The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Director: John Huston

A superb heist-gone-wrong thriller. The characters are all wryly written and marvellously played, while the robbery sequence itself is absolutely riveting; a masterclass in tension that works without hyperkinetic camerawork, hysterical acting or any music whatsoever. It happens early on, so that the bulk of the film details the subsequent long, painful slide into the inevitably bleak noir ending.