14 Best Heist Movies for a Truly Thrilling Summer

Nearly two decades after its release, Ocean’s Eleven remains one of the greatest modern heist movies in recent memory. A remake of an old Rat Pack film, the modern version of Ocean’s Eleven was a star-studded smash hit. George Clooney leads the billing as the titular Danny Ocean, engineer of a major Las Vegas casino heist.

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Al Pacino has been in more than his share of star-studded blockbusters. Some of them have gone better than others. Fortunately, the cops-and-robbers thriller Heat, which also stars Robert De Niro, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd, Val Kilmer, and a host of other stars, is one of the good ones.

Perhaps the quintessential heist movie, Bonnie and Clyde caused a sensation upon its release in 1967. The sexual chemistry between Dunaway and Beatty, the violence never before seen in a film, and the exploits undertaken by the dashing pair made it an instant classic.

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Inside Man is directed by Spike Lee and stars Denzel Washington, so it’s easy to go in with high expectations. Don’t worry: The film lives up to them. The complex plot and elaborate heist take place in the high-stakes world of Wall Street. There are enough twists and surprises in this one to keep you thinking for a while.

The Italian Job is a British heist classic with a superb cast that includes young Michael Caine. The Italian job in question is a daring robbery of a gold shipment in Turin, Italy. Not modern enough for you? Try the American remake, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron and is actually quite good in its own right.

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Quentin Tarantino’s extended homage to the blaxplotation films of the 1970s is also an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch. It’s the only adaptation that Tarantino has ever filmed, and the source material helps keep the plot somewhat grounded as Tarantino’s signature style takes over. Our protagonist is an airline attendant with a secret smuggling operation. Jackie Brown may seem like a small-time girl, but soon she’s outsmarting everyone around her.

Based on another novel by Elmore Leonard, Out of Sight is a clever comedy heist film. It stars George Clooney, just a few years before his Ocean’s Eleven heist high-water mark, and Jennifer Lopez, who hadn’t yet Gigli’d her way out of a Hollywood career. It also features a cameo by Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette—a part he also played in Jackie Brown.

Revered among Quentin Tarantino fans as one of his best works, Reservoir Dogs is a heist flick that delivers everything you’d expect from Tarantino. It’s full of wisecracks, idle conversations, and gut-wrenching violence. It hasn’t aged perfectly, but it’s a great snapshot of Tarantino’s work at a time when he was just reaching the height of his powers. 

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Beloved by critics and widely considered one of the greatest heist films ever made, Rififi was shot by an American director working in France while he was blacklisted during the Red Scare. Rififi’s prolonged heist sequence, which is presented without dialogue or music, ranks as one of the greatest sequences in movie history.

Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway are the stars of this clever heist film, which follows a bank executive and an insurance investigator in a cat-and-mouse game after the former steals millions on the sly. Like a few other 1960s heist classics, this one got a reboot around the turn of the millennium–you’ll see Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the 1999 version.

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Slick and stylish, Baby Driver revels in being heist junk food for car chase fans. It’s fast-moving, colorful, and fun. If it’s sometimes over the top, then at least it’s in on the joke, and the upbeat soundtrack and gleeful tone make it the perfect fix for heist junkies.

Robert Pattinson embarks on a dark and gritty odyssey across New York City in this thrilling crime caper by the Safdie brothers. Pattinson plays Connie Nikas who, along with his brother Nick, robs a bank in Queens. Though they escape from the scene of the crime with the cash in hand, their getaway quickly goes south. Nick is busted and thrown in jail, while Connie eludes capture. Now, he's in a race to avoid the police and break free his brother. 

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An early effort from legendary director Stanley Kubrick, The Killing is a thrilling film noir about a heist at a racetrack. The heist is successful, but there’s no such thing as clean getaway, and the perpetrators soon find themselves on the run from the law–and from each other.

Dog Day Afternoon is about a heist gone wrong: Al Pacino stars as a bank robber whose getaway plan goes awry. He and one remaining accomplice hole up in the bank as the police arrive and begin a prolonged standoff that transfixes witnesses and TV audiences. The weirdest part? It’s based on a true story.

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