Rififi

From the Turner Classic Movies discussion of Topkapi, which explicitly describes Topkapi as Dassin's return to the heist genre after Rififi. It identifies the climactic heist sequence as the major element carried over: both films stage the robbery with virtually no dialogue, using the mechanics of the theft itself to generate suspense. The BFI is even more explicit: it describes Topkapi as Dassin having “refined the heist movie in Rififi” and then deliberately taking the form in a different direction—away from noir and toward a lighter, colorful caper.

Book to movie adaptation. However : Dassin famously hated the Rififi book, particularly its heavy undertones of racism, so he completely altered the script. He took a very minor safe-cracking moment from the book and expanded it into the legendary, 30-minute silent heist sequence to give the film its center. He effectively invented his own masterpiece entirely in a vacuum