Touchez pas au grisbi (Grisbi)

Becker’s heist-film masterpiece was voted the finest French crime movie ever made in a critics’ poll conducted by Positif. Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, and a murderer’s row of French character actors star in this tale of a weary gangster (Gabin) and his partner dealing with a stolen stash of gold bars and the many individuals who’d like to relieve them of it. Becker’s mood of existential fatalism and world-weary toughness prefigures the countless heist films to come; from Jean-Pierre Melville to Jules Dassin and Jean-Luc Godard, Quentin Tarantino to John Woo, filmmakers may be inspired by Grisbi, but have still rarely matched it.