FILM · 2017 · USA
Going in Style
23 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (23)
- #001
According to his autobiography, Sir Michael Caine called this the happiest film he had ever made. The reason was that shooting took place during school holidays, which allowed Caine to bring his family, including his grandchildren and his sons-in-law, to New York City for the production. He found a house near the set where they all stayed together and enjoyed the holiday as a group.
- #002
The fictional bank is the Williamsburg Savings Bank. A real bank of that name existed and was taken over by HSBC Bank. The bank's interior was shot in the real, landmark WSB building in Brooklyn, New York.
- #003
The restaurant where Willie, Joe and Albert meet for lunch is the same restaurant where Jimmy Conway usually met Henry Hill in GoodFellas (1990).
- #004
One of the vehicles featured during the training montage is a Mini, a nod to Michael Caine's role in The Italian Job (1969).
- #005
The film everyone watches the night before the heist is Dog Day Afternoon (1975), which is about a failed bank robbery.
- #006
When the three men visit a marijuana store, they see that one of the strains is called "Strawberry Cough." In Children of Men (2006), Sir Michael Caine's character gave a marijuana strain the same name.
- #007
The speech Joe gives for Willie and Al after their kidney transplant, which at first appears to be a eulogy but turns out to be a wedding speech, is a nod to Going in Style (1979), in which the characters Willie and Al died of natural causes shortly after the robbery.
- #008
While Joe (Sir Michael Caine) and Willie (Morgan Freeman) are on their way to see Joe's former son-in-law, they pass a building called Alfie's, a nod to Caine's breakthrough role in Alfie (1966).
- #009
All three leads, Morgan Freeman, Sir Michael Caine and Alan Arkin, are Oscar winners.
- #010
One of the vehicles considered when planning the getaway car is Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine.
- #011
The masks worn by Joe, Albert and Willie during the bank robbery are, respectively, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., all members of the "Rat Pack" and stars of the heist film Ocean's Eleven (1960).
- #012
Arlen Hamer (Matt Dillon), the FBI agent tracking the bank robbers here, shares his surname with the famous Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, known for tracking down and killing the bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
- #013
Joey King spent several weeks with a softball coach to train for the softball scenes.
- #014
During the hospital queue scene, FBI agents interrupt a basketball game between a white medical intern and an African-American surgical intern in the gym. This was a nod to director Zach Braff's earlier role on Scrubs (2001), where J. D. and Turk (medical and surgical interns) often played basketball to relax.
- #015
Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin played husband and wife in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006).
- #016
Michael Caine is no stranger to heist films. Along with The Italian Job (1969) and others, the following year he starred in King of Thieves (2018), based on the true story of the Hatton Garden bank robbers in the United Kingdom in the 1960s.
- #017
Ann-Margret was "discovered" in 1960 by George Burns, her co-star in the original Going in Style (1979).
- #018
This was the second time Morgan Freeman and Kenan Thompson worked together; the first was as uncle and nephew in The Magic of Belle Isle (2012).
- #019
In the marijuana shop, the men find a jar labeled 'Maui Waui.' This is the name of the marijuana that the three office workers Judy (Jane Fonda), Violet (Lily Tomlin) and Doralee (Dolly Parton) smoked in 9 to 5 (1980) while each described how she would kill her boss.
- #020
Just before the heist, Sir Michael Caine tells the men, "Gentlemen, it was a really difficult time planning a robbery with you," much as near the end of The Eagle Has Landed (1976) he tells his men, "Gentlemen, it was a privilege to serve with you."
- #021
The robbers behave like members of the Rat Pack, the famous 1960s entertainers. Ann-Margret did in fact appear alongside one of them, Dean Martin, in Murderers' Row (1966).
- #022
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was initially involved in this film alongside Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema. However, for unknown reasons they left the project.
- #023
It appears to be a remake of Going in Style (1979) starring George Burns and Art Carney, but apart from the "Story By" credit for Harold Cannon there is no direct reference to it.
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