The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (2026) Review — John Turturro Gets the Role of a Career in a Warm, Rough-Edged Crime Drama Critics Rate 97%

Noah Segan's 88-minute crime drama expands nationwide October 30 from Sony Pictures Classics, with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score.

John Turturro has been the best thing in a lot of other people's movies for forty years, and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York hands him one of his own. Noah Segan's 88-minute crime drama, which opened in New York and Los Angeles on October 23 and expands nationwide through Sony Pictures Classics on October 30, is a small, rough-edged film with a big, lived-in lead performance. Critics have responded: it sits at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes from 106 reviews and 82 on Metacritic from 31, with a 7.2 on IMDb.

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Turturro plays Harry Lehman, a Bronx pickpocket close to 70 who works by a code of his own. He is courteous to every mark, and the wallets he has no use for go back to their owners in the mail. His New York is shrinking around him: the trade is dying, and at home he is caring for his ailing wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave). Then he lifts a bag from Dylan (Will Price), the spoiled heir to a crime family, and it contains a USB drive holding a crypto asset worth close to a million dollars, according to Time Out. Harry fences it without knowing what it is, and now has to get it back before Dylan's people catch up with him.

A thriller that is really a portrait

The plot is a ticking-clock caper, but Segan, who wrote and directed, plainly cares more about the man than the mechanism. TheWrap's Chase Hutchinson, reviewing from Sundance in January, called it a gem that works best as a quietly moving character study, and that is the right way in. The film keeps returning to Harry simply moving through the city, watching, waiting, picking his moment, and Sam Levy's camera follows him across avenues and bridges with real affection for the payphones, graffiti-covered trains and neon-lit Chinatown streets that the movie treats as endangered species. Gary Lionelli's score leans on jazz, and the pace is unhurried without ever sagging at 88 minutes.

Turturro, and the people around him

Turturro is the reason to buy a ticket. Time Out's Elizabeth Weitzman calls him impeccable, noting that he builds Harry out of posture and manners, and Rotten Tomatoes' consensus goes further, saying the film affords him one of the best roles of his career. He is funny, tender and a little sad in almost every scene without ever asking for sympathy. Giancarlo Esposito, as a detective nearing retirement, is a mirror image of Harry: another professional being politely shown the door by the city he knows by heart. Steve Buscemi, as Harry's friend and fence, gets some of the film's best lines, and Jamie Lee Curtis, Tatiana Maslany and Victoria Moroles round out a cast that is far deeper than a film this size has any right to expect.

Where it frays

It is not a flawless film, and the more measured critics say so. Weitzman finds Price's Dylan overplayed and unsubtle next to the veterans around him, and she calls the thread about Rosie underwritten, an attempt at depth that does not get the screen time to land. TheWrap describes the movie as rough around the edges, with a few narrative contrivances and an odd late cameo, though both reviews treat these as forgivable. Metacritic's 31 reviews break down as 29 positive, two mixed and none negative; the lowest of them, from Screen Rant, scores it 50 and says the pieces do not fully come together. Thin plotting is the recurring complaint even among its admirers.

The verdict

The film's best moment is also its quietest: Harry walking alone down a Chinatown street, a man in a good coat who knows exactly where everything used to be. If you want a tight heist, look elsewhere. If you want an actor of Turturro's quality in a film built around him, with a nostalgic, funny and moving picture of a New York that is fading, this is the independent release of the season. IndieWire's Beandrea July gave it an A and a Critic's Pick, and we land close to that. It premiered at Sundance on January 27, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics in February, and counts Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman among its producers. It is the kind of word-of-mouth film that should play best with a full room. Our FilmRated score: 87/100.