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France · 1955
1h 58m
Director Jules Dassin
Starring Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Jules Dassin
Genre Drama, Action, Crime
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Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter. Disillusioned, Tony expands a minor smash-and-grab his friend Jo offers him into a full-scale jewel heist. He and his crew appear to get away clean, unaware that all their lives are at stake…
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Among the picture's many surprises is a superb robbery scene filmed in a near-total silence that contrasts exhilaratingly with the noisy flamboyance of more recent films in this venerable genre.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Desmond Ryan
The new print does justice to Philippe Agostini's splendidly atmospheric cinematography.
San Francisco Examiner by G. Allen Johnson
A sweaty-browed exercise in precision filmmaking, but one that doesn't cheat you with wisps of tension and the pretense of attitude.
A vivid exercise in hokum that more or less invented the idea of French film noir...and not just for Americans.
It's terse, atmospheric, fatalistic, with vertiginous camera angles and edits offsetting its gray documentary flatness.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
The opening half-hour--the burglary of a jewelry store, filmed in meticulous detail--is as good as its inspiration in The Asphalt Jungle, but the film turns moralistic and sour in the last half, when the thieves fall out.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
One of the great crime thrillers, the benchmark all succeeding heist films have been measured against, it's no musty museum piece but a driving, compelling piece of work, redolent of the air of human frailty and fatalistic doom.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
No matter how many heists you've seen, how many gangs you've watched fall apart or how many aging crooks you've seen walk up a mean street to a violent destiny, Rififi never loses its ruthless grace and force.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
It becomes as savage as ''Reservoir Dogs,'' ''The Killing,'' or any of the other dozens of films over which it still casts a shadow.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
The granddaddy of all caper/heist movies. The work that defined the genre for the subsequent four decades of filmmakers, none of whom was able to surpass it for style or suspense.