An 11.19.18 writeup by The Ringer's Adam Nayman and Chris Ryan titled "The Best Heist Movies Since ‘Heat’" ponders the fate of the heist genre ever since Michael Mann created the definitive and iconic statement back in 1995. Hell, even Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" was immensely influenced by Mann's dark, gritty, neon-splattered vision of the L.A. crime underworld.
In the article, Ryan states "There are heist movies before Heat, and heist movies after Heat." OK, fair enough. He goes on to add "Heat ruined heist movies. Heat has taken on a kind of biblical importance. It’s so influential —in its visceral depiction of action and its mythical portrayal of cop and robber—that it’s almost impossible to even think about another heist movie without relating it back to Heat."
I really need to re-watch "Heat." Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, it's #5 on my 1995 ten best list, but this endless barrage of re-evaluation from millennial writers, for the most part, this last decade has me forced to give it another viewing round. However, that doesn't mean we haven't had some finely tuned heist films since then: "Inside Man," "Ocean's Eleven," "Logan Lucky," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," "Drive," "The Lookout," "Heist," and "Baby Driver." And so, with all due respect to Ryan and Nayman, the heist genre is very much not dead, it just hasn't been redefined the way Mann's epic did it more than 23 years ago to this day.