But “heists” have to play the weightiest roles in their films a movie in which there are, say, a whole slew of bank robberies, but the whole thing is ultimately about the relationships between fathers and sons, is not a heist movie (in case anyone remembers The Place Beyond the Pines and thinks it belongs on this list, which it doesn’t).Īnd actually, I should just explain now why you won’t see The Sting or Hustlers on this list: a heist isn’t a con, either, even if it’s a Big Con. Okay, so what IS a heist movie? Good question! It’s a movie whose plot and theme centers around a large heist, or a series of heists. We will be releasing an accompanying list of the Best Capers shortly after this one, so if you don’t see a film with a great heist in it, keep your shirts on, because it’s probably on the other list. I’d like to make this distinction at the outset because, also, some movies which seem to centrally feature heists are not actually “heist films,” but capers, which are ultimately their own genre, despite many similarities. I’d like to get one thing out of the way right at the beginning… this is a list ranking “heist movies,” not the heists that are in movies or movies that have heists in them (if it were, we’d include the opening of the original The In-Laws, where the big magnet on the crane picks the armored car up off the road and hauls it away to be raided).
