Famous Movie Safes

Some of the biggest and best movies of all time feature seemingly impenetrable safes, which are virtually always broken into. Of course you shouldn’t believe everything that you see on the silver screen, and in reality the success rate of criminals is much lower.

Your average burglar is no Danny Ocean, but this wouldn’t make much of a great movie. The list that you’re about to read, however, features three of them.

Three great movies, featuring three classic movie safes:

1.    Die Hard

It’s first on the list for a reason, as it’s probably the greatest film of all time. Die Hard has plenty of ingredients which make it a classic, including a typically striking and awe-inspiring safe.

Alan Rickman plays the unforgettable villain Hans Gruber, who leads a team of terrorists masquerading as freedom fighters; and holding a building full of Californian’s hostage. But the real reason they’ve bothered at all is to get their hands on a very large safe full of riches; and they were successful to a degree, opening the safe with a combination of high tech computer smarts and a very big drill.

Unfortunately for Gruber and his goons, they didn’t count on a shoeless New York party crasher called John McClane.  The movie made Bruce Willis a household name, and launched his career as a bona fide action star. It’s just a shame that it also launched a string of ever worsening sequels.

2.    Ocean’s Eleven

There are no big drills in Ocean’s Eleven, but there is one very imposing safe, and a glittering array of Hollywood superstars intent on cracking it.

It takes them the best part of two breathless hours to do it, and they use enough hi-tech gadgets and gizmos to eat into half the fortune they’re about to pick up. But the best parts of this quite brilliant film are the parts of the master plan which rely on social engineering and con artistry. The gang adopt a number of characters and complete con after con to get their hands on the fortune of Andy Garcia’s casino boss Terry Benedict.

The last switcheroo they pull is a real doozy, and one that we won’t spoil for anybody who hasn’t seen the film. Of course, if you haven’t seen the film it’s time to grab a copy because for action and escapism it’s hard to beat, and there are some belly laughs in there too.

3.    The Italian Job (2003)

You’ll be hard pressed to find a sexier safe cracker than Charlize Theron, as Stella Bridger, but she’s not on hand when Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) and his gang pull their first heist of the film, the one from which it takes its name.

You see, while this movie is a remake of the 1969 Michael Caine vehicle, the vast majority of it takes place in LA. But before we head to la-la-land, there’s the small matter of a daring, underwater safe robbery on the canals of Venice. Unfortunately, like most movie criminals, Marky Mark is double crossed after getting the job done.

Steve, played by Edward Norton, high-tails it to LA with the loot, and the rest of the movie revolves around Wahlberg, Theron and their band of merry men attempting to crack Steve’s safe and get their hands on the loot. Once they do it’s shipped into three iconic Mini Coopers for the movie’s edge-of-the-driver’s-seat, car chase finale. The film is must-see entertainment, but not much use if you’re learning to crack a safe or pass your driving theory test.

Can you think of any more great movie safes that haven’t made our list? How are they important to the movie? And which Hollywood heartthrob is tasked with getting inside?

Let us know in the comments below.