Movies are a great source of getting away from all the worries; you only need to sit and relax for hours. Here are some best heist movies of all time for the cinephiles, especially the one who loves the heist genre.
Everyone loves to watch heist movies be it a bank robbery, great train robbery, jewel theft, or long con; as the saying goes, “laws are meant to be broken.” So cinephiles enjoy watching this saying go all true in the heist movies listed below. Everyone should respect the laws and follow them, but just for fun, the best heist movies bring a lot of thrilling experience and makes everyone love this genre.
The Asphalt Jungle is widely considered and agreed upon as the first film noir in cinema history. Some of the best heist movies are based on true stories. Such heist films are “Catch Me If You Can” and “Dog Day Afternoon.” The Killing starring Sterling Hayden, is considered one of the best heist movies even now.
So, let us have some best heist movies in film history. Here we begin with our journey through the best 30 heist films, be READY!
Best Heist Movies
The fun heist movies like “The Italian Job” or emotional, straight-faced ones like “Point Break” are famous and also included in the best heist movies list in many peoples’ opinion. Also, “The Sting” by director George Roy Hill and “Gambit” by Ronald Neame are all amazing, but they lack something that makes them less of the all-time best heist movies, and more of a comical crime drama about the ultimate con, and not a heist.
A perfect heist movie includes the main target ->
- planning and plotting
- gathering a strong team
- one final job, the execution of the heist, which could be successful or not, making you sit on the edges of your seats to find out the final twist
Such movies with all these twisty plots turn out to be the best heist movies and make the films bumper hits.
For the heist movie enthusiasts here, we bring the best heist movies compiled in one place for you to enjoy without wasting time finding the best ones. Just go for any movie listed below. Here we go!
30. Out of Sight (1998)
- IMDb: 7.0/10
- Cast: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
Plot:
The country’s successful career bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) busts out of jail. He kidnaps a Federal Marshal, Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). She is smart and sexy. Their time during this kidnapping makes them share moments of mutual attraction, and they risk everything to find out what’s between them.
29. The Great Train Robbery (1978)
- IMDb: 6.9/10
- Cast: Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down
- Director: Michael Crichton
Plot:
It is a darkly funny crime film sets in England in the 1850s. Sutherland and Connery plan to rob a moving train carrying a large amount of gold in Victoria, England. They agree upon the requirement of wax impressions of keys, coffins, dead cats, and a great deal of planning to pull off the heist, which seems impossible due to high security. Still, they are sure to execute the robbery according to their full-proof plan.
28. The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
- IMDb: 6.8/10
- Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, Denis Leary
- Director: John McTiernan
Plot:
It is a romantic crime thriller. A billionaire playboy Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan,) to make his life interesting and entertain himself, decides to steal a Monet from a museum. He might get his match in a seductive insurance investigator for the museum’s insurance company, Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), who gets into the romantic undertone in this game of back and forth between them.
27. Ant-Man (2015)
- IMDb: 7.3/10
- Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll
- Director: Peyton Reed
Plot:
A superhero action thriller Marvel movie. A master thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) just been released from prison and recruited by Pym, who was forced out of his own company. Pym trains Lang and arms him with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in size but increase in strength and control the ant army, hence, becoming Ant-Man. He has to pull off a heist to save the world by perfecting his skills on the suit and its use. Will he be able to do so?
26. Army of Thieves (2021)
- IMDb: 6.4/10
- Cast: Matthias Schweighöfer, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee
- Director: Matthias Schweighöfer
Plot:
This is a prequel to the famous movie “Army of the Dead” by Zack Snyder; a mysterious woman gets into the life of a common man named Sebastian (working for hours in a bank job leading a boring life), and changes his life totally to the next level. They hire him to his crew to crack legendary safes that have been locked for over a decade because of their trillions of possible combinations, making it impossible for them to open.
25. Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
- IMDb: 7.4/10
- Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame
- Director: Robert Wise
Plot:
A fallen former cop David Burke (Ed Begley) needs quick money to plot a heist in an upstate New York bank for which he requires a team. So, he recruits an ex-con racist man Earl Slater (Robert Ryan), and a night club singer Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte), who is not ready to be part of this plan but is forced into it because of his debts.
24. The Bank Job (2008)
- IMDb: 7.2/10
- Cast: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore
- Director: Roger Donaldson
Plot:
A financially struggling car dealer settled in London, leading a simple life with his kids. A wife who was once a self-reformed petty criminal. Terry Leather (Jason Statham) strangles into a foolproof bank heist on London’s Baker Street when his ex-girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows) offers him to help her with the execution of the heist. Though, the revelation of dirty secrets along a treasure trove changes the game and makes them deal with strange situations they never thought of before.
23. Tower Heist (2011)
- IMDb: 6.2/10
- Cast: Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck
- Director: Brett Ratner
Plot:
John Kovaaks (Ben Stiller), manager of a high-rise Condo in Ney York city for more than a decade, is in a good relationship with one of the tenants at the Condo named Arthur Shaw, who gets arrested for fraud of 20 million dollars from his investors. They hire a crook named Slide (Eddie Murphy) to help them catch Shaw.
22. Gambit (1966)
- IMDb: 7.1/10
- Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Herbert Lom
- Directors: Ronald Neame
Plot:
An English cat burglar Harry Dean (Michael Caine), set off to steal priceless art from the world’s wealthiest man, Mr. Shahbandar (Herbert Lom). But needs the help of a Eurasian dancer named Nicole Chang (Shirley MacLaine) to pull off a perfect heist. However, during the heist, the reality doesn’t match his well-planned expected heist, and things go wrong and get complicated.
21. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
- IMDb: 7.5/10
- Cast: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline
- Directors: Charles Crichton and John Cleese
Plot:
Four strangers team up with gangster George Thomason (Tom Georgeson) and Ken Pile (Michael Palin, to pull off a massive diamond heist. The plan goes all wrong due to the greedy members of the gang trying to double-cross each other for the loot. Wanda Gerschwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) tries to seduce George’s lawyer to find out about diamonds. On the other hand, Ken continuously tries to murder an elderly woman, the sole witness of the robbery.
20. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
- IMDb: 7.5/10
- Cast: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James
- Director: Charles Crichton
Plot:
Henry Holland, a quiet bank clerk, retiring soon, oversees the shipment of gold bullion. Aiming for a rich life, he secretly plans to steal the gold bullion and smuggle them out of the country. But how? So, he comes up with the idea of hiding them in the toy Eiffel Towers and exporting them covertly.
19. Baby Driver (2017)
- IMDb: 7.6/10
- Cast: Ansel Elgort, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm
- Director: Edgar Wright
Plot:
After being compelled to work for a crime boss, Doc, Baby – an orphan, a young getaway driver who loves music so much that he can make any wild move with the right track playing at the point of time after his last heist thought he is free now and can live a simple life with his lover. Still, Doc gets him into another heist which is doomed to be failed.
18. Dead Presidents (1995)
- IMDb: 6.9/10
- Cast: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker
- Directors: Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
Plot:
Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate), after facing a nightmare in Vietnam War, returns and tries hard to adjust to normal life. He also wants to support his family to live a prosperous, happy life. But is it that easy to get a normal job and lead a simple life? Anthony, eager to get money to live a better life, decide to gang up and execute a bank robbery.
17. Three Kings (1999)
- IMDb: 7.1/10
- Cast: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube
- Director: David O. Russell
Plot:
Four American soldiers decided to steal Saddam Hussein’s hidden gold, which was stolen from Kuwait after the Persian Gulf War. One of them, Sergeant Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), is captured and tortured by the Iraqi intelligence team. The rest of the three get into the situation where they find themselves while saving the Iraqi rebels in return for help rescuing Troy.
16. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
- IMDb: 8.2/10
- Cast: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran
- Director: Guy Ritchie
Plot:
Eddy (Nick Moran) convinces three pals to pool money for a high-stakes poker match against a local crime mobster Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty). Eddy loses the match leaving him in debt of 500,00 pounds. Harry offers to pay him back in a week or hand over his father’s pub to him.
Hearing a plan of drug robbery in the flat next to Eddy and his friends, they plot to rob the robbers in turn and return all the debt. It is easier said than done. Everything tangles when a pair of antique shotguns go missing in a totally different scam.
15. Heat (1995)
- IMDb: 8.3/10
- Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer
- Director: Michael Mann
Plot:
The high-end consummate professional thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) decides to pull off one last big heist before retirement. At the same time, Lieutenant Hanna (Al Pacino) in the Los Angeles Police Department determines to fail McCauley’s plan.
Hanna is already dealing with his personal life issues with his stepdaughter’s mental health problem, and his wife’s infidelity. However, he still stays determined to fulfill his duty.
14. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
- IMDb: 7.4/10
- Cast: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan
- Director: Peter Yates
Plot:
After repeated crimes, Boston gangster Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) was sentenced to a long prison; that is when he was believed to snitch his friends to avoid jail time as offered by an ATF agent, Dave Foley (Richard Jordon). Is he snitching on his friends, or is it just a deception?
13. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
- IMDb: 8.1/10
- Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
- Director: Steven Spielberg
Plot:
Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio), barely 21, has already worked as a doctor, a lawyer, and a co-pilot. He is a con man who had his first real claim of fame when he was 17 years old; by using toy guns, they make 15 million dollars in agent Carl (Tom Hanks) is now obsessed with tracking down Frank and bringing him to justice.
The only fact making it difficult to catch the con man is his cunning mind which keeps him one step ahead of everyone else.
12. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
- IMDb: 8.0/10
- Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Penelope Allen
- Director: Sydney Lumet
Plot:
When amateur bank robbers plan a bank robbery in Brooklyn, criminal Sonny Wortzik (AL Pacino) and his accomplices plan to walk in, take the money and run. Just three simple steps are to be done. Is it so easy to execute such a basic plan?
What if a new situation occurs? These amateur robbers did not consider these questions, which brought them to a hostage situation and grabbed the media’s attention, alerting the FBI agent to take action immediately.
11. The Heist of the Century (2020)
- IMDb: 7.1/10
- Cast: Guillermo Francella, Diego Peretti, Luis Luque, Pablo Rago
- Director: Ariel Winograd
Plot:
A group of bank robbers comes into action, performing one of the most well-known and clever bank robberies in the history of Argentina when they rob the Banco Río branch in Acassuso.
Using toy guns, they make 15 million dollars in the form of jewels, gold, and cash, but the heart’s desire and money get into trouble. The plot twists after one of the thieves’ wives seek revenge on her traitor husband.
10. Logan Lucky (2017)
- IMDb: 7.0/10
- Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
Plot:
In this heist film, two brothers Jimmy and one-armed brother, Clyde, from the west Virginia Logan family, along with sister Mellie, team up to steal money from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Jimmy recruits demolition expert Joe Bang to help them break into the track’s underground system.
Their job is to break Joe out, blow the track, get all the money, return Joe to prison, and get Jimmy to his daughter’s beauty pageant on time.
This must be done during a popular NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) race in North Carolina while trying to get away from a relentless FBI agent. What could go wrong? Will they make it out as planned before everything goes wrong?
9. Two Hands (1999)
- IMDb: 7.1/10
- Cast: Heath Ledger, Bryan Brown, David Field, Tom Long
- Director: Gregor Jordan
Plot:
A local crime lord Pando (Bryan Brown) offers a job to deliver a costly package to his syndicate to a 19-year-old Jimmy (Heath Ledger) who was scraping by in the red-light district of Sydney.
He accepts the offer but gets robbed by some street kids and gets into the trouble of returning the money to its owner. He decides to rob a local bank to save himself and the love of his life from a gruesome fate.
8. Now You See Me (2013)
- IMDb: 7.1/10
- Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Common, Mark Ruffalo
- Director: Louis Leterrier
Plot:
A group of illusionists called Four Horsemen, led by a charismatic magician Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) rob the bank accounts of the corrupt ones during their amazing performances and reward their audience with that money.
An FBI agent and an Interpol detective are behind the Four Horsemen to catch them before their next heist. So, they hire a famous debunker, Thaddeus.
7. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
- IMDb: 7.8/10
- Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean
- Director: John Huston
Plot:
Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) recently released from prison, plans to steal jewels worth one million dollars, for which he recruits a small team, including a sage cracker (Anthony Caruso) and a lawyer (Louis Calhern). The heist goes off as planned; bad luck and solid police work cause resolve everything.
6. Jackie Brown (1997)
- IMDb: 7.5/10
- Cast: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Robert D,e Niro
- Director: Quentin Tarantino
Plot:
Jackie Brown, a flight attendant, is busted by the ATF for smuggling money. She does it for her arms dealer boss, Ordell Robbie. Under the pressure of agent Ray Nicolette and detective Mark Darius, she was asked to help them catch Robbie.
Instead of working for the ATF or her crime boss, she plans on double-crossing them and flying away with the smuggled money on her own with the help of her lover Max.
5. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
- IMDb: 7.7/10
- Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
Plot:
Danny Ocean (George Clooney), a man of action, plans to rob three Las Vegas casinos one after another with the help of his ten accomplices following the three disciplines:
“Don’t hurt anybody, don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and play the game like you got nothing to lose.” Is it that easy to rob 150 million dollars?
4. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
- IMDb: 8.3/10
- Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen
- Director: Quentin Tarantino
Plot:
When six criminals, strangers to one another, come together with pseudonyms to pull off a simple jewelry heist that gets wrong, the police arrive at the correct time as if they already knew about the heist, which raises the question of who is the traitor among them. So, let’s find out if the one plotting against them is one of them.
3. The Usual Suspects (1995)
- IMDb: 8.5/10
- Cast: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri
- Director: Bryan Singer
Plot:
A sole survivor con man Kint tells the twisty events which lead to a horrific gun battle on a boat. He says, making a comparison to the most mysterious criminal of all time, Keyser Soze, that “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the World he didn’t exist.
The con man tries not only to convince others that the mythic crime lord exists but also is responsible for forcing him and his team into a multi-million heist which ends up with an explosion.
2. The Killing (1956)
- IMDb: 8.0/10
- Cast: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards
- Director: Stanley Kubrick
Plot:
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) after being released from five years of prison, comes up with a heist plan before marrying his fiancée Fay (Coleen Gray).
He hires a sharpshooter, a police officer, a bartender, and a betting teller named George, making a team of five to execute a daring racetrack robbery. But the plot twists when his fiancée comes up with her plan.
1. Snatch (2000)
- IMDb: 8.2/10
- Cast: Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham
- Director: Guy Ritchie
Plot:
An unlicensed boxing promoter Turkish (Jason Statham) involves with a long-time criminal, Brick Top, to offer bets on a boxer named Mickey (Brad Pitt) at his bookie business.
They want Mickey to not only fight with the lined-up boxers but also to lose to them. Meanwhile, a huge diamond heist occurs, and multiple criminals enter the story making things worse as these two situations blend. Everything is now about just money, guns, and the damned dog.
Closing Thoughts
So, what are you waiting for? Grab your popcorn and get into your seats to enjoy the thrill, action, drama, and much more with these best heist movies. Enjoy the cinema world’s best heist movies without giving a second thought.
Choose any of these and start your journey into a different world of money, fighting, robbery, drama, romance, and dark humor. There is also a couple of other moviers which can be a great addition to this list of heist movies.
They are the “Inception” directed by Chistopher Nolan and “A Game of Cat and Mouse” directed by Christophe Duchiron. You can even watch Bob le Flabeur directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
ENJOY THE THRILLING EXPERIENCE!
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