John Turturro has more than his share of admirers. The Coen brothers have hired him four times; Spike Lee, nine. Adam Sandler loves working with him, as does Michael Bay. If Hollywood is like high school (and it most definitely is), Turturro is the kind of guy who can hang with both the jocks and the nerds, sliding effortlessly into whatever world he finds himself.

You know him for countless roles — the self-important playwright Barton Fink or the purple jumpsuit-rocking bowler whom nobody messes with in "The Big Lebowski." Turturro wrecked us playing the grieving Irv on Apple TV's trippy drama "Severance," and when Irv disappeared in Season 2, fans worried we might have seen the last of him. (Not to worry: Turturro will be returning.)

With his lanky frame, unruly hair and sad, deep-set eyes, Turturro, 69, often inhabits twitchy, tightly wound characters, though he can also recede into stillness, conveying buried hurt and pain. We see that weary, mindful attentiveness come alive again with his latest movie, "The Only Living Pickpocket in New York," a throwback crime drama that offers Turturro a rare starring role. If it's not his career-best work, it belongs in the conversation.

Turturro's title character could be seen as a hero for those aspiring to an analog life. Harry doesn't own a smartphone, spins vinyl and dances in the Bronx apartment he shares with his wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave), a beautiful woman left immobile and unresponsive from an unstated health issue. Harry lives by a code, stealing and dealing only tangible things — cash, phones, jewelry. It's an ethos proving to be a challenge in today's digital world.

Spying a young pickpocket (Rob Brown) on the subway, Harry generously shares his hard-earned wisdom, telling the fledgling thief that he needs something to hide his plunder, like a "newspaper or a magazine." (The heart warms to see someone onscreen who still recognizes the value of print media.)

This delicate, restrained film, written and directed by Noah Segan, feels like both a love letter to Turturro and to New York itself, as we watch Harry bop around the five boroughs, plying his profession, wearing a weathered gray tweed overcoat, which serves as an essential tool of the trade and something of a suit of armor. That it also impeccably matches Turturro's salt-and-pepper hair lends Harry an air of elegance, a sartorial grace in an age of graphic tees and chunky sneakers.

Harry ekes out a living, selling what he steals to pawn shop owner Ben (the always welcome Steve Buscemi), a close friend and kindred soul — and the owner of an outsized and comically outdated desktop computer. The ancient PC proves to be Harry's undoing. After he lifts a bag from an over-caffeinated tech-bro type (Will Price), Harry comes across a USB drive which, when plugged into Ben's computer, emits a signal to its mob-connected owner. That USB drive turns out to be of great value to the family and they want it back. The problem is Harry already left it with another pawn shop owner.

That's the ticking-clock catalyst of the film, setting Harry on a journey of recovery, made challenging by the fact that he doesn't have a smartphone. (Odysseus navigating around the Sirens has nothing on trying to find a working payphone in New York City.) Segan, a longtime actor best known for working with Rian Johnson, maintains a sense of urgency throughout the movie's tight 88-minute running time. And he populates the film with terrific actors, including Giancarlo Esposito as a detective who shares a long history with Harry, and Tatiana Maslany in a role that I won't spoil. You may not even recognize her when you see her, par for the course for the "Orphan Black" shape-shifter.

But "The Only Living Pickpocket in New York" is less a procedural thriller than a wistful mood piece about the passage of time, what's lost, what's left behind. For all of its subtext about the pitfalls of algorithms, the film doesn't wallow in nostalgia. One character even looks at the past and ruefully labels it the "bad old days." And in the next beat, she confesses that she misses them. That's the rough-hewn appeal of the movie in a couple of lines.

If Segan is sentimental about anything, it's for a time when films set in New York were actually shot in the city. Segan opens "The Only Living Pickpocket" with LCD Soundsystem's melancholic love-hate anthem "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" ("you're still the one pool / where I'd happily drown") and closes the movie with Café Carlyle mainstay Bobby Short singing Cole Porter's "I Happen to Like New York." Given the way Segan embraces every aspect of the city with his film, he clearly shares Porter's feelings. This one's a low-key charmer. Start spreading the news.

———

'THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK'

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 1:28

How to watch: In limited theatrical release Oct. 23, expands nationwide Oct. 30

———

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.