It's a mightily popular movie, helped immeasurably by the now-iconic status of Caine, the soundtrack from Quincy Jones, the editing by John Trumper, and the marvellous Coward, who masterminds the whole wheeze from his prison cell.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 4, 2025

But it’s that stunning, and meaningful, cliff-edge finale that matters most. It is, in essence, a philosophical head-scratcher.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 30, 2024

Featuring a spectacular performance from Michael Caine, The Italian Job remains one of the best representations of British culture in the late 1960s.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 15, 2023

...works as neither an over-the-top comedy nor a gripping heist thriller.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 25, 2021

This is an easy yet always enjoyable way to spend your time -- and should remain so for decades to come.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 26, 2021

...(an) ebullient bullion-swiping romp...

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 13, 2021

What The Italian Job has to revive the viewer of the drowsy first 70 minutes is a whopping good third-act mini-car chase, one which will inevitably compared to the daredevil hill vaulting of Bullitt.

| Sep 4, 2019

The brio and ambition of The Italian Job can't be doubted and Caine has enormous charisma...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 14, 2019

It gets sillier and milder because director Collinson and writer Troy Kennedy Martin could not make up their minds whether they wanted the heist farce to end them all, or an honest thriller with a few laughs.

| Feb 9, 2019

Anyone who tries to copy almost anything these cars do is likely to be in dire trouble, but it's fun to watch.

| Jul 11, 2018

Is there a film - certainly a British film - that delivers a greater infusion of pure joy than The Italian Job?

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 1, 2015

Caine and Coward play a splendid game of verbal tennis, but by the final reel the laughs are lost in an anthology of dull and deafening car chases.

| Apr 21, 2010

The cast does its stuff to good effect. Coward, as the highly patriotic, business-like master crook, brings all his imperturbable sense of irony and comedy to his role.

| May 6, 2008

The gold is then stashed in a bus, and the predictable chase ensues.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 5, 2008

As a film, The Italian Job is hardly a work of unalloyed genius; but as a reminder of the time when Britannia really was cool, it's peerless.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 5, 2008

As a modest fun movie, it works, much helped by deep casting contrasts and a nice sense of absurd proportions.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2005

The film is technically sophisticated and emotionally retarded.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 9, 2005

Superior crime caper that's a little too pleased with itself, but only a little.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 10, 2005

It's the sort of smoothly entertaining and slyly intelligent crowd-pleasing spectacle that will never go out of style.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 31, 2004