re up for that kind of thing.
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Zat iz not my dog. . .
Warren Terra
@El Cid:
Do we know enough about what happened with Canada’s Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve to hope for a good film from that story?
(honestly, I just enjoy saying “Canada’s Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve” and knowing I’m referring to an actually existing thing; it sounds like a humorous invention)
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: the lunatic Dreyfuss. . .
liberal
Speaking of (legalized) theft, what would the price of diamonds be if the supply weren’t controlled by the diamond cartel? My impression is “much, much lower,” but I haven’t seen any hard claims.
catclub
@El Cid: There was also the maple syrup heist in Quebec. From the Canadian’s Strategic Syrup Reserve.
Higgs Boson's Mate
À la recherche du Noël perdu by the great French director, Jean-Brian Zatapathique. It served as the inspiration for How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Chris
The Sting, both Italian Jobs, Three Kings.
liberal
@PeakVT:
Damn things are flammable too, apparently.
jake the snake
Several have already mentioned “Bob Le Flambeur.”
Stanley Kubrick said that it was the pertect crime film, and never made another crime film after he saw it.
DPS
Fargo, Dog Day Afternoon, Reservoir Dogs? More about the consequences of a heist that goes wrong right away, I guess.
White Trash Liberal
The Usual Suspects, Rififi, Reservoir Dogs, Raising Arzona, Fargo, Heat…
Does Bonnie and Clyde count… Love that one
Bobby Thomson
The Great Escape – not a theft movie per se, but it follows the same plot. So does Argo, with some revisionist history.
Reservoir Dogs
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Sting
Rounders
The Getaway
Out of Sight
The Big Hit
Is the new Hobbit movie any good? I have trouble with unnecessary trilogies.
gVOR08
@WereBear: Loved The Hot Rock. Was surprised nobody had brought it up.
catclub
@Warren Terra: Beaten by 60 seconds on the syrup front. Curse you!
Bobby Thomson
Oh, and Heat sucked.
piratedan
@WereBear: good call with Charley Varrick
also fond of Gibson’s Payback
MikeJ
@White Trash Liberal:
I love Bonnie & Clyde, but it’s not really about a heist, it’s about their career. There’s no intricate plot to silence the alarm and knock out the guard while one of them is lowered from the skylight or tunnels from underneath. So no.
I will allow the previous mention of The Great Escape though. They were stealing themselves from the prison camp.
Seanly
I luvs me a good heist/con film. Here’s some of my favorites:
Heat
Kelly’s Heroes
The Sting*
Ocean’s Eleven (both)
Snatch
The Great Train Robbery
and many, many of the others mentioned here.
Is Usual Subjects really a heist film? It’s a good movie & I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s not really a heist picture in my mind.
There are a bunch recommended ones I haven’t seen so I must put them on my Netflix list…
* The Sting 2 is one of those movies I can never ever see. I started watching it once, realized it was gonna be terrible and never looked back. To my mind it doesn’t exist and all the good folks at the end of The Sting lived happily ever after. The second Blues Brothers film is the other verbotten movie in my household.
Cassidy
Stealing Hrvard
Tower Heist
Entrapment
Any of the Ocean’s sequels
The Newton Boys
dedc79
Not saying it’s the best of the bunch, but thought that A Simple Plan was highly underrated
Scott P.
You don’t fence them, silly. You use them to build a giant laser.
pamelabrown53
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, the Steve McQueen version is far superior to Pierce Brosnan’s.
Culture of Truth
Yes, Three Kings is a good recent one.
WereBear
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Dang, I love that movie!
Cassidy
So, all joking aside, my favorite heist movie is 3000 Miles to Graceland. I’ve enjoyed most of the others, but they’re pretty standard fare, IMO. I do enjoy the F&F franchise only for the over the top zaniness. I also think Paul Walker is a better actor than he gets credit for. I think that Blue Streak was a lot of fun and Martin Lawrence doesn’t get enough respect. Payback was fun and I’m a little irked about the two Parker movies coming out. I really wish they had settled on a lead actor and made a franchise out of them as the books are fun.
Roger Moore
@liberal:
I suspect it would depend a lot on the scenario you presented for the diamond cartel disappearing. Are you assuming that there was never such a thing, or that the existing one were somehow destroyed by anti-trust regulators? What happens to the hoard of gem-grade diamonds they’ve been keeping off the market to keep prices artificially high: is it dumped on the market all at once, is it sold off over some interval, or is it destroyed? Does somebody continue their campaign to tell
men that they’re scumwomen that their men are scum if they don’t spend two months salary on a diamond when they get engaged?WereBear
@dedc79: I thought it was awesome, and the book, even more so.
kd bart
This story sounds like the first draft of the film Rough Cut.
artem1s
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
worked in the industry for awhile. depends on whether they have laser inscriptions. These can be polished off but it takes time and a stone cutter/polisher.
If they aren’t laser inscripted then they could just sell them piecemeal on the intertubes. If they are patient and have a way to launder the money they might not ever get caught.
If they want to sell bulk they will have to have a fence or front of some kind who operates on the wholesale level. I’m sure they are plenty of them but the law will be looking for large amounts getting dumped on the market.
My bet is they will go through Eastern Europe or the Middle East and sell to individual buyers over the internet. The rest of the diamond world is still pretty well controlled by DeBeers.
But $50M isn’t really that many diamonds, if they are large, good quality gem cut stones. you could carry them around in your pockets. Less than a thousand stones, maybe only a few hundred. $50M in gold, that’s hard to get rid of.
vagabundoloco
@Egypt Steve:
I was going to suggest The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, too, but also wasn’t sure if it technically counts as a heist movie.
I suppose intrigue-filled, spaghetti Western, treasure hunt is a more accurate description, but it’s still a very heisty movie.
One of the greats, regardless. Worth watching, and rewatching.
Unsalted Sinner
Best theft movie? Why, Olsenbanden for full musikk, of course.
AliceBlue
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I agree. How could we forget “Top of the world, ma!”?
Tokyokie
@Seanly: Well, in The Sting 2, Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis and Oliver Stone replace, respectively, Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw, so you pretty much have to wonder, why bother? It comes off like a cheap knockoff of The Sting from a B-movie studio in the Philippines, not so much bad as tawdry, like trying to pass off cheap rayon for hand-woven silk. Had it not borne the imprimatur of The Sting, it would have just been another forgettable made-for-TV sort of thing. As for Blues Brothers 2000, I sat (mostly slept) through it on a trans-Pacific flight. It’s actually worse than you might have imagined. It’s a rare movie indeed whose suckitude comes through with the sound off while being watched in two-minutes bursts from under drooping eyelids.
kd bart
@Tokyokie:
Oliver Reed. Not Oliver Stone.
WereBear
@AliceBlue: Actually, to be pedantic, it is:
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
Though I think it’s funny how movie quotes evolve; sometimes, the civilian version is actually better. More pithy, or something.
But I am a huge Cagney fan, and it’s one of his greatest.
If that battery is dead, it’s gonna have company.
handsmile
Quickly scanning this thread, but I’m surprised (maybe even disappointed) that Inside Job (2010) has yet to be nominated. The most successful heist of our time.
Besides the usual suspects (and The Usual Suspects), I’m glad that a few previous commenters thought to mention The Grifters, Three Kings, and Ronin, all first-rate and perhaps underappreciated examples of the genre.
And I have a real love for the Coen Brothers re-make of The Ladykillers, but that’s mostly for Hanks performing against type and the immortal performance of Irma P. Hall as Mrs. Munson.
kindness
The best theft movies?
Is there a movie of Congress giving the galtians everything after they crashed the world economy in 2008?
Tokyokie
@kd bart: Yeah, of course. Duh. Ken Russell once said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Most actors only have a couple or three tricks, and the director’s job is getting them to perform those tricks on screen. Except Oliver Reed. He only has one trick.” And he seems to be performing that trick somnambulantly in The Sting 2.
e.a.f.
Sounds like Paddy Mitchell is alive and well and still working. He and the Stop Watch gang pulled this off in canada back in the 1970s. They all went to jail but Paddy Mitchell did escape and still is out there. I would suggest, he might be in brussels.
These heists are just works of art. I don’t know why they want to send the guys to jail. Politicians steal so much more.
then of course they never did catch the gang who pulled the vault job in Vancouver either, back in the 1970s.
I realize these are criminal actions, but then so much other crime, by governments and corporations just goes unchallenged.
e.a.f.
Sounds like Paddy Mitchell is alive and well and still working. He and the Stop Watch gang pulled this off in canada back in the 1970s. They all went to jail but Paddy Mitchell did escape and still is out there. I would suggest, he might be in brussels.
These heists are just works of art. I don’t know why they want to send the guys to jail. Politicians steal so much more.
then of course they never did catch the gang who pulled the vault job in Vancouver either, back in the 1970s.
I realize these are criminal actions, but then so much other crime, by governments and corporations just goes unchallenged.
Thor Heyerdahl
@BGinCHI:
Agreed. I watched “Le Cercle Rouge” and thought it was fantastic.
e.a.f.
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: very easily. everybody likes a deal.
Sophist
No love for Big Deal on Madonna Street?
Hungry Joe
This one has everything: intricate, knuckle-biting heist; brilliant, cold-blooded thief; lovable dupe; brave, intrepid hero; thrilling chase: “The Wrong Trousers.”
Thor Heyerdahl
@Egypt Steve:
I’d then put “Once Upon a Time in the West” on the list. Henry Fonda plays a great land thieving character.
PeakVT
@e.a.f.: Paddy Mitchell is dead.
soonergrunt (mobile)
The original version of The Italian Job
gene108
The Other Guys
Die Hard
kuvasz
Bonnie and Clyde.
Villago Delenda Est
@e.a.f.:
This is why Bernie Madoff went to jail. He stole from the rich, not from the poor.
Steeplejack
@Egypt Steve, @The Dangerman:
Heat is well cast from top to bottom–not just De Niro and Pacino but Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman and even Val Kilmer, about whom one producer once allegedly said, “I wouldn’t hire him to star in The Val Kilmer Story.” Kevin Gage is excellent as the psycho Waingro.
As for the ending, it’s pretty much the curse of the genre that they all unravel a bit at the end. So not too many points off for that.
gene108
@vagabundoloco:
I think you’d have to throw in For a Few Dollars More, if you’re going Spaghetti Westerns/heist movies.
Steeplejack
@Tokyokie:
Seconded on all those.
jc
Charley Varrick.
Steeplejack
@Hoodie:
That’s a classic!
“You’re not gonna take it all off, are you, baby?!”
Thor Heyerdahl
@Seanly:
The only good thing about that film was that blues jam with so many of the masters
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
Excellent movie. And underrated.
Shana
Charade
also Diva
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
Clarified.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shana: I would have listed Charade, but I didn’t see it as a pure heist film – the heist itself having taken place 20 years earlier. But I do love the film.
Arclite
The heist in Goodfellas was also at an airport, and also actually happened, and was also for an obscene amt of money at the time.
Here’s the history channel doc on the heist.
Part 1
Part 2
Steeplejack
@dedc79:
Really good movie! I’d forgotten that one.
mandarama
A lot of young women now are moving away from diamonds for their engagement rings, because of the publicity about mining practices, false price elevations, and how the industry funds conflict. For my birthday, I got moissanite earrings–just as beautiful and sparkly, very close to diamonds on the Moh scale so durable, less expensive, and made in labs. It’s silicone carbide, and named after the dude who discovered it in meteor rocks in the 19th century. I mean, science and meteor rocks…that’s just cool, and even more so when you put it up against sweat mining, exploitation, and corporate malfeasance.
When I got married lo these many years ago, we couldn’t afford the traditional engagement ring anyway…but I like sparkly stuff, and moissanite is just cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite
Cassidy
@Steeplejack: Bah, whatever. ;) He’s made some fun movies. No one will ever accuse him of being an amazing actor, but he has a great screen prescence.
Steeplejack
Lots of good movies mentioned in this thread. I thought The Anderson Tapes would go unmentioned, but I see someone did cite it.
On the comic/farcical end of the spectrum, After the Fox (1966) holds up pretty well. Peter Sellers is a master criminal who uses a fake movie production to cover the smuggling of a gold shipment. It’s a weird crazy quilt–written by Neil Simon and directed by Vittorio De Sica, with Victor Mature as a has-been matinee idol who thinks the movie is production is real–and it’s not completely successful, but it’s worth taking a look at when it shows up on TCM.
I was trying to think of the earliest heist movie I could remember, and I guess it all goes back to The Great Train Robbery (1903).
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
Actually, he has been in some good movies; it’s just that his clunker ratio has been pretty high and seems to be skyrocketing. He was good in Boiler Room and Pitch Black. But the Riddick sequels and the Fast/Furious franchise propelled him into full Stallone pomposity mode.
ETA: He does have–or can have–a powerful screen presence. I just hate to see it wasted. Sort of like Jason Statham.
Cassidy
@Steeplejack: Honestly, I think he’s a guy who recognizes his limits as an actor. By alla ccounts he seems like a decent guy and I think he knows his range isn’t great, but he does action really well.
ETA: That being said, I enjoy popcorn fare. I like Riddick and am looking forward to the next movie. I think they make for good sci-fi. A Man Apart was decent. It wasn’t Man on fire, but passable.
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
But even with limited chops as an actor you can do action movies that aren’t completely self-absorbed crap. That’s my beef with most of Diesel’s movies. They seem to scream, “I’m Vin Diesel, bitch! Just my presence on screen is awesome enough.” Ditto for middle- and late-period Stallone.
Compare and contrast with, say, Bruce Willis, who, although I think he is a good actor, can work in the limited-chops zone quite well. (I note that the new Die Hard movie looks like it could actually be worse than anything Stallone or Diesel has done.)
I think for the limited-chops actor it comes down to selection of material. Pick a good script where your limited chops can work, fine. Pick a personal “vehicle,” disaster ahead.
Cassidy
@Steeplejack: I never got that vibe, but that’s a subjective thing. I think he makes fun of himself a lot, tbh. The Pacifier was all about making fun of his typecasting as an action star and it worked. Honestly, I think his movies get better with him more involved. The F&F series was okay. The first one was fun and the 2nd and 3rd sequels were crap, but once he got back involved (4 and after) and was part of the creation team with Justin Lin, the movies got better. I realize they’re not everyone’s thing, but the production did improve. Same goes for Pitch Black. It was good. Riddick was “meh”, but I’m excited for the next one because he’s involved.
Citizen_X
The Getaway. Peckinpah, MacQueen, Ally McGraw, crime across Texas, how can you go wrong?
And Dead Presidents is way underrated.
Hawes
I’d make a distinction (too late for this thread) that there is a difference between a “crime” movie (Goodfellas, any number of noir classics, most mobster movies) and a “caper” movie which revolves around one or two pretty clever thefts. I’m not sure if Heat is a crime movie or a heist movie.
Additionally, I hated The Hot Rock. It was like everything shitty about the ’70s rolled into one sweaty, polyester clad mess.
Jebediah
@jake the snake:
Just put it on my netflix queue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hawes:
Crime movie. The heists and and specifically how they are done are not central to the plot.
phein39
I haven’t seen these mentioned yet:
Die Hard is a pretty good heist-thwarted film,
The Getaway (Steve McQueen version only), is a good after-the-heist film.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, with Eastwood and Bridges, is, well, cute.
How could Office Space not be listed? Could this be the first cyber-heist?
The Villain: Arnold Schwartznegger as “Handsome Stranger,” named after his father, fending off Kirk Douglas.
Haven’t seen Drive, but my teen-agers like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@phein39:
They did it in Superman III.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Imma gotta throw some love out to the Breaking Bad episode, “Dead Fright.” Not a movie, but a damn riveting 40 minutes or so train heist plot with an ending that only further cements why Mrs. Pantload and I refer to the series as “Holy Shit!”, since we tend to wind up saying that each time we watch an ep.
Michael
It’s not a heist movie in the traditional sense, but the first Mission Impossible revolved around first preventing a heist (unsuccessdully) and the perpetrating one, and I thought that was a really fun movie.
Bobby Thomson
@Steeplejack: Supermannnnnnn . . . . .
You may now weep manly tears.
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
I’ll concede your point there. I kind of gave up on the F-F franchise and never made it to the fourth one.
Also had the thought that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson does a good job of handling the limited-chops career conundrum.
Steeplejack
@phein39:
Drive (James Sallis) was a good novel. I haven’t see the movie.
Steeplejack
@Bobby Thomson:
Whaaa . . .?
OzarkHillbilly
@GregB:
Not strictly a heist movie, but it gets my vote. Definitely Scorsese’s best.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@gene108: Not sure either of those count. The people perpetrating the heist were the bad guys in both instances. I think the protagonists have to be the perps in a true heist film.
YellowJournalism
Road to Perdition has a few neat heist scenes.
And if Reservoir Dogs counts because of what happens after the heist, then Charade definitely should count. Both movies get better with each viewing, too!
vtr
Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks
Welcome to Collinwood
Topkapi
crosspalms
Glad somebody mentioned The Hot Rock. “Afghanistan Bananistan.”
Miss_modal
Nine Queens and The Aura (both by Fabian Bielinsky)
Out of Sight and Ocean’s Eleven (Soderbergh)
The Killing (Kubrick)
Snatch
Bob le Flambeur
Does Big Trouble in Little China count?
Quick Change
Usual Suspects
Inception
I’d say The Killing is the best straight-up heist movie; Ocean’s Eleven is the funniest/most fun (Snatch is close, but not fully a heist film); Nine Queens is my favorite on the list but is closer to a con-game film than a heist (The Aura is a heist film but not quite as good) and Inception, of course, is probably the most convoluted/thought-provoking. Special mention to Charley Varrick (because Walter Matthau, duh) and Office Space. Also the heist episode of Community, where they rescue the Dean from Chang.
Miss_modal
Whoops.
Miss_modal
Oh, and Die Hard for the best foiled-heist movie (also, Alan Rickman!)
Mr Stagger Lee
Fun with Dick and Jane with George Segal and Jane Fonda, though the remake with Jim Carrey and Tia Leoni wasn’t bad.
Donny
How about No Country For Old Men?
Scamp Dog
@Cassidy: Did anyone else think “Riddick-ulous”? To be fair, I haven’t seen the movie, just the trailer. Which was enough to make me not want to see it.