Ocean's Eleven Star George Clooney Has Some Feelings About The Louvre Heist

If you're a particular fan of heist movies, you probably know George Clooney best as the super-suave thief and con man Danny Ocean from Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's" movies. Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven," itself a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, follows Clooney's Danny alongside 10 other heist experts as they rob a Las Vegas casino owned by the imperious Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), and while "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen" seemed to close out a trilogy, Clooney has been talking up an "Ocean's Fourteen" for a while now. Understandably, his ongoing commitment to playing a master thief has led to questions about the extremely real theft at the Musée du Louvre, the most-visited museum in the world that was robbed in October 2025.

Speaking to Variety on the red carpet for his latest project, "Jay Kelly" (the outlet posted a clip of Clooney's remarks on the red carpet to its X/Twitter account), Clooney mused, "I wonder if they're going to catch these guys. I mean, they seem to have done a pretty good job of getting away with it." (After Clooney said this, outlets like the New York Times reported that French authorities did arrest two suspects.) Still, it's pretty clear that Clooney found the situation amusing. "It was cool, though — I mean, eh, cool," he added. "I mean, it's terrible. But if you're a professional thief like I am, I was very proud of those guys."

So, is he taking plot inspiration from the real-life robbery? "We should rob the Louvre. But somebody's already done it, man, I don't know," Clooney joked before making a suggestion about one of his "Jay Kelly" co-stars: "You know what we're going to do? We're going to rob Adam Sandler. "He's got some crown jewels, I know he does."

Let me back up for a second and say this: whatever George Clooney and (hopefully) Steven Soderbergh have cooked up for an "Ocean's Fourteen" movie might not even come close to the ridiculous and frankly incredibly cinematic stunt pulled by these still-anonymous thieves at the Louvre Museum in the center of Paris. (As of this writing, none of the thieves have been publicly identified). According to an in-depth study by the New York Times, the thieves used a monte-meubles — a machine that's typically used to hoist furniture into the homes of Parisians, because apartment buildings typically have narrow, winding stairs and no elevator — to abscond up to the second floor of a specific gallery, the Galerie d'Apollon, which housed a ton of French crown jewels.

In just seven minutes, the thieves smashed display cases and grabbed as many jewels as they could, including several sets that belonged to Empress Eugénie, who was the wife of Emperor Napoleon III (in fact, the two resided in the Louvre when it was a palace, and their apartments are a permanent exhibit in the museum). Was this a particularly sophisticated heist? No, not really; in fact, the French Netflix series "Lupin" features a highly complicated theft from the Louvre in its very first episode. Does it feel like something out of a movie? Yeah, definitely. Sorry to the "Ocean's" franchise, but this will be hard to beat ... and there actually is an "Ocean's" sequel about a jewel heist at a museum already.

In 2018, Gary Ross released a (sort of) standalone sequel to the original "Ocean's" trilogy titled "Ocean's 8," with a pretty noticeable twist: while the original 11 players in "Ocean's Eleven" are all guys, the eight in "Ocean's 8" are all women. As Debbie Ocean, the sister of George Clooney's apparently dead Danny Ocean played by the actor's "Gravity" co-star Sandra Bullock, says of this choice, "A him gets noticed. A her gets ignored." After Debbie is released from jail (put there by a scheming ex-boyfriend who used her particular set of skills to fleece customers as an art dealer), she reunites with her best friend Lou (Cate Blanchett) and reveals something interesting. Debbie wants to rob the Metropolitan Museum of Art during their famous Met Gala, and she wants to steal the expensive Touissant necklace made by Cartier, which is worth a solid $150 million. How will they do that, exactly?

Once Debbie brings her team — pickpocket Constance (Awkwafina), stolen goods queen Tammy (Sarah Paulson), hacker "Nine Ball" (Rihanna), jeweler Amita (Mindy Kaling), and deeply-in-debt fashion designer Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter) — together, they conspire to have Rose design a custom dress for actor Daphne Kluger (a brilliantly deployed Anne Hathaway), arrange for Daphne to wear the Touissant, pull it from her neck, and replace it with a replica. Not only does this work, but Lou and Debbie also employ "Ocean's Eleven" acrobat The "Amazing" Yen (Qin Shaobo) to steal several other jewels from the museum's exhibits and leave replicas in their place, giving the women a humongous win. Who knows? Perhaps the Louvre thieves watched "Ocean's 8" and felt inspired.