[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rififi_4093.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:L-R: Jo, Mario, Tony, César]]

''Rififi'' (French: Du Rififi Chez les Hommes, meaning "Trouble Among the Men") is a 1955 [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} French]] [[TheCaper Caper]] crime drama [[TheFilmOfTheBook adaptation]] of Auguste Le Breton's novel of the same name, directed by American filmmaker Creator/JulesDassin.

Tony (Jean Servais) is a down-on-his-luck con who has just gotten out of jail after serving a five-year sentence for jewel robbery. He took the rap and didn't betray his old partner, Jo. Jo approaches Tony with a plan he's cooked up with his friend Mario, to commit a smash-and-grab robbery of the jewels on display at a Paris jewelry store. They recruit César, a safe cracker (played by director Jules Dassin), and pull off a daring and intricate heist that yields them jewelry worth 240 million francs. However, César's lack of caution after the robbery leads to disaster.

Compare 1970 film ''Film/LeCercleRouge'', also in French, also being about TheCaper to rob a jewelry store, also featuring an extended robbery sequence with no dialogue.

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!!This film provides examples of:

* AlmostDeadGuy: One of the baddies lives long enough to tell Grutter that Tony came around to seize the kid, then he dies.
* AntiHero: Tony, the protagonist and "good guy", beats his ex-girlfriend with a belt and kills three people.
* AnyoneCanDie: Most of the male cast does.
* BigBad: Pierre Grutter is a remorseless killer.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: The baddies are downright evil, but the protagonists are criminals none the less.
* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: How their fencer pays Tony and the gang for the jewels, naturally.
* BroadStrokes: Jules Dassin has admitted that he ''hated'' the original novel, so he had few qualms about making big, sweeping changes to bring the story to the screen. The novel was more focused on the conflict with the rival gangsters (with racist overtones to the conflict, since said rivals were Arabs and North Africans), and the robbery was a minor subplot that only took 10 pages. That robbery was the only part that grabbed Dassin, so he [[AdaptationExpansion expanded it]] until the planning and execution took up 45 minutes of screen time. Everything besides the robbery, Dassin [[AdaptationDistillation trimmed down significantly]], completely cutting several scenes with disturbing content like necrophilia. And he {{Race Lift}}ed the rival gangsters to make them French instead.
* TheCaper: Breaking into a jewelry store and stealing the diamonds therein.
* CaperCrew:
** '''The Mastermind / The Driver''': Tony.
** '''The Partner in Crime''': Mario.
** '''The Burglar''': César.
** '''The Muscle''': Jo.
* TheChanteuse: Viviane, César's girlfriend, who sings the title song.
* CuttingTheKnot: The jewel shop is protected by a state-of-the-art alarm system, which will go off if it detects vibrations in the floor or walls--or if any of its wires are cut, or its main case is pried open. Tony realizes there's no way to prevent the alarm from activating during the heist, so instead he prevents anyone from ''hearing'' the bell, by using fire extinguisher foam to muffle its sound.
* {{Determinator}}: The dying Tony is still able to pick up his godson Tonio and drive him home.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: In French crime films of TheFifties, it is common for the protagonist to have spent four or five years in prison. There is a critical consensus that this is a reference to the German occupation of France in UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo.
* DownerEnding: Almost the entire cast ends up dead, and nobody gets the money either.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Tony may be a career criminal, but he WouldntHurtAChild. He goes out of his way to be nice to his godson Tonio, and is willing (albeit slightly reluctant) to risk the loot he's stolen to save him.
** EveryoneHasStandards: Mado, when Tony asks her for information on Grutter's whereabouts after the heist, has no problems saying he and his friends can die for all she cares, even when Tony tells her about Mario and Ida's deaths. She decides to help him anyway upon learning Grutter kidnapped and plans to kill Tonio, a young boy; but makes it clear she's doing it for the kid's sake, not Tony's.
* ExtraExtraReadAllAboutIt: The jewelry heist is big news the next morning.
* FailedASpotCheck: Grutter takes the IdiotBall when he missed to check on [[spoiler:Tony]] after giving him a gut shot.
* {{Fanservice}}: There's Ida's OfCorsetsSexy scene, and there's a later scene where she strolls in wearing a see-through bra to greet the gang.
* FatalFlaw: César's love for women brings the whole caper down.
* HonorAmongThieves: César spills the beans to Grutter, but only at the point of a gun. The other three are friends and stick together.
* HostageForMacGuffin: The kid for the money.
* IdiotBall:
** The whole series of disasters is kicked off when César gives a ring from the heist to his girlfriend, the day after the robbery.
** The final tragedy ensues when Jo ignores Tony's warning to ''not'' give the ransom money to Grutter, as Grutter will simply kill him. Jo does it anyway, and Grutter does indeed kill him.
* IKissYourHand: Gentleman César does this to Viviane when they first meet.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Tonio turns out to be the only surviving major male character.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: As a sign of Tony's poor health condition after going through jail. It doesn't actually lead to his death, but it's implied that Tony has a YourDaysAreNumbered feeling and wants to pull OneLastJob for that reason.
* MetaCasting: Prior to this movie, Jean Servais' acting career had slumped due to alcoholism, and he was widely considered a has-been. Thus he brought a believable note of bitterness and desperation to his portrayal of Tony, a gangster considered a has-been by his peers.
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Tony gets shot by Grutter and collapses. But shortly after, he gets back up and shoots Grutter dead, retrieving the BriefcaseFullOfMoney from his corpse. However, he's still fatally wounded; as he drives Jo's son back home, he slowly succumbs to blood loss.]]
* OfCorsetsSexy: A little bit of fanservice in which Mario is introduced being given a bath by Ida, who very nearly pops out of her corset.
* OnlyOneName: Three of the four thief protagonists are just known by their first name and where they're from: Tony the Stéphanois, Jo the Suédenois, and César the Milanais. The only one of the bunch with a first and last name is Mario Ferrati.
* PoorCommunicationKills: Jo falls victim to this trope. Tony misses to communicate to him that he is about to get to the hide-out where Jo's son was held captive. Jo then decides to quit the waiting game and go through with the HostageForMacGuffin transfer which eventually cost his life while his son was already saved by Tony.
* PrettyInMink: Mado wear a glamorous fur coat.
* RaceLift: In the original novel, the rival gangsters were all dark-skinned Arabs and North Africans. Jules Dassin didn't like the racism of that premise, so he changed to rivals to white Frenchmen in his version, giving their leader the vaguely Germanic surname Grutter.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Many details about the robbery are based on an actual burglary case from 1899 in Marseille. The real life gang actually did break into a travel agency's office, then dug through the floor into a jewel shop directly below, and even used an umbrella to catch their debris.
* {{Safecracking}}: César's role with the gang. He's brought into the caper after Tony insists on a big safe robbery instead of a simple smash-and-grab of the goods in the window. Notably, he uses the less glamorous but more realistic method of drilling through the back of the safe, rather than sussing out the combination.
* SilenceIsGolden: One of the more memorable uses of this trope in movie history. The entire heist sequence, which runs a full half-hour, takes place without any dialogue.
* SlashedThroat: This is how the Grutters dispose of Mario and Ida.
* StageName: Director Jules Dassin plays the role of César, but is listed in the credits as Perlo Vita for that part.
* TakeThat:
** The whole plot point of César talking, and then getting whacked by Tony, is often interpreted by scholars as this against the "friendly witnesses" whose cooporation with the HUAC resulting in the blacklisting of such folks as... director Jules Dassin.
** Producer Henri Bérard suggested making the rival gangsters ''Americans'', but Jules Dassin felt that kind of "oblique revenge" was a little too much.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Louise tells this to Jo when their son is kidnapped:
-->'''Louise:''' There's something I always wanted to tell you. There are kids, millions of kids who've grown up poor. Like you. How did it happen? What difference was there between them and you, that you became a hood, a tough guy, and not them? Know what I think, Jo? They're the tough guys, not you.
* TitleDrop: It's the title of the theme song, sung by Viviane.
* ThroughTheCeilingStealthily: An important step of the heist the whole film revolves around is to saw a hole through the ceiling of the jewelry's office (after determining that every other part of the room is full of sensors), and although sawing through something usually isn't stealthy, the lack of listeners inside the shop makes it stealthy enough for a robbery.
* UndyingLoyalty: Between Tony and his old friends. César isn't really a part of the circle, though, and in the end he's forced to talk in order to save himself.
* VillainProtagonist: The protagonists are a group of criminals.
* WouldHitAGirl: Tony whips Mado.
** The Grutters murder Ida along with Mario for protecting Tony.
* WouldHurtAChild: Tony suspects the Grutters will eventually have Tonio killed since he's a potential witness, so he decides to jump into action.
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