31 Years Later, the Greatest Crime Thriller of All Time is Climbing the Streaming Charts

There isn’t another cinematic artist who understands criminal behavior quite like Michael Mann, the brilliant writer/director whose moody, atmospheric thrillers are among the most influential of the past 50 years. Although Mann established himself as someone who understood the minutiae of policing and procedures with his work on the small screen with Miami Vice among other shows, he developed into a successful cinematic director capable of making surprisingly thoughtful, existential character dramas that still had genre components. The ‘90s saw Mann delivering success after success, proving that he was worthy of being granted more resources, and he felt that it was time to revisit L.A. Takedown, a failed television pilot that he had directed in 1989. Mann reworked a true story of an obsessive police officer’s feud with a ruthless career criminal into an epic ensemble drama that showed the best of what the crime genre could be. Heatwas the film that solidified Mann as an all-time filmmaking genius, and it has withstood the test of time as one of the most influential crime thrillers ever —a status it proves yet again as, decades after its release, it is climbing the streaming charts at Pluto TV.