Critic Reviews
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
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.
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| 100 |
Boston Globe
It's terse, atmospheric, fatalistic, with vertiginous camera angles and edits offsetting its gray documentary flatness.
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| 100 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
The new print does justice to Philippe Agostini's splendidly atmospheric cinematography.
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| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
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.
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| 100 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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.
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| 100 |
San Francisco Examiner
A sweaty-browed exercise in precision filmmaking, but one that doesn't cheat you with wisps of tension and the pretense of attitude.
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| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
But the human elements -- jealousy, anger, weakness, fortitude, loyalty, vengeance and honor, all acted out by a resolutely realistic cast -- make the movie extraordinary.
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| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
Rififi, with its stark visuals, dark humor and constrained performances, earned Dassin the Best Director nod at the Cannes Film Festival and a secure place in film history.
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| 100 |
TV Guide
Manages to inject more than a little humor into this tension-filled genre classic.
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| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
It becomes as savage as ''Reservoir Dogs,'' ''The Killing,'' or any of the other dozens of films over which it still casts a shadow.
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| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
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| 90 |
Village Voice
A vivid exercise in hokum that more or less invented the idea of French film noir...and not just for Americans.
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| 70 |
Chicago Reader
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.
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