Film

Widows

Name: Widows
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2018
Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell

Steve McQueen turns Lynda La Plante's British miniseries into a Chicago-set heist thriller that never lets you settle: four women, strangers to each other, forced to finish the job their dead husbands left behind. It's tense and glossy in the way genre demands, but McQueen keeps cutting sideways into race, class and machine politics, so the getaway car passes through a city that's rigged long before the robbery starts.

TMDb rating

6.5

If you liked this

Set It Off1996

Four friends in South Central LA turn to bank robbery when the system leaves them no other way out — funny, furious and heartbreaking, with a cast that makes every risk feel personal.

But The tone swings harder into melodrama than Widows does, and the pacing is looser, more hangout movie than precision thriller.

Hell or High Water2016

Chris Pine and Ben Foster rob banks across dusty Texas towns to save their family land, and the film turns economic desperation into a slow-burn Western tragedy with real teeth.

But It's quieter and more meditative than Widows — this is a film that simmers rather than detonates.

The Town2010

Ben Affleck's Boston bank-robbery thriller nails the mechanics of a heist crew while asking what it costs to love someone who can't leave the life behind.

But The women here are mostly love interests rather than co-leads, a very different balance of power than Widows offers.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Asphalt Jungle1950

This is the film that essentially invented the 'meticulous plan undone by ordinary human frailty' heist movie Widows is quietly remixing — same bones, seventy years earlier.

John Huston's noir about a jewel heist gone wrong treats its crooks with real sympathy, and its structure — plan, execution, unraveling — set the template every heist film since has copied.

But It's in black and white with the clipped rhythms of 1950s Hollywood dialogue, a big tonal jump from McQueen's slick contemporary style.

Heat1995

Michael Mann's sprawling cops-and-robbers epic treats the heist as ritual and the aftermath as grief, with De Niro and Pacino circling each other across a whole city.

But It's nearly three hours long and cool to the point of chilly — patience required, payoff earned slowly.

Sicario2015

Emily Blunt gets pulled into a brutal, morally murky war just outside the law, sharing Widows' interest in what happens to women who insist on staying in rooms built for men.

But There's no heist here, just dread — if you wanted the plotting and payoff of a job well pulled, this won't give it.

A Simple Plan1998

A found bag of cash turns ordinary people into liars and killers in this bleak, brilliantly controlled thriller about how fast decency erodes under pressure.

But It's colder and more claustrophobic than Widows, with none of its city-wide political sweep.

Ocean's Eight2018no page yet

If you want the glamorous, wish-fulfilment version of women running a heist, this delivers it with style, jewellery, and a cast clearly having a blast.

But It's frictionless fun where Widows is grief and desperation — don't expect any of the same weight.

The Killing1956

Kubrick's early noir heist, told out of order and doomed almost from its first scene, is the blueprint for every 'perfect plan meets human weakness' heist movie since.

But It's a lean 84 minutes in stark black and white — old-fashioned pacing and dialogue some will find creaky.

Killing Them Softly2012no page yet

Small-time crooks rob a mob poker game just as the 2008 financial crisis breaks on the radio, and the film turns crime into bitter commentary on American decline.

But It's talkier and more nihilistic than Widows, with long stretches of dialogue instead of momentum.

Show Me a Hero2015

Colin Farrell's alderman subplot is Widows' side door into municipal corruption; this miniseries walks straight through that door, dramatizing a real fight over housing and race in city politics.

Oscar Isaac plays a young mayor destroyed by a housing desegregation fight, in David Simon's furious, procedural six-part miniseries about how local politics actually breaks people.

But There's no heist, no thriller mechanics — it's slower, angrier, and more interested in bureaucracy than suspense.

Shoplifters2018

Widows asks what people will do when the system leaves them nothing; Kore-eda's quiet Japanese drama about a family surviving on petty theft asks the same question at a much gentler volume.

A makeshift family in Tokyo gets by on small thefts and stolen tenderness, building to a devastating question about what really makes people family.

But It's slow, subtitled, and almost entirely without plot momentum — the opposite of a heist thriller's pleasures.