10 Greatest Heist Movie Climaxes, Ranked’
There are things that basically every heist movie needs, and a heist film sticking to some of those rules while maybe subverting others is usually a good recipe for success. That sense of some things being expected (but not everything) kind of mirrors how the heists themselves, in such movies, will also be planned out, but a few things typically throw the characters for a loop. Otherwise, a heist movie where everything goes to plan, or is too expected (hey there, Ocean’s 8), can ultimately feel a bit disappointing or flat.
Structurally, a good many heist movies will often build to the heist, which takes place right near the end, or sometimes throughout much of the final act. In some instances, the heist occurs more around the halfway-point of a movie, and then the climax/ending will involve the fallout from the heist, or some further post-heist complication. So, there are movies here that end with a heist, sort of end with a heist, or don’t really end with a heist at all. As long as they’re classifiable as heist movies and end on a strong note, they’re eligible to appear here.
10
‘Inception’ (2010)
Trust Christopher Nolan to, once he got around to making a heist film, do things a little differently. Enter Inception, which is very much constructed like a heist movie, with a team being assembled, a plan being made, and then a mission getting carried out, but the mission involves going into someone’s subconscious and planting an idea there, sort of like how a gang of thieves might break into a physical location and steal something, you know, also physical.
Things get a bit wild toward the end, with all the layers and different people in different zones and time being all crazy, albeit not to the same extent as the impressive but jumbled climax of Tenet. Everything gets more or less tied up as Inception winds down, with the obvious exception of that somewhat infamous final shot, which people do still debate and write articles about more than a decade and a half later.
9
‘The Usual Suspects’ (1995)
Calling The Usual Suspects a heist movie feels like more of a stretch than calling Inception a heist movie, but also, it’s got so iconic an ending that some might scoff at the idea of disqualifying it for present purposes just because it’s not a traditional heist movie. The heist stuff all happens as part of a series of flashbacks, and there’s also a broader story about trying to find the identity of a crime lord who orchestrated the heist, plus some other (violent) stuff.
The ending is incredibly well-executed, and justifiably considered among the most famous and surprising of all time.
Everything’s complicated for one reason, and then things get famously twisty, and then the events of The Usual Suspects prove even more surprising, at least in hindsight. The ending is incredibly well-executed, and justifiably considered among the most famous and surprising of all time, so the movie being a little heist-y in nature and having that dramatic climax is what puts it here.
8
‘Drive’ (2011)
In Drive, there’s a pretty great action scene early on involving the main character in his element as a getaway driver, which is something of a part-time thing he does for thieves while also working as a stuntman. Then, there’s another chase sequence following a second robbery later on, but there, things go wrong, and then the second half of the film is about the Driver (he’s not named) trying to survive.
And then there’s also a lot of time spent just building tension, all the while the first half is very “vibes-heavy,” and maybe not much happens, but it looks/sounds/feels cool. Anyway, that does result in a climax that’s relatively restrained, and maybe not as technically thrilling as those aforementioned action scenes, yet Drive still has a great and completely fitting ending, albeit possibly not the kind you’d expect for a film with such a premise.
7
‘The Italian Job’ (1969)
Well before he was in Inception (or any Christopher Nolan movie… like, this one came out before Nolan was even born), Michael Caine was in The Italian Job, which is one of a fair few (relatively) early crime movies he appeared in that helped make him a star. He leads an ensemble cast here, with the main characters all being part of a team that plans and then pulls off an elaborate robbery that involves taking a large number of gold bars.
They’re obviously heavy things to steal, and there are a bunch of them, which is a factor in the movie having a literal (rather than figurative) cliffhanger ending. The whole of The Italian Job rides the line between being a crime/thriller/action movie and also being a comedy, so having an absurd and traditionally unsatisfying (at least in a traditional way) ending feels appropriate.
6
‘Fast Five’ (2011)
Fast Five came at a point in the Fast & Furious series before things really blew up and spiraled out of control, unless you’re someone who really liked all the racing stuff, and if so, maybe Fast Five was the “jump the shark” moment. Further, you could be someone who’s on board with the escalating craziness. The series is a wild one, and there are plenty of ways to feel about it.
Also, for what it’s worth, Fast Five was not the first Fast & Furious movie to feel a bit heist-like, but it did really embrace the genre and its conventions in a particularly effective way, largely thanks to having built up a large enough supporting cast to bring them all together on one huge mission. The final stage of the heist they plan – which involves dragging a massive vault through Rio de Janeiro – is an incredible action sequence, and maybe even the best in the entire series to date.
5
‘Rififi’ (1955)
If the topic being tackled right now was something along the lines of “best heist scene in movie history,” Rififi would be comfortably in either the top or second-from-the-top spot… well, maybe top 3. There are two other all-timers that’ll be mentioned in a bit. Regarding the scene in Rififi, though, it involves stealing from a jewelry shop, and everything is shown in immense detail, and with the most suspense possible and, all the while, it’s done without dialogue or even music in the background.
Yet you can’t really call it the climax of the movie, owing to how early it takes place. Still, the fallout from the heist in Rififi, which does make up much of the final act, is also compelling and tense in its own way. You come for the heist, sure, and it’s the heist sequence that you’re sure to remember the most once it’s over, but there remains a decent amount that the film has to offer beyond that point, too.
4
‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)
Call it a gimmick if you want, but Reservoir Dogs is pretty much a heist movie without the heist itself. It’s told in non-chronological order, though still with an emphasis on what happens after the heist, and a little less on what goes down before the heist. It’s creatively executed, in that regard, and works to keep a good deal of the central mystery alive: the idea that someone involved in the heist that went wrong was actually an undercover cop.
Things get revealed to the audience, and then they become clear for some of the (surviving) characters, and then everything ends quite bloodily, albeit not as shockingly as the one really infamous and shocking scene in Reservoir Dogs, which occurs a bit earlier. Still, the main thing is that the ending’s great, and perfectly nihilistic and brutal for the sort of gritty and uncompromising crime/thriller movie that Reservoir Dogs is.
3
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975)
Another movie with the word “Dog” in the title, just not pluralized this time, and also, it’s about an attempted heist going wrong (like in Reservoir Dogs), here’s Dog Day Afternoon. The big difference, though, is that Reservoir Dogs shows almost everything but what happens inside the targeted location. Dog Day Afternoon is almost entirely about just what happens inside the location that gets targeted.
Said target is a bank, and the two main characters enter it almost straight away, trying to steal money, but then things go wrong, there’s a whole hostage situation, and the movie ends up being about whether the situation can be resolved with minimal bloodshed, and also what initially motivated the robbery. Even more than half a century later, the approach Dog Day Afternoon takes to the heist genre feels unique, and it’s a timelessly anxiety-provoking watch, too.
2
‘Le Cercle Rouge’ (1970)
Like with Rififi, Le Cercle Rouge has another very long heist sequence that’s done in a minimalist way, without much dialogue, and it’s understandably the most famous part of the movie. It was mentioned before that Rififi probably has either the best or second-best or third-best heist scene/set piece in cinema history, and Le Cercle Rouge is a film that sits right next to it, in that regard. The heist here is an all-timer of a scene.
And you could probably argue a little more here that it takes place close enough to the end of the movie to make up Le Cercle Rouge’s climax, or something close to it. Even if not, the aftermath of the heist here also proves harrowing and effectively intense to watch play out, sort of keeping the momentum going, from that big scene, while shifting the energy and making things more anxious than conventionally tense and/or thrilling.
1
‘Heat’ (1995)
The final heist scene in that top 3 that’s been mentioned twice already is the one found in Heat. Like with Rififi and Le Cercle Rouge, the massive heist in Heat takes place quite a while before the very end of the film, so you can call it the film’s centerpiece pretty accurately. The films, when looked at together, present a compelling argument for why heists might well be best suited to hovering near the halfway point of a story, or between the halfway point and the ending, rather than right at the end.
As for the climax of Heat, it involves the two main characters – who’ve been at odds the whole time – turning their backs on people who should be important to them to settle a score, and then they clash. And it’s a far quieter clash than the big heist sequence that progresses into a shootout, but it hits just as hard, only it’s on a more emotional/personal front here, and it makes for an undeniably fantastic ending to what’s, overall, a fantastic movie.
