One of the first films ever produced, 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, revolved around a robbery of a steam locomotive train, and ever since then the genre has continued to be one of the most enduring in cinema. It isn’t hard to see why. The core elements of the heist film are some of the most solidly pleasurable devices in big-screen entertainment.
They often consist of the wily and charismatic veteran thief, putting together a crew for a ‘last job’; a love interest who is either unaware of his or her plans or an enthusiastic participant in them; a supporting cast of various degrees of eccentricity or unreliability; an implacable nemesis, whether a lawman or a rival; thrilling action scenes; and exotic locations.
Here are half a dozen of the best, ranging from cutting-edge cool to a Sixties classic.
Heat (1995) – Amazon Prime
For many, this is the heist film. Michael Mann’s smart, icy picture has been ripped off and imitated more times than he would care to remember, but this first onscreen pairing of Robert de Niro, as a brilliant and emotionally isolated master criminal, and Al Pacino, as his wired cop nemesis, remains the high point of his, or most other people’s, careers.
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