Netflix's New Documentary Is Like A Cross Between Ocean's Eleven And The Usual Suspects, And I Still Can't Believe This Heist Was Real

When I sat down to watch Stolen: The Heist of the Century with my Netflix subscription, I had a good idea what I was getting into. Years ago, in the middle of the Covid lockdown, I listened to an audiobook about the 2003 diamond heist in Antwerp, Belgium, called Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, which this documentary is based on. The new documentary is excellent, and it gives off vibes of both Ocean’s Eleven and The Usual Suspects, two of my favorite movies. I can’t decide which it reminds me of more.

Like Clooney And Company, The Robbers Really Planned The Heist Perfectly

I love a great heist movie, and Ocean’s Eleven is one of the best heist movies of all time. Obviously, the planning and the crew’s ability to bypass multiple security systems is what really makes that movie so fun. Well, that and the chemistry among the all-star cast of Ocean’s Eleven (and the classic one-liners). At every turn, the group of lovable criminals knows exactly what they need to do to get past the biometrics, cameras, and the rest of the high-end tech out to thwart them.

That’s exactly what the crew of robbers in Stolen had to do as well. Motion detectors, multiple locks, a vault, cameras, and heat sensors were set up in the targeted building, Antwerp Diamond Center. They spent two years, as the investigators in the documentary explain, working out the plan. According to one of the robbers, Leonardo Notarbartolo (who is interviewed in the film), the crew consisted of five specialists, just like the eleven specialists in Ocean’s Eleven.

It also helps that the filmmakers were clearly inspired by the vibe that director Steven Soderbergh brought to Ocean’s with the music and the cinematography. Stolen feels like the George Clooney and Brad Pitt-led classic.

The Story Also Sounds Like The Usual Suspects

Notarbartolo, who was one of the four men convicted of committing the crime, is who the investigator's believe was the ultimate mastermind behind the robbery. However, in Stolen, Notarbartolo claims there was another, more mysterious figure who recruited him and the rest of the participants. He claims to only know him by the name “Alessandro.”

If, as investigators and prosecutors believe, Notarbartolo was the guy planning the heist, then he is the Keyser Soze of the crew. He’s there, he’s involved, but he was much more important than even the rest of the robbers seemed to know, just like Kevin Spacey’s character in The Usual Suspects. Sure, no one died (thankfully), and Notarbartolo was convicted of being the leader and spent 10 years in prison as a result, while Soze walked away and disappeared at the end of the movie.

Still, with a mysterious figure like “Alessandro” possibly lurking in the shadows, it feels just like the Bryan Singer-directed classic. Notarbartolo claims he never saw any money as a result of the heist, but almost none of the diamonds stolen (estimated to be between $100 and $300 million worth) have been recovered. By all accounts, the convicted participants don’t live like they had a multimillion-dollar windfall, so it seems possible that there was a guy behind the guy.

We may never know the answers. It’s been more than 20 years, those convicted of the crime have served their time and been released, and we still don’t know where the diamonds went. What I do know is that Stolen: The Heist of the Century is one of the best documentaries on the 2025 TV schedule.