Film

The Good Thief

Name: The Good Thief
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Released: 2003
Cast: Nick Nolte, Nutsa Kukhianidze, Saïd Taghmaoui, Mark Polish, Tchéky Karyo

Heist

A weathered Nick Nolte plays an aging thief planning one last casino heist in Monte Carlo, only to find his carefully laid plans already compromised. Neil Jordan's film is a stylish, melancholic caper that trades kinetic thrills for character study and atmospheric decay. It's for people who value mood and moral ambiguity over heist mechanics.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love heist films where the pleasure lies in the scheming, the seedy glamour and the wounded charm of a drifting antihero more than in the big set piece.

Skip it if you want a tight, propulsive caper with a clean payoff; this one loses its footing in the middle and wanders through its own mood and loose ends.

What it asks of you: It runs about 108 minutes at a lazy, smoky pace, lingering on faces and rooms, so it rewards patience and a willingness to let mood carry the plot.

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

If you liked this

Ocean's Eleven2001

A smart, glamorous heist film with ensemble charm and genuine twists. If you want elegant crime plotting with lighter stakes and better odds of things going right, this is the gold standard.

But It's essentially the opposite of The Good Thief's mood—upbeat, sunny, and designed to make you feel clever and happy.

Heat1995

Mann's masterpiece about a thief and a cop locked in mutual respect and opposition. Epic, operatic, and deeply human about men defined entirely by their code.

But At three hours, it demands total commitment. Some pacing in the middle stretches tests patience.

Miller's Crossing1990

Coen brothers' prohibition-era crime drama with intricate plotting and characters you can't stop watching even as they self-destruct. Sharp dialogue, beautiful cinematography, moral quicksand.

But The period setting and stylised dialogue can feel mannered. It rewards close attention rather than casual viewing.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Good Thief

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Caché2005

Both are about men haunted by past choices and the impossibility of escape. Both use the thriller form to explore moral rot from within.

An upper-class Parisian couple receives unexplained videotapes. Haneke's film is paranoid, methodical, and about guilt that cannot be outrun or explained—the thief's eternal condition inverted.

But It's deliberately withholding and offers no catharsis. Some will find it frustrating rather than unsettling.

The Long Good Friday1980

Bob Hoskins as a London crime boss watching his empire crack over one brutal weekend. Tense, character-driven, with real stakes and genuine menace underlying every scene.

But The Irish-British crime context feels distant now. Some violence is sudden and upsetting rather than thrilling.

A Prophet2009

A young man enters prison as nobody and emerges transformed into something powerful and corrupted. Lean, gripping, and genuinely about the cost of survival and ambition.

But It's set largely in a French prison and never looks away from brutality. Bleak doesn't soften into redemption.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead2007

Lumet's late masterpiece about a robbery that goes catastrophically wrong, told in fractured time. Character study disguised as thriller, full of regret and the weight of choices.

But Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke's desperation can be hard to sit with. The fractured timeline demands engagement.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead poster

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's luminous film about two neighbors discovering their spouses are having an affair. Not a crime film, but equally atmospheric, melancholic, and about people at life's margins.

But It's slow, painterly, and emotional rather than plot-driven. Plot is almost incidental to mood.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Shane Black's LA noir about a small-time crook and a gay private detective solving a murder. Witty, energetic, with real affection for genre and genuine mystery underneath the banter.

But The constant wisecracks and fast pacing work against depth. Tone-deaf in places by modern standards.

Brick2006

A high school noir where a teenager investigates his ex-girlfriend's disappearance using hardboiled language and genre logic. Clever, stylish, genuinely mysterious, and unexpectedly moving.

But The affectation of teenage characters speaking like 1940s detectives wears thin. The mystery solves more satisfyingly than it resonates emotionally.

The Turin Horse2011

Both track aging men at the end of things, watching plans collapse and time run out. Both find strange grace in decline rather than redemption.

Béla Tarr's final film: an old philosopher and his daughter living in decline as the world slowly ends. Bleak, formally stunning, and quietly devastating. A meditation on age, failure, and resignation.

But It's in black and white, moves glacially, and offers neither plot nor hope. Watching it feels like an obligation to unhappiness.

A Bronx Tale1993

Both examine the seduction of the criminal life and the men who live it—but Tarry chooses mentorship and redemption where Jordan finds only erosion and loss.

Robert De Niro's directorial debut about a young boy caught between his bus-driver father and a neighborhood mobster. Warm, funny, heartfelt—a coming-of-age story about values and fathers.

But It's fundamentally sentimental and offers moral clarity. After The Good Thief's ambiguity, the warmth might feel saccharine.