Overview
A gripping tale of love and crime unfolds as three convicts navigate their dangerous lives on the run.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Moderate
- melancholic
- wistful
- intimate
- quiet evening
- classic film night
What critics said
Critics broadly praised the film’s controlled visual style, historical atmosphere, subtle observation, and emotional sophistication, while some found its familiar story insufficiently dramatic.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Bowie and Keechie’s romance develops within hideouts, family spaces, and the routines of an outlaw gang.
Critics repeatedly singled out the film’s precisely controlled visual strategy and its uncanny sense of time and place.
The young lovers attempt to build a private emotional world while Bowie remains wanted and committed to the gang’s bank robberies.
The story moves through Mississippi penitentiary, rural hideouts, the Mississippi River region, and Yazoo City during the Depression.
Films like Thieves Like Us, and why
Bonnie and Clyde
shared depression-era outlaws, doomed romance, and revisionist crime drama
Badlands
shared lyrical criminal protagonists, historical Americana, and melancholic romantic fatalism
The Sugarland Express
shared poetic New Hollywood crime filmmaking, doomed lovers, and visual restraint
Movie Details
- Director
- Robert Altman
- Release Date
- 1974-02-11
- Runtime
- 123 min
- Rating
- 6.5 / 10 (93)
Cast
- Shelley Duvall
- Keith Carradine
- John Schuck
- Bert Remsen
- Louise Fletcher
- Ann Latham
- Tom Skerritt
- Al Scott
- John Roper
- Mary Waits
Common questions
- What is Thieves Like Us about?
- Robert Altman’s lyrical New Hollywood crime romance follows escaped convicts whose bank-robbing life collides with the fragile tenderness of young love.
- What is Thieves Like Us like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Thieves Like Us as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Thieves Like Us violent?
- Somewhat. Ember rates the violence in Thieves Like Us as moderate.
- What did critics think of Thieves Like Us?
- Critics broadly praised the film’s controlled visual style, historical atmosphere, subtle observation, and emotional sophistication, while some found its familiar story insufficiently dramatic.
- Which films are like Thieves Like Us?
- Films with a similar feel include Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, and The Sugarland Express.
- How long is Thieves Like Us?
- Thieves Like Us runs 123 minutes.
