Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of the heist film, where the authorities most often are deceived, and the robbers, heroes bold.

How heist movies do this job? First, because usually the bad guys are in effect the players, we come to know as living, breathing characters. Gradually, leveraging our innate sympathy for the oppressed, marginalized, and the rebels. The theft itself may come to represent the most difficult challenges in our lives, because the same factors that determine success: intelligence, instinct, courage, planning and teamwork.

These films generate a considerable dramatic tension (and comic), as thieves are high risk players ultimately: no amount of skill can eliminate entirely the core of the risks involved, or the role of arbitrary fate. First, one of the quintessential film noir is also a heist movie: John Huston, "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950). A realistic, detailed chronicle of the planning, execution, and after a daring jewel robbery, "Jungle" is primarily a work of exceptional character. Huston causes convincing performances throughout the cast, including Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden young, and in particular, Louis Calhern as soft brain, but silent despair. (Also look for a young Marilyn Monroe as Calhern lover.)

Hayden is going to work with a young, but also talented director, Stanley Kubrick, in "The Killing" (1955), a documentary-like depiction of a race track robbery. The movie is skillfully pace, edge-of-your-seat entertainment, highlighted by live characterizations (Elisha Cook, Jr. and Marie Windsor are highlighted as an extremely dysfunctional couple). In "The Killing "you can witness the flowering of a genius of cinema.

Two excellent photographs of theft were made by the same man, talent Jules Dassin, who in the early '50s, under the cloud of the Hollywood blacklist, he left a successful career as state director to work hand in Europe. His first feature, made in France, was "Rififi" (1954), about a group of jewel thieves and distrust of others as the police-and not without reason. Viewed today, the film retains its gritty realism: the sequence of robbery justly famous, a totally silent, is fascinating, and the performance of Jean Servais as perpetrator conveys a sad, twisted nobility. The conclusion of this little masterpiece will grip you and stay with you long after the closing credits.

Ten years later released Dassin "Topkapi" starring his wife, the Greek actress Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell and Peter Ustinov. This is a meal light comedy, with a motley group of thieves trying to steal a jewel encrusted dagger in the Topkapi museum in Istanbul, heavily guarded. Breezy, colorful and intelligent, stars are clearly enjoying themselves, except for sad sack Ustinov (never mind won best actor for his performance anyway).

Forward quickly to "The Great Train Robbery" (1979), an atmospheric thriller written and directed by best-selling author Michael Crichton. "Robbery" emanates Victorian taste great, and has the amazing happy couple of Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland as an attempt by the team in the theft of a large shipment of gold from a moving train. By "theft" is an entertaining queue, with a fetching Lesley Ann Down complete the trio of criminal, and the addition of a full measure of female visual appeal.

For being the most recent fare, try Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995), a pulsating thriller detailing the cat and mouse between the maneuvers of a detective implacable (Al Pacino) and seasoned criminal (Robert De Niro), which leads to both an armored truck robbery and bank robbery. Electrical, graphic and brutal, "Heat" Not for the squeamish, but if you think you can take, strap yourself and wait. It is an intense journey fascinating.

There is a lighter side of "Movies intrigue "as well, and my three selections comedy theft should be two classic Alec Guinness comedy made with Britain's legendary Ealing Studios," The Lavender Hill Mob "(1950) and" The Ladykillers "(1955), Italian chestnut, with a third, lesser known," Big Deal on Madonna Street "(1958).

"Mob" is the story of a seemingly shy but astute employee who plots the perfect robbery of his own bank. Planning a complex crime and implementation of precipitate some of the most inspired comic sequences seen in the film. The always charming Stanley Holloway (Alfie Doolittle in "My Fair Lady ")) provides tremendous support, and fast search in the first scene of a glimpse of a future star, Audrey Hepburn.

"The Ladykillers "are really a rag-tag group of thieves and hoods rung lower, led by smarmy Professor Marcus (Guinness). To provide convenient, adequate coverage for their next caper, all on board at the beginning of a frail elderly widow, a Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), posing as musicians. Unfortunately for them, Mrs. Wilberforce is a good deal smarter and more alert than it looks, and the band are spending more time defending in their circumstances that planning for theft. Guinness is priceless, both Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom (who had met in the Pink Panther series), appear on first papers, and Miss Johnson nearly steals the picture as the diminutive but strong-willed mistress.

Finally, Mario Monicelli "Big Deal", starring by Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, is like the first two innings, but made in the wider, more spacious Italian style, with much shouting and desperate gestures. This particular set of thieves may be regarded as the most awkward of history, defying all logic or reason. Delightfully, absurdly over-the-top, "Big Deal is fun for those who prefer their comedy with a heavy dose of Italian passion.

These great films from theft by linking work of us to the characters that populate regrettable, and invest with us in the outcome of their attempts to reach the same pot of gold for many of us seek, even if imperfect or wrong these attempts can be. And, of course, do all that, also give us the satisfaction that most of the sensations: the vicarious thrill.