Looking for plans tonight? Look no further than the 2001 heist-classic Oceans Eleven.

You’ve gotten to the middle of the week, and you’re at a loss as to how to spend your Wednesday night. And let’s face it, with the rain pounding down by the bucketload outside, you’re pretty much stuck inside tonight. And so, your only real option to pass the time lies in your various streaming subscriptions. And with a fresh new March lineup landing on Netflix just yesterday, we’re spoiled for choice in this week’s Executive Decision AKA five crudely put together reasons we hit you with to rewatch a certain Hollywood classic.

Last week was the 2003 classic Meet The Parents, and today, we’re venturing even further back in time (okay, only two years), back to the 2001 heist-classic Oceans Eleven. Starring an ensemble cast of Hollywood legends such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and more, the Steven Soderbough classic has remained a constant on the LWA watch-list throughout the years, and has (no surprises here) aged ridiculously well since it was first released in cinemas over two decades ago.

And so, our minds are made up. Tonight you’re chucking on the smooth-talking heist-classic Oceans Eleven tonight. Thank us later:

Awkward celeb cameos

A good celeb cameo always makes for a quick laugh in a film. Whether it be a less-than-one-minute appearance from an unexpected A-lister to a full incorporation of them into the plot (*cough* Bruce Willis in Oceans Twelve *cough*), it almost always works. But in Ocean’s Eleven, their inclusion strikes the perfect balance. It’s shown in the scene below of Brad Pitt’s Rusty teaching Topher Grace and his celeb friends how to play poker (or try to play poker), their fictionalised versions of themselves embodying every awkward and hilarious celeb stereotype you can think of.

Ensemble Cast

Okay, this is a bit of a basic one, but we’re willing to go out on a limb here and say Oceans Eleven has one of the strongest ensemble casts in recent memory. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Bernie Mac, we could honestly keep going, and the fact that all of them are still Hollywood heavyweights today just goes to show how lucky we were to see them share the screen in 2001. Their collective power really shines in the heist-planning scenes, their quips and witty exchanges making for some of the funnier and more memorable moments of the film.

Don Cheadle’s one-liners

An American doing a British accent never fails to give me a laugh, and you can bet that from the moment Don Cheadle’s Basher first opened his mouth in Ocean’s Eleven, he was my favourite character in the series going forward. The firearms and explosives expert has some of the best lines in the film, but man, the first time I heard him say “Are you accusing me of booby trapping” in the scene below, I properly lost it (0:45 below to save you time).

The Heist

What good is a heist film without a heist? Of course, Hollywood heists films these days are filled with excessive special effects, melodramatic dialogue and at least ten violations of the laws of physics (I think I just described the Fast & Furious trilogy), but the heists in Oceans Eleven are complex, smart, and most importantly, REALISTIC. And I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say that no one saw our gang of thiefs masquerading as a SWAT team coming, but hey, that’s good writing for you folks.

That final scene

I’d be going to seven types of hell if I didn’t touch on this scene, the last send-off for the crew of con-men acting as a collective exhale for them (and the audience) as we marvel over what they have just achieved. There’s a whole lot of emotion and euphoria underpinning the clip, but it’s fair to say the use of Claude Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune’ is what makes it, the Philadelphia Orchestra bringing the arrangement to life as our ensemble cast depart one by one, only to be seen together again in the 2004 sequel, Ocean’s 12.