Or just plain Rififi over here in the UK. Rififi is a masterpiece. I worked with director Peter Webber (Girl with a Pearl Earring and Emperor), a massive cinephile. He said the same thing, you want to know about heist films -- devour Rififi.

Match a story type to a genre. Then genre bend, age up or down, geo-bend, etc. And you have some very potent tools for idea generation - I just discovered.

Definitely "The Killing." Kubrick establishes many of his techniques and nuances and in the process creates a tight and suspenseful yarn about how to and not to rob a racetrack. And everytime I watch it, there's a part of me hoping the suitcase doesn't break. And there's another (and very similar) part of me that wishes Johnny bought a different suitcase. I haven't seen it in almost a year now, but I guess I have my Wednesday night planned.

Sabina, this is precisely one of the big values of working with story types, just what you are describing. It's a heist movie as a comedy: Tower Heist. Okay, what if we crossed Ocean's 11 with Poltergeist? A heist movie in the horror genre? A group of thieves break into what turns out to be a supernatural environment. All fodder for brainstorming story ideas.

I tend to think of stories that are male-centric -- I'm a guy, so it follows; but that's typically what gets made -- so what I'll do it outline a story, do all the prep work, and then change the protag to a female. I change nothing else (except maybe the love interest's gender, depending on what I agenda I feel like pursuing), and suddenly the story is fresh and intriguing. "The Heat" is a great example of this. Would that movie be as successful or interesting if it was two guy cops? Again?

This is so cool (code for: informative), and crystallizes what the heck I'm doing with both a film spec and a TV pilot, both genre benders that had me uncomfortable. Love it. Why so popular? I know I'm drawn to them and my preference is for intelligence, style, wit, a minimal body count, tension (lots), and a protagonist who's a cool customer. I read somewhere that revenge is hot in visual storytelling right now, and some of these do involve revenge, minus the blood shed. These are also excellent loglines.

A regular favourite here in the UK is the 1960s original version of "The Italian Job". Though the film is a comedy, one of its great secrets is that it plays the heist itself essentially seriously. Another brilliant element of Troy Kennedy Martin's screenplay is the way it made one of the great movie car chases an organic part of the heist plan, rather than a result of its failure.

I once read that the difference between a heist movie and a caper movie is that caper movies focus on the planning and preparation for the job, gathering the gang together and testing the gadgets before seeing it all come together on the job. Heist movies on the other hand concentrate on the post-job events usually with the disintegration of the gang and the resultant fallout due to mistrust or things going wrong etc. With that in mind Oceans 11 and Inception are classic caper movies not heist movies. I'd be interested in folks thoughts on that differentiation. That said, I love heist movies! There's a ton of good ones to look at, a couple of classics you missed are Topkapi and House of Games, but more recent favourites include 'The Score', 'Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels', Inside Man (brilliant!) and...erm.. Heist.

Tarantino, it seems, is a sucker for story types: RESERVOIR DOGS = Heist FROM DUSK TILL DAWN = Splasher KILL BILL = Kung Fu DEATH PROOF = Slasher INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS = Suicide Mission DJANGO UNCHAINED = Buddy Movie Can you spot his other works? :-)