Heat (1995)

Heat runs 170 minutes, and a good chunk of that is Al Pacino’s marriage falling apart in rooms nobody wants to be in. Cut the home life subplots and you’d have the tightest crime movie ever made. Keep them and you get this, which is still close. Robert De Niro plays a thief who lives like a monk with a getaway plan, and Pacino plays a cop who yells at random like his volume knob snapped off. The two of them finally sit across a coffee shop table for one scene, just two legends talking, and it’s electric. Then the downtown bank shootout hits and it’s still the loudest, most real gunfight a studio ever put on screen. Michael Mann shoots Los Angeles at night like a lonely aquarium. IMDb has it at an 8.3 from over 821,000 ratings. A 9.0 because nobody has made a better cops and robbers movie since, and plenty have tried by copying this one. $2,652 says you leave a coffee shop this week and scan the parking lot like someone’s tailing you.

What works: Pacino and De Niro across the table, the downtown shootout, and Michael Mann’s cold, gorgeous Los Angeles.

What doesn’t: The family subplots, especially Hanna’s marriage and stepdaughter, pad an already long movie and stall the momentum.

Who it’s for: Anyone who likes crime movies patient, professional and ice cold, and anyone who loves a long drive at night.