The best heist movies, from Rififi to Widows

How we picked the best heist movies

Every film here features a robbery as the core of its story, and each appears on major critics' rankings of the genre. We favoured films that changed how heists were shown on screen, whether through a famous set piece, a new structure or a fresh tone. Listing them in release order avoids pretending that Rififi and Ocean's Eleven are trying to do the same thing.

The classics: 1950 to 1956

The modern heist film begins in this short burst of post-war crime cinema.

• The Asphalt Jungle (1950). John Huston's film follows a jewel robbery and the slow collapse of the crew afterwards. It set the template of the team, the job and the unravelling.
• The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Charles Crichton's Ealing comedy stars Alec Guinness as a mild bank clerk who plans to steal gold bullion. It proved a heist could be gentle and very funny.
• Rififi (1955). Jules Dassin's French thriller is famous for a long, near-silent safecracking sequence. It is still the benchmark for tension built from silence and craft.
• The Ladykillers (1955). Alexander Mackendrick's black comedy has a gang of criminals undone by their elderly landlady. Its dark wit has aged remarkably well.
• The Killing (1956). Stanley Kubrick's racetrack robbery jumps back and forth in time to show each man's part. That fractured structure influenced generations of crime films.

Cool and gritty: 1970 to 1981

Directors in Europe and America made the heist moodier and more personal.

• Le Cercle Rouge (1970). Jean-Pierre Melville's jewel robbery is cool, quiet and fatalistic. Its long, wordless break-in rivals Rififi.
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Sidney Lumet's film, based on a real Brooklyn robbery, shows a bank job that goes wrong almost immediately. Al Pacino makes it a portrait of desperation rather than skill.
• Thief (1981). Michael Mann's debut feature follows a professional safecracker who wants one last score. It established the precise, neon-lit style Mann would return to.

The modern era: 1992 to 2010

Later films played with structure, star power and the genre's own rules.

• Reservoir Dogs (1992). Quentin Tarantino's debut never shows the robbery, only the bloody aftermath. Leaving out the heist turned out to be its boldest idea.
• Heat (1995). Michael Mann's crime epic pits Robert De Niro's crew against Al Pacino's detective. Its downtown street shootout is one of the most celebrated action scenes on film.
• Ocean's Eleven (2001). Steven Soderbergh's remake gathers George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a large cast to rob three Las Vegas casinos. It is the purest example of the heist as stylish fun.
• Inside Man (2006). Spike Lee's bank siege keeps twisting, with Denzel Washington negotiating with Clive Owen's mastermind. It hides its real plan in plain sight.
• The Town (2010). Ben Affleck directs and stars as a Boston bank robber who falls for a witness. It brings the genre back to working-class streets.
• Inception (2010). Christopher Nolan's film is a heist inside dreams, with a crew planting an idea rather than taking anything. It shows how flexible the structure can be.

A recent standout

The genre is still being reinvented, often by directors who use the robbery to talk about something else.

• Widows (2018). Steve McQueen's film follows women who take on their dead husbands' unfinished robbery. It uses the heist to look at grief, politics and money in Chicago.

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