The 12 best heist movies ever made in no particular order

The heist movie is so deliciously satisfying because it’s all about solving a puzzle – without having to put in the actual brain power yourself.

A complex plot slowly reveals itself and along the way, there are some twists and turns, and when the filmmakers hold something back from the audience, some banger surprises.

It is a teeming genre though and the below list is in no way exhaustive, nor does it include TV shows which are far fewer and in between because it is hard to sustain a heist story over multiple seasons (although the very excellent French series Lupin is a rare exception).

What this list is is a fun jumping-off point for some weekend viewing and an invitation to explore the deep reaches of one of our favourite forms of storytelling.

OCEANS SERIES

Ocean’s 11 is one of the most rewatchable movies thanks to its jazzy vibes and the playful chemistry between its ensemble, led by George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

The two sequels are fine but unmemorable (except maybe for Vincent Cassel’s artistic calisthenics) and if you weren’t one of those of people consumed by weird “woke” outrage, you’d have realised Ocean’s 8 is a perfectly fun flick.

Watch: Ocean’s 11 on Prime, Ocean’s 12 on digital rental, Ocean’s 13 on Stan and Ocean’s 8 on Netflix

AMERICAN ANIMALS

With a hot young cast including Evan Peters and Barry Keoghan, Bart Layton’s film documents the real-life heist of a rare book collection from a Kentucky university in 2004.

It has an unconventional structure, splicing pieces-to-camera from the actual former students in between scenes with their fictionalised screen counterparts. The heist sequence itself is a masterwork of freneticism and suspense.

Watch: Digital rental

HELL OR HIGH WATER

Brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are small-time bank robbers who cut a path through West Texas, holding up branches for a few thousand at a time.

Rangers are hot on their trail but the film, written by Yellowstone creator Tyler Sheridan, is laced with moral ambiguity. It’s a tale of desperation where the haves-and-have-nots are entrenched in a desolate world.

Watch: Netflix

OUT OF SIGHT

Every time Jennifer Lopez makes another insipid rom-com, you remember that her acting career is punctuated with flashes of brilliance. Out of Sight, adapted from an Elmore Leonard book, is one of those rare moments.

In Steven Soderberg’s movie, JLo as a US marshal is the perfect foil to Clooney’s bank robber. It’s a delicious cat-and-mouse game.

Watch: Binge, Paramount+

WIDOWS

Directed by British filmmaker Steve McQueen, Widows is a combustible mix of action blockbuster and serious character-driven storytelling.

Viola Davis leads a team of women who target a multi-million-dollar haul when their husbands are killed during a previous heist. No one expects them to pull it off because no one is looking at them. Widows nails the plot mechanisms and performances (Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell, Cynthia Erivo) but it’s also a searing portrait of Chicago as a city divided by class and race.

Watch: Netflix, Stan

HEAT

$12.2 million is a big take and a big take requires some of the most epic shoot-outs committed to celluloid. Robert DeNiro is a career criminal and after a series of cock-ups, he’s ready to quit the game – but only after one last massive score. Al Pacino is a cop who’s on the hunt.

When you put them in each other’s paths, it’s fireworks. There’s animosity but also a begrudging respect, as well as the recognition that they’re not that dissimilar.

With a massive cast including Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenneman and a baby Natalie Portman, Michael Mann’s masculine, three-hour action epic is a classic.

Watch: Disney+, Stan

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR

There are lots of merits to the original 1968 movie starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, but there is something very sexy about the 1999 remake with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. They’re so evenly matched and, be honest, you too were seduced by his whisking her away on a glider to Martinique.

He’s a rich guy bored of the conquests in the M&A space so orchestrates a heist of a Monet from New York City’s Met Museum. She’s an insurance investigator out to catch him. It’s an intoxicating game, leading to a genuinely smart climax involving a Magritte painting, Nina Simone’s Sinnerman, and a well-placed pencil.

Watch: MGM+, digital rental

A FISH CALLED WANDA

The heist went off well enough and the gang of thieves made off with millions in diamonds. It’s afterwards when everything goes tits-up – which is, of course, what happens when everyone decides to betray one another.

Mishaps, affairs, poor decisions and general incompetence lead to a wild, convoluted scheme to recover the jewels.

The team-up of Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin and John Cleese were so funny and creatively successfully, they reunited for a spiritual follow-up in 1997, Fierce Creatures, which has no direct relationship in story but plenty of farcical vibes.

Watch: SBS On Demand, MGM+

THREE KINGS

Three Kings was David O. Russell’s third feature and it manages to be a kinetic heist movie that shifts into a politically engaged story about the futility and brutality of war.

It stars Clooney, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze (yes, that Spike Jonze, the filmmaker) as American soldiers on the ground after the end of the First Gulf War. They set off to “liberate” a stash of Kuwaiti gold bullion but find themselves embroiled in the chaos of the aftermath, surrounded by vulnerable civilians abandoned by the military.

Watch: Stan

RESERVOIR DOGS

Many Quentin Tarantino movies could slot into the heist genre (definitely Jackie Brown), but Reservoir Dogs has a certain attitude and vibe that makes it mandatory viewing.

Tarantino meant for it to shake up the genre. In that he succeeded because Reservoir Dogs became a defining reference point for eons of pop culture that followed. The song, the swagger, the names. Unforgettable.

Watch: Stan

LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS

Guy Ritchie’s first movie remains his best. Everything that followed felt like Ritchie trying to recapture the style of the movie that catapulted him into cinema history.

It was fresh and frantic, a new way to tell a story about London’s underclass that wasn’t a woe-is-me kitchen sink drama. The plot follows a group of friends who hatch a plan to rob a gang next door when one of them loses half a million quid in a card game. The stakes are high and so are the antics.

Watch: Stan

BOTTLE ROCKET

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson met at the University of Texas and after graduation, they made a short film which screened at, among other places, Sundance. Anderson expanded the concept into his first feature, which was also the acting debuts for Wilson and his brother, Luke Wilson.

It’s a scrappy but endearing movie in which two friends aspire to great heists but really don’t know what they’re doing, until they meet Mr. Henry, a part-time criminal played by James Caan.

Bottle Rocket is where Anderson started and you can see the idiosyncratic rhythms and choices here that he would later develop into his signature style in movies such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Watch: Digital rental