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The Playlist<\/a> recently posted their choices for The 35 Best Heist Movies<\/a>. There are a lot of great movies on this list. In an effort to narrow it down, I decided to choose from movies where one heist was the focus of the film.<\/p>\n So using just their list here are three of my favorites…<\/p>\n \u201cRififi\u201d (1955)<\/strong> \u201cThe Getaway\u201d (1972)<\/strong> \u201cThe Asphalt Jungle\u201d (1950)<\/strong> The Playlist recently posted their choices for The 35 Best Heist Movies. There are a lot of great movies on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[51,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18356"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18359,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356\/revisions\/18359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nYes, we know. This is the grandaddy of all heist films, the one that tops everyone\u2019s list and is name dropped constantly. But if you haven\u2019t seen the film (and by God, you should remedy that situation quickly) don\u2019t get suckered into thinking this is just some cinematic touchstone that everyone talks about but no one really watches. If anything, Jules Dassin\u2019s \u201cRififi\u201d remains the template and the standard, with a centerpiece heist sequence that is still yet to be topped. The plot is standard stuff: four guys target a jewelry store, plan the perfect job and things don\u2019t quite go as planned. But Dassin\u2019s masterstroke is the 30-minute, nearly completely silent heist (no dialogue, no soundtrack) that brilliantly throws viewers right into the heart-pounding, tension filled robbery. A masterpiece in every sense of the word, \u201cRififi\u201d remains the torchbearer for the genre with very good reason.<\/p>\n
\nBased on a novel by the poet laureate of hard pulp Jim Thompson, directed by feminist favorite Sam Peckinpah, and starring a Steve McQueen firmly in the midst of a cocaine-soaked marriage breakdown, \u201cThe Getaway\u201d rises out of a dense fog of testosterone: it doesn\u2019t get any more boys-night-in than that. Ali McGraw (somewhat miscast, to occasionally charming effect) uses her wiles to free husband \u201cDoc\u201d McCoy (McQueen) from prison. After a botched bank robbery, the bickering pair go on the run with the loot, pursued by cannon-fodder cops and a variety of goons, led by the astonishingly repellent and malevolent Rudy (Al Letteria). Perhaps inevitably, it all culminates in a bloodbath in El Paso, and a tender reconciliation for the then real-life lovers. This is by no means top-tier Peckinpah; both he and McQueen were desperate for a no-nonsense hit after the commercial failure of \u201cJunior Bonner\u201d (1972). Nevertheless, all the staples are there \u2014 stunningly edited montages, patented slo-mo bullet ballet \u2014 and \u201cThe Getaway\u201d is a solid, straight-ahead action flick that\u2019s always fun to wander into the middle of on late night T.V. Possibly not Robert Evans\u2019 favorite film though\u2026<\/p>\n
\nJohn Huston\u2019s 1950 noir may be better known now for the films it influenced (at least half the titles on this list, notably \u201cRififi\u201d), and for an early luminous performance by Marilyn Monroe, but the film, creaky though it is in places and marred by some didactic, moralistic dialogue, is still a compelling piece in its own right. The narrative arc, (a man has a plan, gets a gang together, pulls off a heist, only to have chance and human nature foil the scheme) has become pretty much the heist film template, but details like the corruption of the police force and the careful characterizations of the gang members keep the proceedings fresh. And while censor-friendly debates on the nature of criminality abound, it\u2019s clear where Huston\u2019s sympathy actually lies; it is power, not lawbreaking, that corrupts here, so the only people with any sort of a code are those on the very bottom of the food chain: Sterling Hayden\u2019s petty hood; the girl who loves him; the hunchbacked getaway driver and the safe-cracking family man. Disgust is reserved for those further up the hierarchy, whose degenerate desires eventually thwart them (both the mastermind and the front\/fence character \u2013 a suave Louis Calhern \u2013 are undone by their interest in young nubile girls), while Hayden\u2019s Dix is rewarded for his staunch, if misplaced loyalty, and perverse nobility, with the kind of tragic, theatrical, poetic death; the greatest honor a movie criminal in oppressive \u201850s America could hope for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"