The 30 Best Heist Movies Of All Time

Heist movies transcend genre. You can have frivolous, fun heist movies like "The Italian Job," or heartfelt, straight-faced ones like "Point Break." The heist itself can be meticulously planned and meditative, like the one in "Inside Man," or it can fall apart before it even begins, as in "Good Time." Either way, there's little in cinema more satisfying than watching a complex robbery come together — or seeing it crumble into pieces.

To be clear, this is a list of heist films, not movies about con artists. "The Sting," "The Brothers Bloom," and "Gambit" are all brilliant, but they don't contain the standard tropes — planning the mission, gathering a team of colorful experts, and so on. As a result, their big crimes feel more like magic tricks than actual heists. Further, for our purposes, the heist — or heists, if there's more than one — needs to be the focus. "The Usual Suspects" is an excellent movie, but the crimes in it are almost incidental; it's more about the characters and the twisty plot than the jobs themselves.

In the following movies, the plots revolve around robberies, which the films either build to, or which serve as major turning points in the stories. In either case, these are our picks for the greatest heist films of all time, ranked from worst to best.

On the surface "Inside Man" might look like a simple picture-for-hire for director Spike Lee, but it turns out to be a slick combination of "Heat" and "Ocean's Eleven." What sets it apart from other heist films is how the details of the robbery remain a mystery. Employing a playfully non-linear timeline, Lee jumps between the heist itself and its aftermath, showing both how the enigmatic mastermind Dalton (Clive Owen) and his gang hold up the bank, as well as detectives Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Mitchell's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) attempts to piece together the details after the fact.

The structure immediately grabs your attention, and with the hostages and robbers all dressed in the same outfit (painting overalls, masks, and goggles), the gang members' identities are a mystery to both us and the cops. As we see cops interrogate each of the hostages, it quickly becomes apparent that the police are trying to work out who is a criminal and who was a bystander. Similarly, the thieves' motivations are left intentionally obscure, as is the shady personal history of the bank's president (Christopher Plummer) and his professional fixer (Jodie Foster), making life even harder for the detectives.

While the robbery itself is played straight, "Inside Man" is surprisingly light-hearted, and a much wittier film than it needed to be. It's best enjoyed as a kind of puzzle, with misdirects and red herrings relentlessly thrown up on screen, keeping both us and Washington off the scent until the multiple reveals.

This old-fashioned British heist film is different from the film noirs of the same era in that it spends the majority of its runtime delving into the characters' backstories and their preparations for the heist. The robbery's mastermind, Hyde (Jack Hawkins), debuts emerging from a sewer in a pristine dinner suit, a visual that playfully and concisely sums up the film's central focus on class and respectability.

Hyde recruits a variety of fellow veterans-turned-petty-criminals (including three played by Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, and Nigel Patrick) to execute a robbery that's been planned with military precision. Each member of the gang has their own special set of skills that they use during the heist, and the climax is thrillingly action-packed. The gang is clad in trench coats and gas masks, brandishing machine guns and chucking smoke bombs, while Hawkins deploys his baritone voice to threaten the bank tellers.

Rather than featuring a daring escape or having each character brought down by their fatal flaws, the end of "The League of Gentlemen" is rather muted, but on a rewatch that becomes part of the fun. As in the best film noirs and many of the best heist films, the criminals are not foiled by the police or their own mistakes, but instead random chance — in this case, nothing more than a little boy and his innocent hobby.

"The League Of Gentlemen" is a witty, charming film that never feels twee or mannered, chiefly thanks to the grounded performances of its ensemble cast. Hawkins in particular stands out, imbuing his character with just the right balance of dry humor and gravitas.

Soderbergh's rough and ready heist film (referred to as "Ocean's 7-11" in the film, making for a nice self-referential moment) is a lot of fun, serving as a neat subversion of the tropes Soderbergh used in his earlier movies. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver play an unlikely pair of brothers who plan to rob a NASCAR racetrack, while Daniel Craig is a revelation as a flamboyant explosives expert — a role that almost certainly played a part in him getting cast in "Knives Out".

Soderbergh could so easily have turned "Logan Lucky" into a sneering parody of its southern characters, but instead plays things perfectly. All of the elements of small town life that lead everyone to underestimate Tatum and his gang help the plan rather than hinder it. The lack of cell phones, the corrupt prison system, and Tatum's simple nature mean that the FBI are unable to pin down the specifics of the burglary. "Logan Lucky" is a fun and surprisingly touching film — even Seth McFarlane's irritating British accent can't ruin it.

Our first entry from Ealing Studios, "The Lavender Hill Mob" is a light comedy with an ingenious premise and a charming central performance from Alec Guinness. Here, Guinness plays the unassuming bank official Henry Holland, who concocts a fool-proof plan to steal the gold bullion he has doggedly protected for his entire career. When he meets souvenir manufacturer Albert Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), Holland hatches a scheme to ship the gold out of the country by melting it down in Pendlebury's foundry and turning it into paperweights of the Eiffel Tower. With a pair of professional thieves (Sid James and Alfie Bass) as accomplices, Holland and Pendlebury execute the perfect robbery; however, as in many heist films, the aftermath proves problematic.

Full of the dry British humor that was Ealing Studios' mainstay, Charles Crichton's film almost serves as a curative to the blacker-than-black comedy of "The Ladykillers." In the film's stand-out scene, Holland and Pendlebury frantically pursue a group of schoolgirls down the steps of the Eiffel Tower, running round and round the staircase until they're giggling hysterically like a pair of children. That's the tone of the entire film: chaotic, childish, and innocent mania that belies a genuine sense of urgency and suspense.

A huge influence on "The Italian Job," "Hot Fuzz," and practically every other British crime comedy that followed, "The Lavender Hill Mob" is one of the most feel-good heist films of all time. It's a lightweight movie, but you'll still find yourself hoping that Pendlebury and Holland will get away with it every time you watch.

Ben Affleck's sophomore directorial effort is one of his very best films, albeit a much simpler one than his debut feature, "Gone Baby Gone." Affleck plays Doug, the leader of a professional gang of thieves that operates out of Charlestown. Clinical and efficient, the crooks' well-oiled machine hits a snag when Affleck falls for the cashier at their latest target (Rebecca Hall).

There are similarities between "The Town" and "Thief," but the former doesn't have the stoicism or the cynical edge of Mann's film. What it does have is a great sense of urgency and a palpable feeling of desperation and claustrophobia. Caan's safecracker was an outsider, while Doug is thoroughly embedded in the local criminal culture. However much he might want to leave this life behind, he has roots in Boston; there's even an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) intent on putting him behind bars.

Like the heists themselves, "The Town" unfolds with an impressive, brutal efficiency, sketching out character backstories quickly and concisely. Jeremy Renner gives a career-best performance as Doug's volatile second-in-command. He's quick-tempered and a little unhinged, but Renner brings a warmth and pathos to the character. The scenes of the gang undertaking their heists with surgical precision are thrilling, and the editing is frenetic but clean; you never lose track of what's going on, even when all hell breaks loose. There's a muscular dynamism to these set pieces, with each robbery getting a distinct look thanks to the creative disguises the gang wears. It all builds to a nail-biting finale and the group's most ambitious score yet: robbing Fenway Park, "the cathedral of Boston."

In Michael Mann's masterpiece "Heat," Neil McAuley (Robert DeNiro) says, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." Mann's debut film, "Thief," might not be as wholly satisfying as his later feature, but it's a much more potent exponent of this ethos, and all the more poignant for it. It's also Mann's purest heist film, as slick, efficient, and economical as its protagonist.

James Caan plays Frank, a newly released safecracker who dreams of an idyllic life, a fantasy that he must discard once his enemies try to use it as leverage. A spiritual successor to the mythic heroes of Jean Pierre Melville's existential crime films, Frank is a stoic, consummate professional, as evidenced in the sequences showing him at work. Frank's methodical approach to his job impresses a local mob boss (Robert Prosky, equal parts amiable and terrifying), who makes him an offer that's too good to be true and too enticing to refuse. 

A lean, pared back thriller, "Thief" might be the most authentic heist film on this list. The robberies are treated as another mundane part of Frank's life, and Caan's unshowy, quiet proficiency when it comes to cracking safes is uncannily realistic.

One of Kubrick's first films, "The Killing" is one of the formative heist films, laying the foundations for pretty much the whole genre. Sterling Hayden's smooth Johnny Clay recruits a desperate group of first-time criminals to assist in his plan to steal two million dollars from a racetrack. The beauty of this film lies in the way Kubrick parses out details of the heist bit by bit, along with the non-linear structure which shows different elements of the heist unravelling simultaneously while a droll narrator lays out the timing of the heist itself.

Of the unlikely group of robbers, the uniquely odd Timothy Carey comes close to stealing the show as the rat-faced sharpshooter, but the always great Elisha Cook Jr., who plays a henpecked cashier who constantly has to placate his calculating wife (Marie Windsor), ends up being the standout. Cook gets the most pathetically triumphant moment of the film, while Windsor is just about the most venal, avaricious character in a movie full of them. Kubrick's stylish cinematography and sense of irony make "The Killing" eminently watchable, and the final scene is one of the most unbearably tense in his filmography, as Clay's plan comes crashing down because of one tiny oversight.

In a genre that largely deals in black and white, it's refreshing to come across a film in which all of the main characters are likeable and feel like real people. This modern day western adds an interesting little crinkle into the premise — rather than one big robbery, brothers Toby and Tanner (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) commit a series of bank heists on the road, targeting the bank chain that harassed their mother and put her in an early grave. Pursued by an irascible sheriff played by Jeff Bridges and his Mexican partner (Jay Birmingham), the brothers move quickly from bank to bank, burying their getaway cars after each robbery, and laundering the money in Las Vegas to avoid detection. 

Pine is almost unrecognizable, giving an understated, measured performance as the brains behind the operation that's very different from his usual cocky on-screen persona, but it's Foster who steals the film as his utterly fearless older brother. A lesser film might have made Tanner unhinged or psychotic, but "Hell or High Water" takes pains to show you how much the brothers care for one another. Despite Tanner's obvious issues, he has a heart and looks out for his younger brother.  Often feeling like a heist film directed by the Coen brothers — in the best way possible — "Hell or High Water" is a meditative, wry take with a sting in its tail.

A Canadian thriller with a neat premise, "The Silent Partner" follows Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) an unassuming bank teller who learns that his bank is going to be robbed when he notices a threatening message written on a payslip while he's cleaning up the work floor. The next day, rather than putting his transactions into his till, he deposits the money into a lunchbox under his workstation, so when the bank robber turns up, he only gets a fraction of the money while Gould quietly leaves with the lion's share.

Once the robber (Christopher Plummer) learns he has been cheated, he tracks down Cullen and threatens to kill him unless he gives the money back. So begins a desperate game of cat and mouse as Cullen tries to stay ahead of the thief and the law while the robber is determined to get his money at any cost.

A clever, witty screenplay from Curtis Hanson (the writer-director of "LA Confidential") demonstrates all the different variables and elements that can go wrong in planning a heist. Both characters have their agendas, and neither is depicted as an idiot. They each get the better of the other at various points in the film.

Plummer is wonderfully unhinged as the intense psychopathic bank robber who employs a variety of disguises throughout the film, from Father Christmas to dressing in drag. The film makes great use of his striking blue eyes and makes you wish he'd played a villain more often.

"The Silent Partner" is a brilliant, underseen heist film with an elegant plot, some genuinely unpleasant moments, and a great, satisfying payoff.

A lesser known entry, "The Hot Rock" is one of screenwriter William Goldman's wittiest and most playful screenplays, and one of the most outright funny heist movies of all time. Based on the Donald E. Westlake story, but much more lighthearted in tone than it's source material, "The Hot Rock" technically consists of four heists — its hapless band of criminals attempts to steal the same diamond from a museum, a prison, a police station, and, finally, a bank. As their patron (Moses Gunn) says, "I've heard of the habitual criminal, but I never thought I'd be involved in the habitual crime." 

Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Liebman, and Paul Sand make a brilliantly funny team, constantly bickering and irritating each other. Segal is at his neurotic best as the lock picker, go-between, and grifter (the moment when he freaks out while picking a museum lock is hysterical). Liebman is a blast as the single-minded getaway driver, and Sand's ineffectual explosives expert is so well observed that it's a wonder that he didn't go on to greater things. Redford is the glue that holds the whole film together, though, largely playing it straight but allowing himself a moment of levity in the film's final moments, which is one of the most well-earned feel-good endings to a heist film ever. Shamefully underseen, "The Hot Rock" deserves way more exposure.

"The Friends Of Eddie Coyle" is our second Peter Yates film in a row, but tonally it's completely different from "The Hot Rock." While "The Hot Rock" is a fun, laidback romp, "The Friends Of Eddie Coyle" is one of the most pessimistic, bleak crime stories ever committed to film — even the title is ironic. 

An adaptation of a George V. Higgins novel, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" follows the titular protagonist (Robert Mitchum) as he struggles to get out of jail by snitching on his fellow thieves after a series of bank robberies. Yates goes to great lengths to show how the grift never ends on either side of the law; we see informants and cops lie and cheat just as much as the thieves. "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is memorable for the innovative, albeit ruthless, methods employed by the bank robbers — rather than using any high tech gadgets or heavy duty firearms, they simply hold the bank manager's family hostage. 

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" cast a huge shadow over the crime cinema to come, especially modern classics like "The Town" and "Killing Them Softly," which lift plot elements from this movie wholesale. Yates might not be the most celebrated film director, but his two entries on this list demonstrate his versatility. This is his crowning achievement: an unapologetically downbeat, gritty neo-noir that gave Mitchum his last truly iconic role, and that features excellent supporting turns from Richard Jordan and Peter Boyle.

Despite having a reputation as one of the most iconic heist movies of all time, Quentin Tarantino's debut film doesn't even show you the heist itself, instead focusing on the gang's preparations and the chaotic aftermath. Whether he acknowledges it or not, Tarantino borrowed much of the story from Ringo Lam's "City On Fire," but there's little doubt that this is a superior film — the dialogue crackles right from the pre-titles scene, and Tarantino conveys the chaos of the bank robbery without ever showing the characters stepping into the bank. 

As with the best heist films, the cracks start to show after the robbery itself, and while the dialogue, pop culture references, and infamous torture scene are rightly celebrated, what often goes unmentioned is Tarantino's incredibly mature storytelling ability — the non-linear narrative structure and his smart use of flashbacks reveal each of the robbers background, and informs their characters in the present without requiring too much exposition. Hugely influential, "Reservoir Dogs" is still Tarantino's leanest, most muscular film.

The interesting thing about heist movies is that the heist itself can just as easily serve as a catalyst for comedy. "The Ladykillers" is a perfect example. Alec Guinness' comically sinister professor plans a bank robbery in the house of the elderly Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), and uses her as an unwitting courier for the money. The robbery goes off without a hitch, but when she discovers what's up, the gang has to get rid of her. 

This premise could easily be a lot darker, but in the hands of Alexander Mackendrick it becomes a morbidly funny comic masterpiece, as the gang decide that it's infinitely preferable to bump each other off than to murder an elderly woman. The whole gang is brilliantly cast (Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom being the standouts), with each of their personality flaws evident from very early on. Lom's humorless gangster in particular harkens back to classic Hollywood heist films, as the professional hood "can't stand" little old ladies. 

In fact, a huge amount of the film's success comes from characters playing it straight amidst the increasingly absurd situation they find themselves in. This applies to the central heist as well. "The Ladykillers" proves that you can build a great comedy around a well-planned heist — the robbery itself is genuinely compelling and only falls apart because of the human element, just as in the films from the classic Hollywood era.

One of the most underrated film noirs of all time, Robert Siodmak's "Criss Cross" has Burt Lancaster as his usual, perpetually doomed self, playing the disillusioned hero who takes a job as a driver for an armored car company when his femme fatale ex Yvonne DeCarlo walks back into his life. The best thing about "Criss Cross" isn't the heist itself (even though the gas masks and smoke bombs make for some great visuals), but the story leading up to it — the only reason that Lancaster even pitches the plan is to explain his presence in DeCarlo's home to her gangster husband Dan Duryea. 

The robbery isn't just incidental, though, as we see a distinguished heist planner (Alan Napier) meticulously plotting the robbery down to the last detail. The most suspenseful scene in the film is the one immediately following the heist, as Lancaster is recovering in hospital and is visited by several people, one of whom may or may not be a hitman. "Criss Cross" is a fatalistic, often elegiac walk into the dark side; Lancaster has so many opportunities to go straight, but his descent back into his old ways is grimly inevitable. Dan Duryea is brilliantly slimy as the gang's ringleader, and DeCarlo makes for an oddly sympathetic femme fatale. The ending is both tragic and poetic — it's pretty much the perfect film noir.

Once called the greatest film ever made by Jean Pierre Melville, there's no denying the impact John Huston's film noir made on cinema. It features all the archetypes associated with heist films, from Doc (Sam Jaffe) as the mastermind with a weakness for pretty girls to the Sterling Hayden's Dix, a heavy with hidden depths. Featuring the iconic line that describes crime as "just a left-handed form of human endeavor," "Asphalt Jungle" is the definitive heist film, and a clear influence on "Reservoir Dogs," among many others. 

A formidable rogues gallery is played to perfection by a superb cast; there's the corrupt lawyer (Louis Calhern) who wants to bankroll the robbery despite having no money of his own, the pitiful bookie (Marc Lawrence), the genial hunchbacked getaway driver (James Whitmore), and slick safecracker Louis (Anthony Caruso), not to mention a young Marilyn Monroe in one of her first film roles. 

The necessities of the Hays production code meant that the robbers had to either go to prison or get killed before the end of the film. However Huston takes pains to portray the law enforcement as either puritanical or corrupt, while the thieves themselves are all much more sympathetic; one of the "villains" doggedly searches for his family farm out of a childish sense of nostalgia, even as the net tightens around him. Pulpy, bitterly ironic, and heartbreaking in equal measure, "Asphalt Jungle" might just be the greatest heist film of all time.