Thursday 1: Heist!

Bryan Singer, 1995 • A boat is destroyed and the only survivor, small-time con man Roger “Verbal” Kint, is the key to solving the mystery of what happened. Told in flashbacks, Kint’s story about how he and four other criminals ended up on the boat—and of the mysterious mob figure Keyser Söze—becomes increasingly gripping even as it grows more convoluted. With a vast ensemble cast that includes Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Steven Baldwin, and Benecio Del Toro, The Usual Suspects is a masterpiece of crime neo-noir. The film won two Oscars, for Christopher McQuarrie’s original screenplay and for Spacey’s supporting turn. 35mm

Jean-Luc Godard, 1964 • Godard described his New Wave heist reverie as “Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka”. Odile (Anna Karina) tells two classmates in her English class, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), that there is a huge sum of money hidden in the villa where she lives with her Aunt (Louisa Colpeyn). The two have no trouble goading Odile into staging a robbery of her own home. But the real story is how both boys attempt, with varying degrees of sucess, to seduce Odlie. As with much of Godard’s early work, seeing Anna Karina on a big screen is worth the price of admission alone. Restored 35mm

Stanley Kubrick, 1956 • Stanley Kubrick’s early noir-masterwork is presented here in all its fury and violence. Long-time criminal Johnny Clay (played with aplomb by Sterling Hayden) is plotting one final score before he settles down with his fiancé, Fay (Coleen Gray). The plan? Steal two million dollars from the counting room of a racetrack during the featured race. With The Killing, Kubrick proved at that great films can be made on low budgets, and offered an early glimpse of his signature fluid, raw, and urgent style of camerawork. The film established this him as a budding directorial genius. 35mm

Jon Turteltaub, 2004 • Nicolas Cage is Benjamin Gates: a maverick historian and cryptologist searching for the lost treasure of the Knights Templar and Freemasons. To locate the treasure, Gates and computer expert Riley Poole must steal the Declaration of Independence to track a map hidden on the back of the document. But Gates is not alone in the quest—he is up against the resources, power, and pure evil of the craven Ian Howe. Whoever can steal the Declaration and and unravel the mystery first will find the greatest treasure in history. “I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence.” 35mm

Guy Ritchie, 1998 • Four friends enter into a high-stakes card game hosted by a powerful crime lord. When Eddy, the confident young card shark, loses, the crew is stuck with a £500,000 debt, to be paid in one week—or else limbs start getting cut off. The crew nabs some vintage shotguns and plots to rob some nearby marijuana growers. Lock, Stock... brought British filmmaker Guy Ritchie international acclaim, and started the career of action superstar Jason Statham, who has gone on to make awesome movies like Crank, The Transporter, and In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. 35mm

Joseph Sargent, 1974 • Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Brown, donning trench coats and false moustaches, board a train along different stops on the Pelham 123 run. The subway is hijacked, its passengers taken hostage and isolated in one car of the train. The men demand a ransom of one million dollars from the New York City Transit Authority, to be delivered in one hour. A passenger will be killed for every minute the money is late. Featuring Walter Matthau as Lieutenant Zachary “Z” Garber, whose tour of the New York subway system for visiting Tokyo Metro directors is brought to a screeching halt. 35mm

Don Siegel, 1973 • Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) and his friends rob a small bank in Tres Cruces, New Mexico. Expecting to find a small sum to split, they happen upon quite a large amount of money—$750,000, to be exact—that happens to be the proceeds of a mob money laundering operation. Two policemen and one robber are killed, and Varrick’s wife Nadine is injured. Now they have to come up with a plot to throw the mob off their trail. Directed by Don Siegel, the man who helmed Dirty Harry and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Everyone is out to kill Charley Varrick, the last of the independents. 35mm

Steven Soderbergh, 2001 • Fresh out of prison, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) breaks his parole and makes for Los Angeles to scheme with his partner in crime, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt). The duo recruit a team of eight colleagues (i.e., criminal specialists) to carry out the caper to end all capers: the heist of the Bellagio, Mirage, and MGM Grand casinos in Las Vegas, housing an anticipated $150 million cash. With a star-heavy ensemble that includes the late Bernie Mac (R.I.P.), Elliot Gould, and a young Matt Damon, Soderbergh’s remake of the 1960 Rat Pack flick features one of the coolest heist climaxes of modern Hollywood. 35mm