‘Ocean’s Eleven’ Came Out 20 Years Ago Today, And People Are Celebrating The Ultimate Dudes Rock Movie

Ocean’s Eleven, the most dudes rock movie of all-time, came out 20 years ago today. That’s 20 years of George Clooney and Brad Pitt looking impossibly cool, 20 years of “might as well call it whitejack,” and 20 years of Don Cheadle’s inexplicable accent.

Based on the Rat Pack-starring 1960 film of the same name (although the “11” isn’t spelled out in the original), Ocean’s Eleven was written by Ted Griffin and directed by Steven Soderbergh, who was originally apprehensive about taking on the project. “To my mind, there is a certain technical standard involved in making a film like this, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t measure up, so I made sure that I did a lot of homework. I studied some film makers that I thought were comfortable working in this sort of arena, just in terms of technical skills,” he said in a 2002 interview.

It’s a good thing Soderbergh changed his mind: Ocean’s Eleven made $450.7 million at the box office on a $85 million budget; inspired two sequels (with Ocean’s Fourteen possibly on the way) and a female spin-off; and it’s impossible to not watch at least 10 minutes of it when you’re flipping through cable channels on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Let’s give it up for Reuben:

On the 20th anniversary, people are praising “the only truly good movie.”

https://twitter.com/dish2ooomm/status/1468255314424258561

https://twitter.com/peggyrizzos/status/1468244942367641611

This tweet is from May 2020, but it still applies:

https://twitter.com/nickusen/status/1258414260260163585