I’ve always loved and watched many times is Heist with Gene Hackman. A David Mamet movie, who I love, yeah but Heist is definitely up there. Also, always loved The Grifters with John Cusack.

House of Games, baby

That’s a good one. Mamet as well.

If the thread was "best," we'd have the winner.

I still love The Sting.

This.

Also, there is reason why Jackie Brown remains my favorite Tarantino movie.

More Mamet: The Spanish Prisoner

This is a great genre that doesn’t get enough attention!


I’ll add a comedy to the list. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin and Michael Caine.

Yeah one of THE best.

I was floored the first time I saw it.

Another vote for The Sting

on Peacock if anyone wants to see a great movie and great turn for Steve Martin. The whole con story has Mametisms that are just fantastic. His dialogue is second to none and you see it in all his works. Glengarry Glen Ross, of course. I also love and see Spartan at least once a year. I have that and my Criterion House of Games all set to go.

Runaway Jury

These two films have a lot in common:
PARASITE (2019, South Korea)
THE MAGNIFICENT SCOUNDRELS (1991/Hong Kong, star: Stephen Chow)

And these films all have a lot in common since they all come from the same Damon Runyon story:
LADY FOR A DAY (1933), dir. Frank Capra
POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES (1961) dir.: Frank Capra
MIRACLES, aka MR. CANTON AND LADY ROSE, aka THE CHINESE GODFATHER (1989) star-director: Jackie Chan

The Sting
House of Games
Spanish Prisoner

I know Edward Burns can grate some, but the film is fun as hell. For some reason I thought this had been released on BD but couldn't find a listing.

I was trying to remember this one. I really liked it.

Good luck getting The Spanish Prisoner on Blu-ray. Some super niche label put out like 200 copies a few years back and now regularly trades for over $100 a copy if you can find somebody even selling one. At this point we might have better luck getting a future UHD.

I still own the DVD but one of the bigger labels should have issued the BD.

I’ll second TRICK BABY. That one plays on a much higher level than a lot of the blacksploitation movies from its era. There was actually another adaptation of the book made in 2017 called WHITEFOLKS, but it looks pretty low-rent and made by a lot of one-and-dones. It’s on Tubi but I don’t think I want to sully the enjoyment of the original by seeing it.

And since Ash brought in some Hong Kong titles, I’ll throw in a Korean movie called JAKARTA (2000), still one of the better con movies from that country (and they’ve made a few), and one that could easily be remade today, in Korea or elsewhere, with no changes to the basic plot, which concerns three sets of bank robbers coincidentally robbing the same bank on the same day. The movie is on YouTube but the uploader slapped Indonesian subs over the English ones. It’s also on the Rakuten Viki app for those who use it (it’s mostly Korean stuff, all legit, but with the usual annoying ads unless you pony up). This so-so trailer appears to go out of its way to include what look like spoilers, but the movie has multiple cons right to the end.

you can buy or rent it on Amazon Prime. i bought it a long time ago.