The Americanization of French culture has long been a point of contention. Jean-Pierre Melville (née Grumbach; he modified it to express his affection for the Moby-Dick writer) wholeheartedly embraced the transatlantic invasion that arrived after WWII, leaving much of its gangster etiquette untranslated in his existential, no-exit crime films. Le Cercle Rouge is his heist masterpiece, a darkly atmospheric film that follows a just-freed master thief (the aristocratic Alain Delon) and his plan for a make-or-break Place Vendôme robbery. The auteur of cool executes his directorial vision with a surgeon's even-handed precision, and Melville's familiarity with the subject matter allows him to slip poetry and philosophy into a dead-serious procedural.