Le Cercle Rouge

The heist sequence follows Corey, Vogel, and Jansen as they execute a precise robbery with very little dialogue. Jean-Pierre Melville stages it as a long, procedural set piece where timing and silence matter more than speeches.

The 1970 film stars Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonte, Yves Montand, Bourvil, and Francois Perier. Delon plays Corey, the recently released prisoner who becomes central to the heist.

Both films are Jean-Pierre Melville crime dramas built around cool professionalism, ritual, and fatalism. Le Samourai came out in 1967 with Alain Delon as Jef Costello, while Le Cercle Rouge expands that mood into an ensemble heist story.

No, Melville invented the epigraph about men meeting in the red circle. That fits his style: the film feels like a mythic crime fable even though it is built from police, prisons, guns, and jewelry cases.