10 80s Movie Hidden Gems You Can Watch On Netflix

While Brian De Palma kickstarted the 1980s with his homage to the classic thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Mann was reinvigorating the crime thriller with Thief, starring James Caan as a professional safecracker looking for an "out" from his profession, before his life of crime catches up with him.

Mann's debut feature, Thief sets a tone of filmmaking which he would continue for several films, culminating in the near-masterpiece Heat in the mid-1990s. He shoots the city - often at night - in steely cool blues, with his hard-boiled characters displaying a mixture of taciturn toughness belying a world-weary core lying within.

Thief is a one of those films which feels a tough as toe nail soup, depicting a world of hardened professional criminals where the stakes are high and the potential rewards even higher. It's also quite possibly the best crime thriller currently streaming on Netflix.