Heist Movies That Make You Root for the Wrong People

The blueprint for every heist movie that followed, built around a nearly wordless 30-minute robbery that's still a masterclass in tension.

Melville's cool, fatalistic crew of criminals pull one last job — moody, minimal, and stylish in a way modern heist films still chase.

James Caan's professional safecracker wants one score big enough to buy out of the life — Mann's debut, and already fully formed.

Pacino's cop and De Niro's crew circle each other across a sprawling LA crime epic that's really about two men who understand each other.

Four women turn to bank robbery after the system fails them at every turn — a heist movie with real fury underneath the fun.

Found money in the snow turns three ordinary men into liars, then worse — a heist gone wrong before it even really begins.

Eleven guys plan an impossible Vegas casino robbery with more charm per minute than any crime movie has any right to have.

A bank robbery that isn't really about the money — Spike Lee turns a hostage standoff into a puzzle box with something to say.

A brain-injured former hockey star gets manipulated into helping rob the bank where he now works — a heist film that's really a character study.

A break-in targeting a safety deposit box uncovers compromising royal photos and government blackmail — based on a real, still partly classified case.

A team steals ideas from inside people's dreams, layering heist mechanics across nested dream levels — pure architecture as thriller.

A Boston bank robber tries to leave the life behind while falling for a woman connected to one of his own jobs — tense, local, well-observed.

A veteran con artist takes a rookie under his wing, and the cons within cons keep the audience guessing right alongside the marks.

Working-class brothers plan an elaborate NASCAR speedway heist — Soderbergh doing Ocean's Eleven with Southern charm and real heart.

A getaway driver who scores every job to his own playlist — car chases choreographed like music videos, propulsive from the first frame.

A small-time crook tries to spring his brother from custody over one increasingly disastrous night in New York — anxious, grimy, unrelenting.

Four college students plan to steal rare books from their university library — a true-crime heist that gets more uncomfortable the closer it looks at itself.

An elite LA sheriff's unit squares off against a crew planning to rob the Federal Reserve — bigger, meaner, and twistier than it first lets on.

Robert Redford's real-life bank robber charms his way through one last string of jobs — a heist film as warm farewell.

Former special forces buddies plan to rob a drug lord's fortune in South America, then have to survive getting it out — greed complicating everything.