Rififi (1955)

Original title

Du rififi chez les hommes

Directed by

Jules Dassin

Genre

drama film, film noir, heist film, crime film, thriller film

Country

France

Runtime

1h 55m

Rated

14

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 648 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An aging gangster and three partners plan a meticulous jewelry store heist in Paris. The film follows their careful preparation and the dangerous consequences that follow the crime.

tenseslow-burngrittysuspensefulmethodicalbleaknoirishnerve-wrackingraw

What happens

Rififi (French: Du rififi chez les hommes) is a 1955 French crime film adaptation of Auguste Le Breton's novel of the same name. Directed by American blacklisted filmmaker Jules Dassin, the film stars Jean Servais as the aging gangster Tony "le Stéphanois", Carl Möhner as Jo "le Suédois", Robert Manuel as Mario Farrati, and Jules Dassin as César "le Milanais". The foursome band together to commit an almost impossible theft, the burglary of an exclusive jewelry shop in the Rue de la Paix. The centerpiece of the film is an intricate half-hour heist scene depicting the crime in detail, shot in near silence, without dialogue or music. The fictional burglary has been mimicked by criminals in actual crimes around the world. After he was blacklisted from Hollywood, Dassin found work in France, where he was asked to direct Rififi. Despite his distaste for parts of the original novel, Dassin agreed to direct the film. He shot Rififi while working with a low budget, without a star cast, and with the production staff working for low wages. Upon the initial release of the film, it received positive reactions from audiences and critics in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The film earned Dassin the award for Best Director at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Rififi was nominated by the National Board of Review for Best Foreign Film. Rififi was re-released theatrically in both 2000 and 2015 and is still highly acclaimed by modern film critics as one of the greatest works in French film noir. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Blackmail (1955)
• Price of Love (1955)
• Razzia sur la chnouf (1955)
• Le crâneur (1955)
• Crime Boulevard (1955)
• Sophie et le crime (1955)
• Pas de souris dans le business (1955)
• Je suis un sentimental (1955)