Film

Fingers

Name: Fingers
Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller, Crime
Released: 1978
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Michael V. Gazzo, Marian Seldes

Fingers is a fever dream of a film about a debt collector torn between his father's criminal world and his dream of becoming a concert pianist. Harvey Keitel gives a raw, almost uncomfortable performance in this 1978 thriller that treats the violence and the music with equal, unflinching intensity. It's for viewers who want their crime dramas bruised and strange, willing to sit with moral ambiguity and a protagonist you can't quite trust.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like crime stories where the violence is clumsy, personal and sad, and where a character's inner life matters more than the plot's machinery, with a tough, jittery lead you can't quite look away from.

Skip it if you want a tidy, propulsive gangster film; this one wanders, lingers on awkward silences, and treats its crime scenes with a raw, unglamorous ugliness that can feel draining rather than thrilling.

What it asks of you: At ninety minutes it is brisk, but its rhythm is loose and jagged, so it asks you to sit with restless unease and to accept a scruffy, uneven surface in exchange for its grit.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Taxi Driver1976

Like Fingers, it follows a volatile man adrift in New York City, caught between different moral worlds. Scorsese's precision and intensity will feel like the spiritual ancestor to Keitel's fever-pitch performance here.

But The pacing is deliberate, almost meditative, which some find tedious rather than hypnotic. It's also deeply bleak.

Mean Streets1973

An earlier Scorsese-Keitel collaboration that mines similar territory: young men trapped between street life and something better, shot with raw energy and moral anguish. Essential viewing for understanding Keitel's range.

But The handheld, grainy '70s aesthetic won't appeal to everyone. Some find the Catholic guilt thesis overwrought.

Thief1981

Michael Mann's debut: a jewel thief trying to build a legitimate life while pulled back into crime. Gorgeously composed, with a protagonist as divided between worlds as Jimmy Fingers, and a synth score that hypnotizes.

But It's methodical and cool where Fingers is hot and chaotic. Some viewers find Mann's distance from his characters frustrating.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Fingers

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Possession1981

Both films reject restraint in pursuit of emotional truth. Both use violence and physicality to express internal states rather than advance plot. Both trust the viewer to tolerate discomfort as a price of authenticity.

Andrzej Żuławski's hallucinatory Polish fever dream of a film about a marriage dissolving into madness and violence. Like Fingers, it's urgently, almost unbearably raw—a film that assaults rather than massages. You'll feel it in your bones.

But This is genuinely difficult to watch. The editing is chaotic, the performances are unhinged, and the 1981 practical effects are grotesque. Not for anyone seeking comfort or clarity.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie1976

John Cassavetes' improvisational noir about a strip club owner pressured into murder. Shares Fingers' murky moral space and willingness to let scenes breathe in uncomfortable silence. Keitel's spiritual twin in a different body.

But The dialogue circles; the plot feels deliberately slack. Patience required. It's intentionally exhausting as a viewing experience.

Scarface1983

Another portrait of a man consumed by ambition and violence, trading one dream for another. Pacino's Tony Montana is Fingers' endpoint—what happens when the criminal life fully wins. Operatic where Fingers is claustrophobic.

But The '80s excess and De Palma's showiness feel very different in tone. Some find it cartoonish where Fingers feels lived-in.

Maniac Cop1988

David Cronenberg directing James Woods as an LAPD detective consumed by obsession and violence. Like Fingers, it's about a man whose work corrodes his soul. Unsettling in a similar, skin-crawling way.

But Woods' intensity may feel histrionic. Cronenberg's detachment from his protagonist can read as cold rather than critical.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's lush meditation on desire and restraint. If you're drawn to Fingers for its portrait of yearning—the piano, the impossible dream—this explores similar longings in a completely different register, with ravishing beauty.

But It's contemplative where Fingers is visceral. The pacing is glacial. Colour and style matter more than plot here.

Angel Heart1987

Alan Parker's Gothic noir with Mickey Rourke as a detective spiralling into moral corruption and supernatural dread. Shares Fingers' sense of a man undone by forces beyond his control, with genuine discomfort throughout.

But The twist ending divides viewers sharply. Some find the religious allegory heavy-handed and the violence gratuitous.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover1989

Both films weaponise beauty and refinement against brutality. Both feature protagonists whose sensitivity makes them vulnerable to corruption. Both treat the spectator's discomfort as a feature, not a bug.

Peter Greenaway's baroque, operatic nightmare about violence, art, appetite, and transgression. Visually audacious and morally uncompromising. If Fingers made you feel queasy and alive, Greenaway will take that sensation and amplify it into pure aesthetics.

But It's aggressively pretentious and looks like a Caravaggio painting had a breakdown. The depravity is extreme and the colour design can feel suffocating. Some viewers rightly reject it as exploitative.