Small Time CrooksMovies like Small Time Crooks
- Key Features:
- Crime, Incompetence, Accidental success, Get-rich-quick scheme, Dysfunctional family, Mistakes, Black comedy, Social satire, Underdog, Marriage, Ambition, Greed, Hubris, Misunderstanding, Farce
- Tone:
- humorous, witty, satirical
- Target Audience:
- Comedy fans, Cynical viewers, Quirky humor enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Amusement → Frustration
Small Time Crooks

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.
Small Time Crooks
Virgil Starkwell is intent on becoming a notorious bank robber. Unfortunately for Virgil and his not-so-budding career, he is completely incompetent.

A middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.

Two common criminals get more than they bargained for after kidnapping the wife of a corrupt real-estate developer who shows no interest in paying the $1 million dollar ransom for her safe return.

Five hapless inner-city low-lifes attempt to burgle a pawnbroker's safe, but end up being plagued by bad luck.

With the aid of his girlfriend, Phyllis Potter, and best friend, Loomis, Grimm enters a Manhattan bank dressed as a clown, creates a hostage situation and executes a flawless robbery. The only thing left for the trio to do is make their getaway out of the city and to the airport. It sounds simple enough, but it seems that fate deserts them immediately after the bank heist. One mishap after another conspires to keep these robbers from reaching freedom.

Henry Perkins, a mild-mannered accountant, accidentally trades briefcases with another man, to find out that there's a million dollars inside. Henry tells his unsuspecting wife of their new-found fortune, but she doesn't embrace it as well as he does. Soon they're joined by their best friends, a cop on the take, a cop on the hunt, and the dreaded Mr. Big, who has come to claim his money.

Three mischievous employees of a bank in a small deserted town all make plans to rob it at the same time, however none of them knows about the others.

An out-of-town heist becomes a nightmare for a crew of French burglars when they mistakenly rob the head of the Chicago mafia. Unaccustomed to the ways of the American underworld, it is not long before they have the mafia, the FBI and a couple of street gangs on their backs as they attempt to make their way back to Paris.

After Dick Harper loses his job at Globodyne in an Enron-esque collapse, he and his wife, Jane, turn to crime in order to handle the massive debt they now face. Two intelligent people, Dick and Jane actually get pretty good at robbing people and even enjoy it -- but they have second thoughts when they're reminded that crime can hurt innocent people. When the couple hears that Globodyne boss Jack McCallister actually swindled the company, they plot revenge.

A deranged prison warden with a nasty habit of killing escapees forces the boyfriends of his teenage twin daughters into a shotgun wedding, after they claim to be pregnant. All hope seems lost, until the husbands hatch a madcap plan to rob a money train to freedom.

A group of middle-aged time-share investors get ripped off and their desire for revenge is well-timed for them to be recruited by a bank clerk who feels the same about his employers.

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

Buster is a small time crook who pulls a big time job. When he finds that the police will not let the case drop, he goes into hiding and can't contact his wife and child. He arranges to meet them in Mexico where he thinks they can begin again, but finds that he must choose between his family and freedom.

In 1950, a group of unlikely criminal masterminds commits the robbery of the century. Led by Tony Pino, a petty thief fresh out of prison, and Joe McGinnis, who specializes in planning lucrative capers, the gang robs Brink's main office in Boston of more than $2 million. However, things begin to go awry when the FBI gets involved, the cops start cracking down on the gang and McGinnis refuses to hand over the loot...

An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord – a sharp old woman.

When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.

Shopkeeper Victor Garnier has naively invested his family's life savings in an African mine, on his banker's recommendation. When the mine is nationalized, rendering the stock worthless, he considers himself shamelessly robbed by the bank; it seems only fair to him to return the 'favor' and rob the bank, teaming up with the whole family as they were all duped. Even for professionals such an enterprise -he decides to dig a tunnel- is quite demanding, but for simple commoners it's daunting, as they also have their personal downsides; thus Victor's wife has a most unwelcome tendency to blurt out the truth, even to the grumpy local copper: a crazy risk when you need to keep a criminal plan secret.

The career and personal life of writer Lee are at a standstill, so he divorces his bashful wife, Robin, and dives into a new job as an entertainment journalist. His assignments take him to the swankiest corners of Manhattan, but as he jumps from one lavish party to another and engages in numerous empty romances, he starts to doubt the worth of his work. Meanwhile, top TV producer Tony falls for Robin and introduces her to the world of celebrity.

A small New Mexican village discovers a severed hand that is considered a miracle of God, when it actually belongs to a murdered spouse with a husband in search of it.

The eclectic residents of a small, picturesque island town must navigate a sensational murder and the discovery of a million dollars, leading to a series of increasingly bad decisions which upend the once-peaceful community.

An avid detective is assigned to investigate the heist of a batch of precious coins that end up in the hands of a suicidal barber.

After getting screwed over by life (again), two losers decide that enough is enough. Using stolen ski masks and stolen toy guns, they take hostages in their local bank, holding them for ransom. Things go well until the hostages learn what's going on, and demand a piece of the action for themselves.

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

A frustrated, unemployed teacher joins forces with a scammer and his girlfriend in a blackmailing scheme.

Michael Lynch is a notorious criminal with two wives and a flair for showmanship. He's also a huge embarrassment to the local police, who are determined to bring him down once and for all.

After losing their respective nest eggs thanks to a bumbling bank employee, three men use him to plot a bold and batty heist to get their money back.

Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.

Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Indian-hating Major Cabot. Their elaborate plan is full of disguises, double-crosses, and chases, but Joe always seems to know what he's doing.

Betty and Victor are a pair of scam artists. One day Betty brings in Maurice, a treasurer of a multinational company. Maurice is due to transfer 5 millions francs out of Switzerland, and Betty is convinced he plans to steal that money.

A disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind.

Desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, three lifelong pals risk it all by embarking on a daring bid to knock off the very bank that absconded with their money.

A movie crew invades a small town whose residents are all too ready to give up their values for showbiz glitz.

Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.

A good looking female social welfare worker makes Egon Olsen forget about crimes for some time, but when an American gangster breaks into a local bank and the police think its Egon's work, he has to get back to work to prove he's innocent.

Sam Stone hates his wife Barbara so much that he wants her dead. He's ecstatic when she's taken by a duo of kidnappers who want $500,000 ransom in exchange for her life. Fully intending to ignore every one of the kidnappers' demands in the hopes that they do him a favor and murder her for him, the two confused kidnappers have to figure out how they're going get their money, and what they're going to do with the overbearing Barbara.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

A straight-laced bank manager is about to marry the love of his life. When his bank is held up by infamous Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town, are the infamous Out-Laws.

After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.

The story of how a mysterious suitcase brings together, and changes, the lives of a divorced dad, an unhappy housewife, two hitmen, a pair of street thugs, two love struck teens, two FBI men and a psychedelic toad. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry's best-selling first novel, "Big Trouble."

Arthur and Anatole are two little robbers. They want to rob money, money that will travel in a special train from Paris to Bruxelles. They don't know that other people have planned to do the same thing.

Caught in the middle of a bank robbery, a slacker and a bank employee become the ones who arbitrate the intense situation.

A rascally nearing-retirement man juggles a workers' compensation suit while secretly working for his nemesis and flirting with his nemesis' young wife. As his estranged son returns, he faces new family responsibilities, while a banker plots to evict him from his home.

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

In order to make his little sick brother's dream come true, Leo and his best mates organize a fake score...but on the d day, they make a mistake and the fake score becomes a real hold up.Here starts the extraordinary adventure of PUBLIC Amis.

Hoping to foil his own gold-digging wife's plan, a loathsome businessman arranges his own kidnapping, only to realize that there are plenty of other people interested in his wealth as well.

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

After escaping from prison, Joe and Terry go on a crime spree, robbing banks through Oregon and California in order to finance their scheme for a new life south of the border. Unfortunately, things get more complicated when they meet Kate, who runs into them with her car. She joins the bandits on their cross-country spree, and eventually she steals something, too: their hearts.

Coming out from jail, Lucas has decided to change his life and behave like a good citizen. But when he is taken hostage in a bank by a hare-brained robber, no cops can believe he is not part of the action.

When the police discover that a mob hitman has moved in next door to the Robbersons, they set up a stakeout in the Robbersons' home. Hard-nosed, tough-as-nails Jake Stone and his young partner Tony Moore are assigned to the stakeout, but now it is a question of whether Jake can last long enough to capture the bad guys. The Robbersons want to help, and by doing so, drive Jake crazy.

With a serial strangler on the loose, a bookkeeper wanders around town searching for the vigilante group intent on catching the killer.

Recently fired and facing eviction, a new dad has his life turned upside down when he meets a wealthy couple who offer a path to financial security... but at a price.

Two untalented singers are mistaken for a pair of major league safe crackers in Providence, Rhode Island. The two are pressed into service by the local hoodlums and quickly find themselves in conflict with their professional colleagues. Romantic interest is added by the daughter of the underworld leader who won't date the men she knows are gangsters.

After leaving the prison, the dwarf criminal Calvin Sims joins to his moron brother Percy to steal an expensive huge diamond in a jewelry for the mobster Walken. They are chased by the police, and Calvin hides the stone in the purse of the executive Vanessa Edwards, whose husband Darryl Edwards wants to have a baby. Percy convinces Calvin to dress like a baby and be left in front of the Edwards's house to get inside the house and retrieve the diamond. Darryl and Vanessa keep Calvin for the weekend and decide to adopt him, while Walken threatens Darryl to get the stone back.

A group of physically disabled lowlifes plots the the perfect heist, but things go south as each reveals an agenda of their own.

Thief Kevin Caffery attempts to rob from the home of rich businessman Max Fairbanks. But Fairbanks catches him and steals his cherished ring that his girlfriend gave him. Caffery is then bent on revenge and getting his ring back with the help of his partners.

A Lothario, in trouble for fooling around with a Senator's wife, becomes an unwitting witness to a mob murder. Police Lieutenant Parker tries to solve the case in enough time to take his long-suffering family on vacation.

A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together.

New Yorkers Skip Donahue and Harry Monroe have no jobs and no prospects, so they decide to flee the city and find work elsewhere, landing jobs wearing woodpecker costumes to promote the opening of a bank. When their feathery costumes are stolen and used in a bank robbery, they no longer have to worry about employment — they're sent to prison.

Three kindly old men decide to light up the dimming twilight of their lives with a last blaze of glory – by sticking up a Manhattan bank in broad daylight.

Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.

In a town in the Northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a group of neighbors is organized to recover the economy of the area, but when the corralito is implemented in the country and they suffer a fraud, their hopes disappear. Now, they will unite to recover the lost money and give the blow of their lives to their greatest enemy.

A luxury condo manager leads a staff of workers to seek payback on the Wall Street swindler who defrauded them. With only days until the billionaire gets away with the perfect crime, the unlikely crew of amateur thieves enlists the help of petty crook Slide to steal the $20 million they’re sure is hidden in the penthouse.

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.

Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and advise him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else...

An attempted robbery turns to be an unexpected recruitment when two unemployed men mistakenly break into a police office instead of a store.

Two movie producers who owe money to the mob set up their aging movie star for an insurance scam to try and save themselves. But they wind up getting more than they ever imagined.

When their money scam runs aground, a group of would-be thieves turn to kidnapping in an attempt to blackmail their target.

Ethan Tell is a small time crook who makes a big-time score when he steals 1 million dollars. Ironically, his life radically changes for the worst when he discovers that stealing the money was the easy part and he now must keep his partner, his wife, his parole officer, and two corrupt detectives from stealing it from him.

The two tradesmen Ib and Edward are tired of their lifeless marriages and dream of living the good life from the stash of money they've earned moonlighting for years. After a huge fight with their wives the two men get drunk and hire a Russian contract killer to do a hit on their spouses. But they have badly underestimated their wives, and this becomes the start of an absurd journey where Ib and Edward to their own horror end at the top of a kill list.

During the course of an ordinary week in Hollywood, movie producer Ben must navigate his way through shark-infested waters as he struggles to complete his latest projects. A demanding studio boss demands extensive changes to a movie starring Sean Penn, while another chief won't greenlight a project unless star Bruce Willis shaves his beard. Meanwhile, Ben tries to reconcile with his wife and maintain a relationship with his young daughter.

Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.

Bank robber Kalle Grabowski escapes from prison while his unemployed smalltime crook buddy is sitting around doing nothing after he just lost all their money. A fast paced comedy from German director Peter Thorwarth.

Phil and Claire Foster fear that their mild-mannered relationship may be falling into a stale rut. During their weekly date night, their dinner reservation leads to their being mistaken for a couple of thieves—and now a number of unsavoury characters want Phil and Claire killed.

When Longfellow Deeds, a small-town pizzeria owner and poet, inherits $40 billion from his deceased uncle, he quickly begins rolling in a different kind of dough. Moving to the big city, Deeds finds himself besieged by opportunists all gunning for their piece of the pie. Babe, a television tabloid reporter, poses as an innocent small-town girl to do an exposé on Deeds.

Two wealthy businessmen are about to get away with $5 million in ill-gotten money until their plans are revealed by an uninvited house guest.

Max and Riton, 2 thieves make plan to steal money in a train station office. They will operate through the wall in the public toilets.

When the Bad Guys, a crew of criminal animals, are finally caught after years of heists and being the world’s most-wanted villains, Mr. Wolf brokers a deal to save them all from prison.

The owner of a factory that produces flavor extracts, Joel Reynold seems to have it all, but really doesn't. What's missing is sexual attention from his wife, Suzie. Joel hatches a convoluted plan to get Suzie to cheat on him, thereby clearing the way for Joel to have an affair with Cindy, an employee. But what Joel doesn't know is that Cindy is a sociopathic con artist, and a freak workplace accident clears the way for her to ruin Joel forever.

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

Three inner-city losers plan a robbery of a valuable coin in a seedy second-hand junk shop.

A no-nonsense cop has a flair for fashion and a celebrity takes revenge on the paparazzi in a collection of comedic sketches.

A bank robber tries to turn himself in because he's falling in love and wants to live an honest life...but when he realizes the Feds are more corrupt than him, he must fight back to clear his name.

After being falsely accused of robbing a bank, a writer seeks the help of his lawyer ex-wife to clear his name. However, hilarity ensues when he must hide from her husband, who’s throwing a party for law enforcement officials.

A cunning and resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.

A young bank teller, literally allergic to paper money, becomes the worst nightmare of his best customer, a wealthy butcher who manages his business unscrupulously.

When Egon Olsen gets out of Vridlose State Prision once again, his friends Benny and Kjeld do not want to know about his new ingenious plan: they are actually WORKING in a shop! Thus, he has to think of something else to get his hands on the money of some international gangster.

Durell and LeeJohn are best friends and bumbling petty criminals. When told they have one week to pay a $17,000 debt or Durell will lose his son, they come up with a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church. Instead, they end up spending the night in the presence of the Lord and are forced to deal with much more than they bargained for.

Two female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, compete to swindle a naïve tech prodigy out of his fortune. A remake of the 1988 comedy "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

When a young couple buys their dream home, they have no idea what the sweet little old lady upstairs is going to put them through!

On New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his trade.

A prudish married couple feel put upon by the swingers living in their apartment building. One night, by accident, they discover a way to both rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall and simultaneously realize their dream of opening a restaurant.

While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection.

After working with the bank for a long time, Julien decides to open a restaurant with his best friend. Unfortunately, when the bank refuses to grant him a loan, he comes up with a plan.

Five oddball criminals planning a bank robbery rent rooms on a cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow under the pretext that they are classical musicians.

After a failed bank robbery, an ex-con, an ex-waitress and a few of their friends train a pack of doberman dogs to rob a bank for them.

