Men's Room

Al Pacino's character Sonny needs money for his lover's sex change operation, so he and his friend Sal (John Cazale) stick up the local bank. Sonny has done his homework but fate plays its hand and the duo become trapped inside the bank, taking hostages and negotiating with the cops. This increasingly claustrophobic film is based on a real life incident.

Flipping the bank heist genre on its head, director Sidney Lumet expertly racks up the tension essentially making the whole film an extended two-hour heist scene. The media goes crazy outside while the robbers quickly become cherished by the transfixed public outside after Sonny's memorable chant of "Attica!" to the cops with itchy trigger fingers. A heist was never as socially relevant.