This review is part of our ongoing coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
One of the festival’s biggest and most welcome surprises comes from actor-turned-writer/director Noah Segan (Blood Relatives), who slips comfortably into this story of an aging, seasoned pickpocket named Harry (John Turturro), a man finding it increasingly difficult to make a living in his chosen profession. It’s 2025, and few people carry cash in their wallets or have phones that aren’t easily trackable, so his scores are becoming less and less profitable. Although The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is set in the modern era, Harry lives a life of someone still in the 1970s or early 1980s; he doesn’t have a cell phone; he takes the subway everywhere because he doesn’t have a car; and he longs for the days when he led a comfortable existence in an expensive city.
One night, he targets a young guy driving a flashy vintage car and finds himself with a duffle bag full of cash, guns, and a USB flash drive that naturally becomes the focal point of the actual plot. But even before that kicks in, we learn about Harry’s routines, regular acquaintances, and most importantly, that he cares for his wife, who has been struck immobile and silent by a debilitating illness. We meet Steve Buscemi’s Ben, a pawn shop owner who regularly deals in stolen goods (but only the stuff he can sell back out into the world at a profit), and his colleague Eve (Victoria Moroles), who seems to specialize in electronics. Giancarlo Esposito also stars as Detective Warren, who clearly knew (and maybe even arrested) Harry decades earlier and now uses him as a low-grade snitch. All of these special relationships come into play late in the film in unexpected ways, and it feels as if Harry has spent most of his life cultivating this small group of players in his life who can serve very specific functions in a pinch.
The previously mentioned gym bag belongs to a mobster’s grandson, Dylan (Will Price), and only thing he cares about retrieving is the USB drive, which Harry has already put into the system to be sent to China for reprogramming. And when Dylan and his crew of punks find out Harry was the one to pull the job, they show up at his door and threaten to kill his wife if he doesn’t bring them back the drive. So Harry spends the entire day tracking down this tiny device, and he uses all of his skills as a criminal, con artist, and genuinely nice guy to find it and save his wife.
Above all else, Pickpocket is a genuinely heartwarming tribute to character actors. Turturro, Buscemi, and Esposito are all incredibly convincing and moving in their roles, as is Tatianna Maslany as Harry’s estranged daughter whom he finds time to visit in this crisis after not seeing her much since she was in her early teens. Their reunion doesn’t go as expected, and Maslany does tremendous work digging into each of Harry’s insecurities and regrets about leaving the family. Then, late in the film, we meet another new character, a young pickpocket (Mark Cayne) whom Harry befriends, partly because he believes their chosen profession is worth keeping alive...but there’s an ulterior motive as well.
But the film is also a somewhat melancholy experience because Harry knows that, in all likelihood, he will not make it out alive after the flash drive is recovered, and so his steps on this night are all quite deliberate and meaningful in multiple ways. Again, it’s Segan’s patience and attention to detail that make Pickpocket such a compelling and intimate work. The skill behind the film’s atmosphere and surprisingly complex storytelling feel like the work of a seasoned filmmaker and not a sophomore effort. I was an admirer of Segan’s previous film, but Pickpocket is something entirely more artful and masterful, and with Turturro finding multiple opportunities to remind us what a gift from the acting gods he is, this is a film that works on multiple planes, and I can’t wait to see it again. (Steve Prokopy)
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