Pickpocket Heist Beats the Odds

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York has stolen more than just wallets — it’s taken the indie box office by storm. John Turturro’s latest, a gritty character study from Noah Segan, crossed $2 million at the global box office after expanding to 1,112 screens in its second weekend. The film, which follows an aging New York pickpocket racing to return a stolen USB drive to a vengeful crime family, now holds a 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 95% audience rating.

It’s also earned Turturro a Gotham Award nod and the Golden Eye at Zurich. That kind of momentum doesn’t come easy for a low-budget drama with no A-list star power beyond Turturro himself. But Sony Pictures Classics knew what they had, and pushed hard. The film’s success is a quiet victory for the kind of storytelling that doesn’t need explosions or sequels to matter.

Meanwhile, Everest: The Other Side, the National Geographic documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, opened to $1 million, with Imax accounting for nearly 83% of that haul. The filmmakers didn’t just promote the film. They rappelled down a 12-story building in West Hollywood to prove their commitment. The stunt worked.