Best Movie Heist Crews

Ten teams assembled one specialist at a time in a montage.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. Three small hatchback cars racing down a subway tunnel, a gold bar on a passenger seat and a manhole cover nearby.

    10. The Italian Job

    F. Gary Gray · 2003

    The remake swaps 1960s Turin for Los Angeles and keeps the three little cars. Seth Green's tech guy insists a college roommate stole his idea for Napster and Jason Statham is the wheelman. Mark Wahlberg is the leader. The cars are the stars, again.

  2. A red sports sedan drifting through an Atlanta parking garage, an old music player and earbuds on the dashboard.

    09. Baby Driver

    Edgar Wright · 2017

    A getaway driver with tinnitus plays music through every job, and the opening robbery is cut to the beat of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Kevin Spacey's mastermind rotates the crew, and Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm keep making it worse. The car does most of the acting.

  3. A pair of rubber nun masks and a duffel bag on the hood of a car outside a baseball park at night.

    08. The Town

    Ben Affleck · 2010

    Four friends from Charlestown rob Boston banks in nun masks and skeleton masks, then end the run trying to hit Fenway Park's cash room. Jeremy Renner got an Oscar nomination as the friend you should not bring. Affleck directed, starred and kept the accent the whole time.

  4. A police lineup wall with height markings, five numbered placards on the floor and a coffee mug on a desk in front of a corkboard.

    07. The Usual Suspects

    Bryan Singer · 1995

    Five criminals meet in a police lineup and agree to work together, which is how networking should work. Kevin Spacey won an Oscar, Christopher McQuarrie won for the script, and the story is only as reliable as the guy telling it. Check the bulletin board.

  5. A Manhattan bank lobby full of identical painter's coveralls hanging on hooks, ladders and paint cans by the vault.

    06. Inside Man

    Spike Lee · 2006

    Clive Owen's crew dresses as painters, then puts every hostage in the same coveralls and masks so nobody can tell robber from victim. Denzel Washington negotiates. The leader hides inside the bank for a week and strolls out the front door. Patience as a heist strategy.

  6. Four rubber masks lying on a surfboard on the beach at dawn, a getaway car and a bag of cash in the sand.

    05. Point Break

    Kathryn Bigelow · 1991

    A crew of surfers robs banks in masks of four former presidents to fund an endless summer, and never touches the vault. Bodhi gives speeches about freedom between jobs. Keanu Reeves plays the undercover FBI agent who joins them and gets very into surfing. Policy was not followed.

  7. Racetrack grandstands seen from a tunnel under the track, pneumatic tubes, a bag of gummy bears and a bottle of bleach.

    04. Logan Lucky

    Steven Soderbergh · 2017

    Two broke brothers, their hairdresser sister and an imprisoned explosives expert named Joe Bang rob Charlotte Motor Speedway during a NASCAR race. The bomb is gummy bears and bleach. A newscaster in the film calls it Ocean's 7-Eleven, which is Soderbergh reviewing himself.

  8. A cluttered warehouse office with old computer monitors, a black box with wires on the desk and a scrabble-tile rack.

    03. Sneakers

    Phil Alden Robinson · 1992

    Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix and David Strathairn as a blind phone expert run a penetration-testing firm before that was a job. The MacGuffin is a codebreaking box and the clue is an anagram of too many secrets. Still the nicest crew on film.

  9. A hotel corridor turned on its side with a spinning top resting on a table and a city folding up into the sky.

    02. Inception

    Christopher Nolan · 2010

    An extractor, a point man, an architect, a forger, a chemist and the client himself break into a man's subconscious to plant one idea. Each gets a job title and a scene explaining it. Three dream levels, one hallway fight that spins. The heist is technically therapy.

  10. A casino vault door swung open onto stacks of cash on carts, a dancing fountain glowing outside a hotel window.

    01. Ocean's Eleven

    Steven Soderbergh · 2001

    Eleven men, three casinos, one Bellagio vault. A pickpocket, an acrobat, a con man posing as a doctor, two bickering brothers and a guy who just eats in every scene. They walk off with around $160 million and stand at a fountain. Nobody has ever looked better committing a felony.

Honorable mentions

  • A massive steel vault being dragged on chains through a city street by two muscle cars, sparks flying off the asphalt.

    Fast Five

    Justin Lin · 2011

    The street racers stop racing and become a heist crew, dragging a bank vault through Rio with two cars and a lot of cable. It revived the franchise and turned it into its current shape. Physics did not consent. The vault, somehow, was fine.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A Roman palazzo terrace with sunglasses, espresso cups and a velvet display stand holding a single jeweled egg.

    Ocean's Twelve

    Steven Soderbergh · 2004

    The same crew goes to Europe and the plan hinges on Tess pretending to be Julia Roberts, who is played by Julia Roberts. Bruce Willis shows up as himself to complicate things. The heist turns out to have been done before the movie started. A vacation with a plot attached.

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