RIFIFI

Jules Dassin's "Rififi"is the greatest of all heist movies and one of the greatest of all gangster films. It's beyond tough; this one is positively brutal in places and no movie has ever dealt with honour and dishonour among thieves quite as expertly. By now everyone will know this is the one with the thirty minute robbery sequence performed, if not strictly in silence, then without dialogue and with the umbrella lowered through the ceiling to catch any falling rubble and this robbery is magnificent. But there is so much more to the movie; the build-up and the aftermath are equally memorable and it's got one of the great endings in all cinema. Superbly played by everyone, including Dassin himself, credited here as 'Perlo Vita', as the lecherous little safe-cracker, it's got some of the best hard-bitten dialogue ever composed while Dassin's brilliant use of Paris locations must surely have been an influence on British New Wave directors like Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz. A masterpiece.