In addition to being the very first Rat Pack film, Ocean’s broke new ground by adding some much-needed levity to a genre previously known best as a genre of violent crime and punishment. Other 1950s heist classics include Jean-Pierre Melville’s moody, influential Bob le Flambeur and John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, (both of which exerted a profound influence on the Ocean’s movies), as well as Stanley Kubrick’s time-jumping, fatalistic The Killing.Ĭrime got a little more fun in the swinging ’60s, thanks to a batch of upstart capers and one iconic ensemble pic in particular: Lewis Milestone’s seminal heist flick, Ocean’s Eleven (1960).
Rififi inspired countless heist films, including Reservoir Dogs, Heat, and The Usual Suspects, and a remake starring Al Pacino was announced a few years back. However, its pièce de résistance remains the job itself, a wordless, virtuoso 30-minute sequence so precise and tense that it still dazzles today. Rififi perfected many of the conventions that would inform subsequent caper flicks, from the assembly of the perfect team to the inevitable fallout once the job is completed. Case in point: Jules Dassin‘s Rififi, a dark, cynical tale of a group of thieves who meticulously plan and execute the perfect jewel heist before falling prey to human nature. Nobody made stylish heist films like the French in the 1950s.
