Every Michael Mann Movie, Ranked

10. Blackhat (2015)

Convicted hacker Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is freed from his 13-year prison sentence under the condition that he assists the FBI in catching a group of cyberterrorists. Blackhat deftly explores human interaction with computers rather than treating cyberspace like a looming, out-of-reach threat, opting for reality over science fiction and giving its villains a layer of invisibility that keeps us on our toes. Though the anticipation of catching the culprits before the next attack adds suspense, spectacular explosions and attack sequences fail to make up for the film’s poor character arcs. This is a particular issue with the idealized yet stagnant Hathaway, whose valiant, chivalrous cyberhero lacks any moral nuance or edge to make for an interesting lead of Mann’s ensemble cast.

9. Ferrari (2023)

More casual appreciators of director Michael Mann might have understandably wondered if he was permanently locked into a late-period For Mannheads Only phase of his career. But you don’t need to be a Blackhat apologist to vibe with Ferrari; in fact, some of his most dedicated followers might blanch at the very lack of neon-dotted opportunities for pure cityscape viewing. Structurally, Ferrari is closer to an Aaron Sorkin-style compressed biopic, following the famous Italian carmaker (Adam Driver) during a time of personal and professional crisis. His mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley) wants him to claim their son with his famous name; doing so would risk the wrath of his powerful wife Laura (Penelope Cruz), who he needs to keep his company from bankruptcy. In the midst of all this, he can secure his future as a manufacturer of race cars if his team triumphs at a major (and dangerous) cross-country race. Mann, working in a more classical mode than his digital-forward experiments, transcends this year’s crop of brand-name-as-protagonist business-plan cinema by turning Enzo Ferrari into one of his haunted, taciturn control-seekers, juxtaposing the freedom of the road with its technological limitations (and personifying it with the cars’ artist-creator). Driver, steering through soulful reflection and deadpan humor, proves true to his name.–Jesse Hassenger

8. Manhunter (1986)

Received at the time to mixed reviews, its hyper-aestheticized allure surprisingly a bit too much for audience tastes in the mid-’80s, Manhunter more than 30 years later represents (maybe ironically) what the mid-’80s felt like to those who can’t quite remember it concretely. In other words, it’s a movie unstuck in time, a product of a decade that’s long past but so surreal and steeped in symbolism and superbly manicured that it seems to hide generations of terror inside it. The first of many adaptations of Thomas Harris’s novels, Manhunter crafted the model and set the dead-serious stakes for every iteration to follow, mooring dream-like imagery to a careful police procedural, attempting to depict the harrowing emotional experience of being an FBI profiler while never skimping on the melodrama. All the while, Mann draws big abstruse lines around the serial killer at the core of the film—a laconic lurch of a man, Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), the so-called “Tooth Fairy”—who inhabits every scene with the foreboding promise that he is a person whose reality is a fragile delusion. Brian Cox haunts the fringes of the film, the first actor to inhabit Hannibal Lecktor (for some reason, first spelled that way), the manifestation of Agent Will Graham’s (William Peterson) Id, a foil to the “good guy” and a psychopath whose lack of empathy makes all the starker Mann’s intuitive sense of framing. Abetted by DP Dante Spinotti’s willingness to treat color like he’s lighting a giallo as much as a Miami Vice-minded crime thriller, in Manhunter Mann found an early career balance between the gritty minutiae of investigative police work and the abstract, cerebral violence of the investigations themselves. Dollarhyde wants only to be wanted, so he kills to be truly “seen” by his victims, which then, in his mind, transforms him into something powerful. Manhunter acts in much the same way, growing stronger the harder you stare into it. —Dom Sinacola

7. Ali (2000)

Michael Mann’s ambitious attempt to chronicle the sprawling and wildly admired life of Muhammad Ali is respectable, if not enthusiasm-inducing. Certainly it’s Will Smith’s finest moment as a serious screen presence. He and the director spent exacting periods of time closely studying Ali’s fights and hours of candid footage, resulting in plenty of technical accuracy but a slightly mechanical feel overall. Still, Mann’s films hits all the biopic beats and its first hour or so is compelling, never shying away from the glamor, controversy, or flaws of egotism. The main trouble, in the end, lies with the difficulty of capturing Ali’s quicksilver, larger-than-life charm. That’s a mean feat for any filmmaker. —Christina Newland

6. Collateral (2004)

Compared to the dazzling iconography of Heat, the character-study immediacy of Thief, or the digital-arthouse experimentation of Public Enemies, Collateral could be seen as minor Michael Mann, a pared-down thriller pitting a meek cab driver (Jamie Foxx) against the sleek hitman (Tom Cruise) who hires him for the evening. Though it’s a little too workmanlike to qualify as top-tier Mann, the director’s stylistic flourishes here power a series of precise switches: the flip from daytime/interior 35mm to nighttime/outdoor digital; Foxx’s cabbie going from a great night on the job to a nightmare; and, most amusingly, Tom Cruise’s insistent can-do spirit suddenly embodying a ruthless killing machine (who nonetheless doles out Cruise-style life coaching). In between Mann’s more epically intricate crime sagas, Cruise’s Vincent steers Collateral into a simpler but no less thrilling vision of haunted Los Angeles nightlife.—Jesse Hassenger

5. The Insider (1999)

The Insider, based on the true story of a tobacco industry whistleblower and the 60 Minutes segment that broke his story, is clearly about more than just journalism—but it’s journalism, both its political inner-workings and its larger potential as a challenge to power, as a savior and a conduit for change, that forms the heart of the story. Al Pacino stars as investigative journalist Lowell Bergman, effortlessly projecting his trademark lived-in, weary tenacity, supported by a barely-recognizable Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer (portraying Mike Wallace with eerie accuracy). It’s a sprawling, 160-minute film that continues raising the stakes, from illicit meetings to death threats to that most stymieing obstacle of them all: corporate squirreliness. Mann’s penchant for flashy visuals (Pacino on a remote beach at dusk, screaming into his cell phone as waves churn beside him) is tempered just enough to keep the film grounded, and corporate games of chicken have never felt so thrilling.—Maura McAndrew

4. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

On one of his many jaunts through American history, Daniel Day-Lewis stops off in 1757 in the middle of the French and Indian War in Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans, playing a white man raised by a Native American chieftain and beholden to no one side in the fight engulfing the then-British colony of New York. Mann does not delve too deeply into the tangled politics of this particular American war, instead focusing on the general antagonism felt by Native Americans towards white colonists—whether French or British, Europeans scrap for land that never belonged to them in the first place—and their perpetual thirst for conflict. The romance between Day-Lewis’ Nathaniel Hawkeye and Madeleine Stowe’s English debutante Cora Munro may be tepid, but typical for Mann the action is marvelously arranged, from the explosive siege at Fort Henry (first spied from a distance as a storm of fire in the night, just one of many spellbinding images courtesy of DoP Dante Spinotti) to the rousing, emotionally charged showdown between the last Mohicans and a rival tribe led by a glowering, damaged Wes Studi. —Brogan Morris

3. Miami Vice (2006)

In this 2006 crime thriller, two detectives played by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx go undercover to infiltrate a Florida drug ring and get to the bottom of a string of murders. However, lines blur between the case and their personal lives, creating exhilarating side plots that raise the stakes and add passion to the film’s central action. Adapting the 1980s detective show of the same name, which Mann produced, the film immerses us in its quintessentially 2000s style, introducing its characters in a sweaty Miami nightclub and later showing them cruising around in convertibles, lounging in beachside villas and escaping into the sea in neon-lit boats. Miami Vice is so over-the-top at points that it can walk the line of cheesiness, but its intensity and high-concept style make it difficult not to enjoy.

2. Thief (1981)

Even if Michael Mann hadn’t gone on to set the neon and pastel tone for the ’80s with Miami Vice or made the ultimate heist film, Heat, his extremely stylish debut film, Thief, would still have been enough of a calling card to inspire future filmmakers. Mann’s signature cool blue hues and the lovingly shot nightscapes look better than ever, and the propulsive electronic score by Tangerine Dream (which was bizarrely nominated for a Razzie) has aged much better than many ’80s scores. All the style would be nowhere without the authenticity that James Caan brings as Frank, the ace safecracker who has a partner (James Belushi, in his film debut), but resists working for the mob when they come calling. Mann had Caan actually use all the custom tools in the film. The real Frank, a jewel thief who under the alias Frank Hohimer wrote The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar, was also a consultant on the film. Mann also hired an ex-thief to play a crooked cop and a real cop (Dennis Farina, making his acting debut in the film) as a mob henchman. After Thief, Mann would go on to refine his moody nocturnal palette with such iconic crimes films as Manhunter, Heat and Collateral, all centered on driven loners who might literally be a dying breed. With Thief, he gave us not just a film, but an existential mood and sensibility delivered with the same kind of precision and professionalism as its title character.—Sharon Knolle

1. Heat (1995)

Those first watching Michael Mann’s L.A. crime masterpiece should view it with a clean slate—and from then on dissect it in great detail, with all of its separate elements pulled apart to determine how they eventually came together to complete such an intricately constructed work of storytelling. Anything in between would seldom do this sprawling (yet taut) epic justice. Exploring the concept of the cop and the robber on opposite sides of the same coin is a premise that pretty much every crime drama has delved into in one way or another, yet Mann manages to create the dichotomy’s epitome. By implementing, with surgical precision, an impressively pure vision of a grand, boastful and larger-than-life crime story, Mann delivers a culmination of his previously tight, deliberately stylized work (namely, Thief and Manhunter). With its hauntingly cold cinematography, moody score, terrific performances by a slew of legendary stars and character actors (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer) and—let’s not forget—the mother of all cinematic shoot-outs in its center, it more than likely represents the peak of Mann’s ever-shifting career. —Oktay Ege Kozak

Sage Dunlap is a journalist based in Austin, TX. She currently contributes to Paste as a movies section intern, covering the latest in film news.