Film fans aren’t exactly short of movies involving Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck – childhood friends and collaborators who have been working together for over three decades. But no one is complaining: nearly every film featuring an Affleck and Damon is a total humdinger – and The Instigators, a new heist-comedy, looks to be no different.
Co-produced by Damon and Ben Affeck, and written by TV writer Chuck Maclean and Casey Affleck, it drops on Apple TV+ on Friday and features a starry cast of Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ron Perlman, Toby Jones, Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames and rapper Jack Harlow.
The story follows two men (one former marine, one ex-con) who go on the run after a botched robbery, taking therapist Donna Rivera along for the ride. As we wait for it to land, here’s our pick of our favourite heist films.
The Red Circle (1970)
Le Cercle Rouge, Jean-Pierre Melville’s extraordinary crime caper, is best-remembered for its climactic heist scene, which runs for half an hour and contains almost no dialogue. But the whole film is a treasure: Alain Delon stars as a master thief let out of prison early for good behaviour, who can’t resist an opportunity to get involved with a jewel heist. An introspective and cool classic noir.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
This sensational film, which was Tarantino’s feature-length debut and launched his career, follows the story of eight gangsters who lose control during the heist of a jewellery store. Though it’s incredibly violent, the developing relationships between the different characters make up the most interesting and shocking elements of the film. Needless to say, one of the gangsters isn’t who he says he is, and there’s an exquisite twist at the end.
Heat (1995)
Director Michael Mann’s masterpiece, Heat, is a tense, three-hour showdown between Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley – a police detective and master criminal who have been playing cat and mouse for years. McCauley falls in love and is ready to start a new life... but not before agreeing to take part in one last bank robbery. Starring Jon Voight and Val Kilmer, Heat is widely viewed as one of the greatest crime films of all time.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
This Nineties remake was an improvement on the 1968 original starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. In Die Hard director John McTiernan’s version, Pierce Brosnan stars as billionaire Thomas Crown who takes it upon himself to steal San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The tough insurance investigator Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) has her suspicions, and ends up getting dangerously close to Crown.
Sexy Beast (2000)
This film from Jonathan Glazer – whose 2023 Holocaust-drama The Zone of Interest was nominated for two Oscars in March – is superb. Ben Kingsley is sociopathic gangster Don Logan, who goes to the Costa del Sol to persuade Ray Winstone’s Gal Dove, a retired criminal, to take part in one last bank robbery in London. The script and visuals sizzle, as the very reluctant Dove chews over the decision in the hot summer heat and tempers begin to fray.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Sexy, fun, cool: Steven Soderbergh did an excellent job of remaking the 1960 original Ocean’s film (which starred Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin), turning it into a slick and glossy Bond-adjacent thriller. He did it by stuffing the cast full of superstars, including Brad Pitt and George Clooney, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. Andy García was the bad guy, Julia Roberts played Clooney’s wife – and the film went gangbusters, making over $350 million profit and launching a franchise.
Inside Man (2006)
Spike Lee’s heist thriller stars Clive Owen as a mastermind with a brilliant plan to rob a bank: he works out that the best way to exit the building after the robbery is to assimilate with the crowd caught up in the ordeal. That way, when the police arrive no one will know who the culprits actually are. But how does he plan to pull this off? How will he and his team blend in with the other victims? And how will they get the loot out of the building if they are exiting empty handed? It’s nail-biting stuff starring Denzel Washington as a frustrated chief New York City police detective.
Inception (2010)
This aesthetically gorgeous and endlessly thought-provoking thriller is a heist film turned on its head. Nolan tells the labyrinthine story of a group of individuals who have managed to make a profit from dreams. They are skilled at both entering into them, and creating them, and are duly hired by the world’s wealthiest men to extract information and plant ideas.
When we meet these clever burglars, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb – the leader of the talented team (which includes Elliot Page, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – has been presented with the ultimate challenge: to sow a mental seed to make the heir of the conglomerate split up his father’s business when he inherits. He accepts the task, but building complicated imaginary worlds inside of imaginary worlds starts to take its toll.
Fast Five (2011)
All the Fast & Furious films are a blast, but Fast Five is a standout. Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) plan to steal $100m from a corrupt businessman. Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs, a secret security agent, is on the team out to stop them. The stealth mission is as full-throttle as fans of the franchise have come to expect: engines rev, muscles ripple, a woman takes off her motorbike helmet, shaking her hair loose. There are explosions, massive guns and high-speed chases – and a particularly brilliant action scene with two cars dragging huge metal safes behind them through central Rio. Silly as ever, and so much fun.
Widows (2018)
This fantastic neo-noir heist thriller from Steve McQueen tells the story of four women in Chicago who plan to steal five million dollars from a wealthy local politician. They need it to pay back a crime boss whom their late husbands – who were all killed during a getaway – had stolen from. Co-written by Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl), starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo, the film was lauded when it was released, being nominated for dozens of awards, including a BAFTA.
