Watch Now: DOLLARS

After writing and directing critically acclaimed films such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960) and In Cold Blood (1967), Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Richard Brooks went on to make Dollars (its alternative titles being $, Dollar$, $ (Dollars) or The Heist, as it is known in the United Kingdom). The 1971 comedic caper film centers around bank security consultant Joe and prostitute Dawn who team up with the intent of stealing money from safe-deposit boxes in a Hamburg bank. The kicker? The cash is illegal and belongs to several mobsters and drug smugglers, something the dynamic duo wonderfully played by Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn is perfectly aware of.

Brook’s Dollars contains all the ingredients that make up a good heist movie: the implementation of an elaborate scheme followed by twists at nearly every turn, with exciting chase sequences meant to leave viewers gasping for air. The film’s most memorable scene is exactly one such long and impressive (car) chase, in which Beatty’s Joe and his pursuers find themselves on thin ice, both figurately and literally. In Dollars, Brooks does not pander to audiences by focusing on exposition, but rather allows his protagonists to simply follow the money, regardless of where it may take them.

Watch Now: DOLLARS