Top 10 Best Bank Robbery Movies – My All time

Heist movies are a summer staple. Time-tested tropes of the genre — the planning montage, the inevitable need to change plans on the fly, the high-speed getaway — have thrilled audiences for over half a century.

One of the greatest heist film directors, Steven Soderbergh, is returning to the world of larceny with Logan Lucky, out Aug. 18. But unlike the heroes of Ocean’s 11, these protagonists aren’t suave, besuited tricksters robbing a casino. They’re so-called hillbillies who have decided to leverage people’s biases to their advantage. Along with Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, which premiered earlier this summer, Logan Lucky puts a new spin on a classic genre.

Both films are sure to also make you nostalgic for the capers of years past. Here are the 25 best heist movies to catch in theaters or watch at home.

Logan Lucky (2017)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Why it’s great: Soderbergh returns to what he does best with Logan Lucky, a movie about self-proclaimed hillbillies who are smarter than they let on. The film reunites Channing Tatum with his Magic Mike director and adds Daniel Craig, Adam Driver and Riley Keough to the crew that hatches a plan to rob a motor speedway. With self aware humor — at one point the heist is dubbed “Ocean’s 7-11” — and emotional heft in the form of a young daughter for Tatum, Soderbergh expands on the genre by introducing characters who are rarely allowed to outwit the authorities.

Baby Driver (2017)

Director: Edgar Wright

Why it’s great: No one can drive a getaway car quite like Baby. With a carefully curated playlist — Ansel Elgort’s Baby has tinnitus and plays music constantly to tune out the hum in his ears — and a cohort of crazed criminals (Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm), this instant classic shifts into high gear during the driving scenes. Baby’s moves behind the wheel are choreographed as carefully as an intricate dance. But Baby Driver is also a love story: The romance between Baby and diner waitress Debora (Lily James) is what gives this film its beating heart.

Fast Five (2011)

Director: Justin Lin

Why it’s great: The best movie in the Fast & Furious franchise is technically a heist film — it just also involves a lot of cars. In Fast Five, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker plan to pull “one last job” (or, you know, one of about five “last jobs”) to finance their escape off the grid. The action flick is filled with classic heist movie tropes: a planning montage, a speed bump that forces the crew to change their plans and a cop hot on their heels. In this case, that cop is a ridiculously jacked Dwayne Johnson infusing the franchise with some much-needed life. This is the first Fast movie where the stunts are delightfully ridiculous: Diesel and Walker jump off the side of a cliff and later drag a giant safe through the streets of Rio. As heist movies go, this one is more brawn than brains.

The Town (2010)

Director: Ben Affleck

Why it’s great: Argo might have won Best Picture, but The Town proved Ben Affleck had real directing chops. The violent film starring Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Affleck’s reluctant bank robber Doug desperately wants to redefine himself— much like Affleck, who at the time was trying to reestablish himself as a serious Hollywood player after misfires like Gigli and Jersey Girl. But a threat to his lady love (Rebecca Hall) — who he happened to meet while taking her hostage — sends him on one last very dangerous job. The nun masks are a nice touch, too.

The Bank Job (2008)

Director: Roger Donaldson

Why it’s great: At this point in his career, Jason Statham is best known as an action star. But when he pauses running between fistfights to utter some dialogue, he makes a pretty great robber, too. The film is inspired by a real 1971 bank robbery during which a group of thieves broke into a bank vault full of safety deposit boxes. The story dominated the headlines for a week before completely disappearing from the British media. Why? The movie spins its own conspiracy theory: Statham’s Terry Leather finds dirty pictures of Princess Margaret that are being held by the mob as blackmail material in one of the safety deposit boxes. Her Majesty’s Secret Service wants to destroy the photos, the mob wants to retrieve them and Leather just wants to survive. The film pays homage to The Asphalt Jungle, The Italian Job and Ocean’s 11.

Inside Man (2006)

Director: Spike Lee

Why it’s great: Spike Lee’s most mainstream film to date makes the list thanks to excellent performances from Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Plummer. Owen’s career criminal is caught mid-bank robbery, but when Washington’s detective arrives on the scene it becomes clear that the bank robbers planned for a hostage situation all along. Everyone’s a little bit sleazy: the good guys a bit bad, the bad guys perhaps good. The plot takes perhaps one too many twists, but Lee’s style — and love for the New York landscape — takes the film to great heights.

The Italian Job (2003)

Director: F. Gary Gray

Why it’s great: The Italian Job remake pays homage to the original with those omnipresent Mini Coopers but otherwise has little to do with the 1960s film. This movie is more about revenge than the take: The heroes announce to the villain early on that they plan to steal his loot in order to avenge the death of one of their own, a twist on your typical heist film. The film boasts an all-star cast of Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def and Donald Sutherland, who exchange barbs with a delightfully slimy Edward Norton as they gaze over beautiful Italian vistas.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Why it’s great: Let’s admit it: The original Rat Pack version of Ocean’s 11 was probably a lot of fun to make. But it’s a lot less fun to watch now. Soderbergh cleverly reimagines that film as a brain teaser trilogy that resists the too-many-twists trap. Stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt assemble a ragtag team to bring down a casino — and win back Clooney’s ex, Julia Roberts. Capitalizing on his stars’ charm, Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy set the gold standard for the modern heist film. The first installment remains the best, though Ocean’s 12 is an interesting meta-commentary on how hard it is to make sequels in Hollywood. (It also contains that much loved-and-loathed scene in which Julia Roberts’ Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts.)

Snatch (2000)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Why it’s great: The high-energy movie about London’s underworld starring Brad Pitt, Jason Statham and Benicio Del Toro involves a boxer with an inscrutable accent, seemingly Orthodox Jewish jewelers, Russian gangsters and a priceless diamond. Yes, it may feel similar in style and tone to the director’s first movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But Snatch proved that Ritchie is adept with the genre, especially when he’s cooking up names like Franky Four Fingers and Bullet-Tooth Tony.

Why it’s great: Wes Anderson’s first movie was a heist movie, co-written with his longtime collaborator Owen Wilson, though with all the singular flourishes you might expect from the whimsical director. Brothers Owen and Luke Wilson star as wannabe robbers who get in over their heads when they try to team up with a real criminal (James Caan). Anderson uses the dimwitted charm of his two main characters to begin to work out what will become his signature style.

Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann

Why it’s great: Yes, this is the movie that brought Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together onscreen for the first time. But Heat is so much more than a meeting of titans in a memorable diner scene. The L.A. action scenes are spectacular, the supporting cast — including Val Kilmer — engaging and the emotional lives of the characters full. De Niro’s career criminal Neil McCauley instructs his crew to pull one last heist, despite the fact that they know they’re under surveillance by LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Pacino). It’s a dark movie about the cost of violence that touches on how tenuous relationships can be.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Director: Bryan Singer

Why it’s great: Though more a mystery than a true heist movie, The Usual Suspects makes the list thanks to its fabled twists. Five seasoned criminals meet in a police lineup — seemingly by happenstance — and decide to pull a job together. But in the process they unknowingly scam a fearsome criminal, Keyser Söze. The robbers eventually find themselves in a massive shootout, and only Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey), survives. As police probe him for information about Söze, the film sets up an ending that’s impossible to predict. Spacey won an Oscar for the role.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Why it’s great: Reservoir Dogs is classic Quentin Tarantino: profanity, nonlinear storytelling, extreme violence — like, cutting off someone’s ear extreme. The film follows a six criminals — Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr Brown, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink and Mr. White — who join together for a stick-up that goes terribly wrong. The dialogue is as sharp as the knives, and the iconic imagery of those black ties and black sunglasses unforgettable. The film premiered at Sundance and helped earn Tarantino his rabid following.

Point Break (1991)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Why it’s great: Kathryn Bigelow’s early cult classic pits Keanu Reeves’ FBI agent — the perfectly named Johnny Utah — against Patrick Swayze’s surfer-turned-bank-robber Bodhi and his crew. But don’t let their surfer bro lingo fool you: The stakes are high, thanks to the surfers’ apparent death wish. At one point someone jumps out of an airplane without a parachute. Such actions scenes help rescue a plot with as many holes in it as Reeves’ bulletproof vest, rendering the movie an adrenaline-pumping fan favorite.

Why it’s great: Based on a true story, Lumet’s film follows a Vietnam veteran named Sonny (Al Pacino) who tries to hold up a Brooklyn bank in order to fund his lover’s sex reassignment surgery. But there’s no money in the safe, and Sonny finds himself taking hostages. He becomes a news sensation, an arc that Lumet uses to explore how the media and public can turn an average person into a celebrity — for better or worse. The tense film was ahead of its time in style and subject matter: Shot in a documentary-like manner still employed by filmmakers, Dog Day Afternoon is an early example of a mainstream Hollywood project that aimed to depict a gay character with complexity and compassion.

The Italian Job (1969)

Director: Peter Collinson

Why it’s great: This stylish movie features a young Michael Caine as a Cockney-accented lothario who travels to Italy to boost some gold. His means of getaway: Red, white and blue Mini Coopers that have since British cultural icons. The cars and Caine’s famous line — “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” — have cemented the film’s place in cinematic history. And the movie ends on what’s either a frustrating or brilliant note: A literal cliffhanger.

About Author