Rififi

Rififi (1955) is treated as the ancestor of the heist film for one reason: the twenty eight minutes in the middle. Tony is fresh out of a five year sentence. He turns down a job, then takes it: a jeweller in the centre of Paris. The robbery at the heart of the film runs twenty eight minutes and in that entire stretch not one word is spoken and there is no music. Only breathing, metal and the sound of a floor being opened. The sequence is so precise that several countries banned the film on the grounds that it was instructional. Jules Dassin made it in France after being blacklisted in Hollywood. He had almost no money and did not even like the novel. He cut its racist material and replaced it with this silence. Once the robbery is over the film becomes something else entirely. Its real subject is not the crime but the rot that follows it. Good for: classic crime, film noir, and the heist genre. Anyone who loves Ocean's Eleven or Heat will find the source here. Less good for: black and white and unhurried. There is little violence, but the ending is merciless.