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Best Money Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of money cinema — measured across 3,186 indexed frames from 48 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Money films over-index on fedora, neon sign and suit jacket — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Mean Streets (1973)

    Martin ScorseseDP Kent L. WakefordIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    The future is set for Tony and Michael -- owning a neighborhood bar and making deals in the mean streets of New York City's Little Italy. For Charlie, the future is less clearly defined. A small-time hood, he works for his uncle, making collections and reclaiming bad debts. In love with a woman of whom his uncle disapproves (due to her epilepsy) and a friend of her disturbed cousin, Johnny Boy, a near psychotic whose trouble-making threatens them all -- Charlie just cannot reconcile opposing values. A failed attempt to escape (to Brooklyn) moves them all a step closer to a bitter, almost preordained future.

  2. 2

    No Sudden Move (2021)

    Steven SoderberghDP Steven SoderberghIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    A group of criminals are brought together under mysterious circumstances and have to work together to uncover what's really going on when their simple job goes completely sideways.

  3. 3

    Dom Hemingway (2013)

    Richard ShepardDP Giles NuttgensIMDb 6.1TMDB 5.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Vulgar, brash and loud, Dom Hemingway has just been released from prison after serving twelve years for his crime as a safe-cracker working for Ivan Fontaine, who Dom's best friend and associate Dickie Black calls one of the most dangerous men in Europe. Dom left the employ of Lestor McGreevy, a man he generally disliked, to work for Fontaine. Dom could have easily plea bargained with the authorities to give up information on Fontaine for a reduced sentence, he not doing so which resulted in he never again seeing his wife Katherine who died of cancer while he was in prison, and now being estranged from his young adult daughter Evie who sees his choice as his priority of Fontaine over her and her mother. For his silence and giving up twelve years of his life, Dom believes Fontaine owes him and owes him big, and with Dickie by his side, tries to track down Fontaine for that payment. Despite his encounter with a young new ageist woman named Melody, his actions which she vows will lead to luck shining down on him, Dom impatiently waits for good luck to come his way as one thing after another seems to go wrong, whether it be in dealing with Fontaine and by association his trophy Romanian girlfriend Paolina, in his attempt to reconcile with Evie, and/or in his attempt to find work specifically with McGreevy's son, Lestor Jr. who, as an apple, doesn't fall far from the tree.

  4. 4

    Citizen Kane (1941)

    Orson WellesDP Gregg TolandIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    A group of reporters are trying to decipher the last word ever spoken by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: "Rosebud". The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane's life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane's life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man's rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the top of the world.

  5. 5

    The Hustler (1961)

    Robert RossenDP Eugen SchüfftanIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    "Fast" Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary "Minnesota Fats" to a high-stakes match, but he loses in a heartbreaking marathon. Now broke and without his long-time manager, Felson faces an uphill battle to regain his confidence and his game. It isn't until he hits rock bottom that he agrees to join up with ruthless and cutthroat manager Bert Gordon. Gordon agrees to take him on the road to learn the ropes. But Felson soon realizes that making it to the top could cost him his soul, and perhaps his girlfriend. Will he decide that this is too steep a price to pay in time to save himself?

  6. 6

    Now You See Me (2013)

    Louis LeterrierDP Mitchell AmundsenIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Four magicians each answer a mysterious summons to an obscure address with secrets inside. A year later, they are the Four Horsemen, big time stage illusionists who climax their sold-out Las Vegas show with a bank apparently robbed for real. This puts F.B.I. Agents Dylan Rhodes and Interpol Agent Alma Dray on the case to find out how they did it. However, this mystery proves to be difficult to solve, even with the insights of professional illusion exposer Thaddeus Bradley. What follows is a bizarre investigation where nothing is what it seems to be, with illusions, dark secrets, and hidden agendas galore as all involved are reminded of a great truth in this puzzle: the closer you look, the less you see.

  7. 7

    Casino (1995)

    Martin ScorseseDP Robert RichardsonIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970s and '80s are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.

  8. 8

    There Will Be Blood (2007)

    Paul Thomas AndersonDP Robert ElswitIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    The intersecting life stories of Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday in early twentieth century California is presented. Miner turn oilman Daniel Plainview is a driven man who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He works hard but he also takes advantage of those around him at their expense if need be. His business partner is his son H.W., who in reality he "acquired" when H.W.'s biological single father, who worked on one of Daniel's rigs, got killed in a workplace accident. Daniel is deeply protective of H.W. if only for what H.W. brings to the partnership. Eli Sunday is one in a pair of twins, whose family farm Daniel purchases for the major oil deposit located on it. Eli, the local preacher and a self-proclaimed faith healer, wants the money from the sale of the property to finance his own church. The lives of the two competitive men often clash as Daniel pumps oil off the property and tries to acquire all the surrounding land at bargain prices to be able to build a pipeline to the coast, and as Eli tries to build his own religious empire.

  9. 9

    Blood Simple (1984)

    Joel CoenDP Barry SonnenfeldIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Texas bar owner Julian Marty, who is generally regarded as not a nice person, hires shady private detective Loren Visser, who is able to obtain what Marty requests evidence - in this instance, photographic - that his wife, Abby, and one of his bartenders, Ray, are having an affair. As Ray and Abby realize that Marty has found out about them, it allows them to plan for their future away from Marty, while being up front with Marty about the situation. Marty, in turn, decides to hire Visser once again, this time to kill Abby and Ray, and dispose of their bodies so that they won't be found. The out-in-the-open affair and the contract hit lead to some actions based on self-interest and a standoff of sorts between the four players, which is compounded in complexity by some wrong assumptions of what has happened, with an innocent bystander, another of the Marty's bartenders, Meurice, potentially, and unwittingly, adding to the scenario.

  10. 10

    The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

    Charles LaughtonDP Stanley CortezIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward evangelicalism; she is a pious woman who feels she needs to atone for her sins which led to Ben doing what he did, especially as Harry presents himself as the preacher who worked at the prison and provided salvation to Ben before his death. Harry quickly figures out that John and Pearl know where the money is. Conversely, John doesn't trust Harry, John who first tries not to show to Harry that he indeed does know where the money is, and then second constantly reminds a more-trusting Pearl of their promise to their now-deceased father. With Willa devoted to her new husband, John and Pearl need some other adult assistance in evading Harry's veiled threats, an adult who not only can see the honesty and goodness in children but who can also see a true wolf in sheep's clothing like Harry.

What money films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a money frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — fedora is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • fedora2.3×
  • neon sign2.3×
  • suit jacket2.2×
  • suit1.9×
  • mustache1.8×
  • steering wheel1.8×
  • wood paneling1.8×
  • blazer1.7×

How money films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate money from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 83%eye levelvs 69% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Bandits (2001) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 3,186 frames from 48 films carrying the money label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/money

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