"Rififi is a strange animal, based on a novel by a typically French crime writer, Auguste Le Breton, and shot in Paris as the first foreign-language film by a great American filmmaker at the height of his powers, whose career had been broken by McCarthyism. Jules Dassin’s previous film, made in London five years earlier, Night and the City, is his masterpiece. This inspired hybrid of French and American noir—which I discovered as a child on French TV—has constantly impressed me with its violence, its despair, its darkness, and its beauty. It has also been hugely influential, not only on Melville—so much of his work derives from Rififi—but also on a lot of minor figures of French genre. Dassin reinvented the whole syntax, and the after-effects have been felt for a long time. I am a fan of Michael Mann; he is one of the most inspired stylists in American cinema today, but it was all there from the start. In Thief, his first feature, you have echoes of Melville (it goes full circle), a sharp eye for realism, but also profound human characters with precisely drawn relationships, and great acting. Mann’s fascination with a geometrical modernity, even if it is always mediated by genre filmmaking, is genuinely reminiscent of Antonioni—explicitly so in the last scenes of Heat."

"Rififi is a strange animal, based on a novel by a typically French crime writer, Auguste Le Breton, and shot in Paris as the first foreign-language film by a great American filmmaker at the height of his powers, whose career had been broken by McCarthyism. Jules Dassin’s previous film, made in London five years earlier, Night and the City, is his masterpiece. This inspired hybrid of French and American noir—which I discovered as a child on French TV—has constantly impressed me with its violence, its despair, its darkness, and its beauty. It has also been hugely influential, not only on Melville—so much of his work derives from Rififi—but also on a lot of minor figures of French genre. Dassin reinvented the whole syntax, and the after-effects have been felt for a long time. I am a fan of Michael Mann; he is one of the most inspired stylists in American cinema today, but it was all there from the start. In Thief, his first feature, you have echoes of Melville (it goes full circle), a sharp eye for realism, but also profound human characters with precisely drawn relationships, and great acting. Mann’s fascination with a geometrical modernity, even if it is always mediated by genre filmmaking, is genuinely reminiscent of Antonioni—explicitly so in the last scenes of Heat."

"This is such a fiery and entertaining crime film. It’s epic yet completely domestic and simple. While it’s somewhat of a departure from his canon, Kurosawa’s stamp is everywhere. He manages to expertly adapt American source material and place it in Japan (the irony, of course, being that America would adapt his stories for years to follow).Passionate, personal, and uplifting documentary filmmaking. This is a true example of the power of the art form, and a terrific movie too. Rarely do you find filmmakers with such an insight to the world of sports, and the ability to examine the personal politics that run underneath it. This should be required viewing for any sports or film fan."