Credit: Far Out / Manfred Werner / Tsui
Sun 6 September 2026 15:45, UK
From superhero blockbusters to forgotten gems and British cult classics, Michael Caine boasts one of the most extensive and illustrious filmographies of any living actor… While not every picture the actor has ever worked on has been a masterpiece, the Educating Ritas certainly outweigh the Jaws: The Revenges, and one late-period film stood out as a particular favourite.
Caine was a part of the first generation of British working-class actors to make it onto the silver screen during the kitchen sink days of the 1960s and the ‘new wave’ cinema movement. It was only once Zulu came around in 1964 that he managed to reach mass audiences, though, and the experiences of being a jobbing actor with limited opportunities during his early days always stuck with him. Hence, Caine was known to say yes to a plethora of projects that, in the grand scheme of things, he perhaps should have avoided.
That indiscriminate attitude towards roles meant Caine soon amassed a filmography far more diverse than many of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, when actors reach their twilight years, they tend to be typecast in the same types of roles: grandparents, cantankerous comic relief characters, people struggling with the ageing process, or, in Caine’s case, butlers.
For an actor with such an extensive filmography under his belt, that typecasting never really sat right with Michael Caine, which is perhaps why 2017’s Going In Style was so attractive to him.
Starring Caine alongside Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, the film centres around three old-age pensioners who plan to rob a bank after their pensions are cut. Hence, it allowed the actor not only to work alongside fellow performers whom he respects greatly, but also to break out of the typical roles offered to old-age actors.
In hindsight, you certainly can’t accuse Going In Style of being one of Michael Caine’s greatest films. It is a solid-enough comedy heist flick, albeit one that is pretty middling in its humour and not one which stands out against the litany of classic films the actor has taken part in. However, Caine himself attested that, if nothing else, he had an immeasurably good time working on the project.
“It’s one of the most enjoyable pictures I ever made,” he boldly declared during an interview with News 24 around the time of the film’s release. With co-star Morgan Freeman adding, “I’m reticent to say this, but it’s the absolute truth: When you’re working with people whose work you venerate, it’s really almost always a very satisfying experience. Don’t tell everybody I said that.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
On paper, it is no surprise that Caine enjoyed the experience of making Going In Style, even once you remove all the content of the film itself. It is exceedingly rare, after all, that a film brings together three actors as respected and illustrious as Caine, Freeman, and Arkin in one picture, particularly not in one as unique in premise as the 2017 effort.
With Michael Caine retiring from the acting world only a few years later, his final project being 2023’s The Great Escaper, it is fair to assume that Going In Style still stands out in the actor’s mind as a particularly pleasurable experience, arriving towards the end of what is one of the greatest acting careers of all time.
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