Film Forum

France, 1954
Directed by Jacques Becker
Starring Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura
French with English subtitles
Approx. 83 min. 35mm.

Over-the-hill gangster Gabin has just pulled the heist of a lifetime; enough grisbi (loot) for a cushy retirement. But when moll Jeanne Moreau spills the beans to bad guy Lino Ventura (in his debut), it’s time for a showdown.
 

Reviews

“Remains one of the best French policiers—perhaps the best.”
– Jean Tulard, Guide des films

“A poignant look at friendship, honor and betrayal among thieves.”
– Time Out

“The beauty of the characters in GRISBI comes from their quietness, from the economy of their movements... Its well-earned success focused on Max the Liar (Jean Gabin) growing old, his weariness, his first pair of reading glasses, the little habits, the good restaurants, the pleasant absorption of a tired-out hooligan who dreams about retiring into middle-class respectability.”
– François Truffaut

“A model french gangster picture. Set the rules for the great sequence of underworld movies from Jean-Pierre Melville that followed.”
– Time Out

“GRISBI contains plenty of the requisite genre elements—double-crossings, violence, kidnappings, gun battles, and the like—but it’s also a pensive meditation on age, friendship, and lost opportunities. The film was hugely influential, setting the tone of French policiers for years to come.”
– Philip Kemp, Criterion

“A post-heist film that’s also a story of friendship—and of aging. One of the great movies about male friendship; its central sequence is a domestic one that presents the earnest rituals of friendship—involving pâté and biscuits, pajamas and toothbrushes —as a setting for life-changing, identity-shattering confidences. Its final scene offers one of the greatest, most bitterly poignant touches of face-saving deception in the history of cinema.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“An ambling gangster picture polished to a high gloss.”
– David Mermelstein, The Wall Street Journal