The Killing

In Stanley Kubrick's noir classic, career criminal Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) plans one last heist before settling down to a respectable life with Fay (Colleen Gray). Clay and several cohorts devise a complex racetrack robbery, but inner tensions and bad luck work against them. Kubrick wrote the script with Jim Thompson, who penned pulp novels such as The Grifters, The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280, all of which were made into classic films.