# This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist (2021)

> A four-part documentary miniseries revisiting the 1990 Boston museum heist in which two men posing as police stole a fortune in art.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/100178

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 52 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, crime
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Shelley Murphy, Anne Hawley, Dick Ellis, Martin Leppo, Tron Brekke, Myles Connor, Stephen Kurkjian, Justin Stratman
- TMDB rating: 6.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14223858/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, wry, obsessive, investigative

## What critics say

Viewers rate this four-part true crime docuseries as mixed, with its account of the 1990 Gardner Museum heist engaging but not standout.

## Synopsis

This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist (2021) is a Netflix true crime documentary limited series, a four-part miniseries of roughly 52-minute episodes. Rather than following a single protagonist through fictional scenes, it assembles testimony from people who lived the story: Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum director emerita Anne Hawley, former FBI Boston section chief Tron Brekke, former Scotland Yard art squad head Dick Ellis, art thief Myles Connor, author Stephen Kurkjian, and former museum guard Aaron Fannin. Their accounts circle the 1990 night when two men disguised as police officers talked their way into the Boston museum and walked off with a fortune in paintings. The engine of the series is the puzzle itself: who the thieves were, how the disguise worked, and why the masterworks have never been recovered. Each episode layers interviews, archival material and reconstructions into a patient investigative chronicle. The tone is tense, wry and quietly obsessive, with the mood of a cold case that refuses to close. Viewers who enjoy The Thief Who Stole Mona Lisa, Made You Look and Tiger King will find a similar appetite for real-world crime told with insider voices and unanswered questions.

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