The Taking of Pelham 123, with Walter Mathau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Jerry Stiller.
“Even great men have to pee.”
“Stark Raving Mad”. The writing/directing team is one half Doper. Sadly, it was not widely released in the US, but it is available on video here.
A fun movie.
The Anderson Tapes was a good one, and is often overlooked since it deals with much more than just a heist. It looks like they’re remaking it.
If you don’t mind an older French film, check out Rififi. It’s about a bank heist, and the actual heist scene is one of the greatest of its kind (IMHO).
If it doesn’t stretch the category to the breaking point - The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid, with Robert Duvall as Jesse James.
Breaking In is a John Sayle’s movie with Burt Reynolds that is pretty good. It’s about an old theif teaching a new thief the ropes.
To be a completist, I’d second Topkapi and Rififi, classics of the genre. They might not give you what you want all the way through, though. They don’t have the crisp pacing of something like Ocean’s 11.
I think Out of Sight is a brilliant movie. Soderbergh (Ocean’s 11) directed. Clooney is great and it also has Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Dennis Farina, and J.Lo. You’d probably like this a lot if you liked Ocean’s 11. It’s better.
I love the movie Femme Fatale with a cool heist/double cross. But most people seem to hate this movie, so be warned.
Three Kings is on the edge of what I’d call a heist movie, but it’s really good, nonetheless.
Diamond Men is pretty good, but like someone at IMDB wrote, it’s more of a “leisurely paced character study” than a heist movie.
I just discovered that The Hot Rock is finally out on DVD. Cheapo price, so it’s probably a no-frills transfer. Very fun movie, though; the only film I’m aware of based on Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder series.
[was based on Westlake’s Bank Shot. See also at the bottom of [url=http://www.donaldwestlake.com/wks_biblio.html]this page](]Bank Shot[/url) for other films from his books.
You know, just as I was posting, I thought “Wait–wasn’t there also a film of The Bank Shot?” I never saw it, though. Thanks for the link!
Nine Queens is an Argentinian film about 2 con artists. Don’t be put off by the sub-titles; it’s a ton of fun.
Dont forget Ronin .
Some great European car chases set around a plan to retrieve a mystery silver box.
May I also recommend a recent one called “The Good Thief”
The League Of Gentlemen
Wow. Almost all the films mentioned are great examples of the genre. You should write all these down, Emilio, and work your way through the entire list. I tripley second The Killing and Topkapi, two of the greatest examples. Did anyone mention Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly? A masterpiece of the jewel-heist/romance genre. An often overlooked but BRILLIANT heist movie is Breaking In. Made during Burt Reynolds’s obscure years, it’s probably the performance that turned his career around. But not many of the public took the gamble and it kind of slid into obscurity. But written by the brilliant John Sayles, and directed by the nearly as brilliant Bill Forythe, it’s a shamefully overlooked little gem.
Going by Johnny Angel’s definitions above The First Great Train Robbery with Sean Connery is a caper movie. Very well done and popular when it came out but few people seem to remember it today.
These aren’t about heists that go smoothly, but I think they qualify to a degree, and in any case are fun to watch: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and A Fish Called Wanda.
Just rewatched that, for the third or fourth time, recently. The US title, the only title I’d ever heard until your post, was** The Great Train Robbery.** Written as well as directed by Michael Crichton, so it’s not transcendant or anything. But it’s definitely a respectable heist movie. And the camera work is breathtaking. You’ve seen a lot of fights on top of trains, but never anything like this one.
Going in Style.
This was a ‘comfortable’ heist/robbery movie. Very unconventional, having more to do with human nature and the understanding and reckoning of mortality than merely stealing something. This coupled with two impact actors rates this one three thumbs up.
And an emphatic, hearty second for *Kelly’s Heroes * which would easily have been my first choice in the very unlikely event it had not been mentioned already.
The nameless faceless evilness of war is replaced by the very human qualities of desire and compassion, expressed very well in the end when both sides laid down arms and shared the loot, despite seemingly impassable hatred and differences. 5 thumbs up on this one.
Here are two more obscure ones…
Big Deal on Madonna Street, an Italian film from 1958 about a plan to rob a safe - great fun but not for those who dislike sub-titles
Disorganized Crime, forgot the date, but within the past decade. While not in the league of most of the other movies mentioned so far, it’s worth a watch for it’s slightly off-centered approach.
I’ll put my vote in for Rififi as well. Also Bob Le Flambeur, which The Good Thief is a remake of.