Rififi

Dassin's direction raises this textbook French film noir to crime classic status.

...looks as smart as paint, with its unendurably tense, entirely wordless robbery section, and its beautifully constructed payoff in the final act...

Much of the film is taken up with the brilliant tactics and cold diligence that goes into a big score, and Dassin's sense of movement and visualizing personal detail mirrors the exact work Tony and his cohorts specialize in.

It's a crack combination: character dynamics, fatalism and the codes of criminality, all set against a poetic evocation of the Parisian underworld.