Frank is a professional jewel thief who is recently released from prison. He wants stability, love, and a future with Jessie, but the world he inhabits makes clean exits almost impossible. When a lucrative opportunity of a final heist presents itself, Frank is pulled deeper into a violent underworld that tests the limits of his discipline and resolve. Michael Mann conceived Thief while working on his television debut The Jericho Mile, which he shot inside Folsom Prison, and that firsthand exposure to institutional life informs the film’s obsessive realism. Thief establishes themes and stylistic signatures that Mann would return to throughout his career. Frank is an early prototype for the men who define Mann’s cinema, from Neil McCauley in Heat to Vincent in Collateral, figures guided by personal codes rather than traditional notions of right and wrong. The film also introduces Mann’s distinct visual style, marked by rain-soaked cityscapes, neon-lit nights, and an exacting attention to process. In Thief, these elements already signal the arrival of a filmmaker with a singular and enduring vision.