Danny Ocean of Ocean 11: Who Plays Him and Every Heist

Danny Ocean is the master thief and planner at the center of the Ocean's series, played by George Clooney in the 2001 to 2007 trilogy and by Frank Sinatra in the 1960 original. He picks an impossible casino target and then recruits specialists to take it apart piece by piece. The role has two faces. In Ocean's Eleven (1960), directed by Lewis Milestone, Sinatra plays a Second World War veteran who reunites old comrades from his airborne unit. In Ocean's Eleven (2001), directed by Steven Soderbergh, Clooney plays a freshly paroled convict, and he returns for Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007), both also directed by Soderbergh.

Danny does not appear on screen in Ocean's Eight (2018), directed by Gary Ross, but the film is built around him, because the heist leader is his sister Debbie Ocean. If you want the full cast around him, the Ocean's Eleven cast page lists every returning actor, and the Ocean's Eleven characters page covers the rest of the ensemble.

Danny Ocean's arc runs from a raid on five casinos in 1960 to a vault job that begins with his parole in 2001, a debt that spans Europe in Ocean's Twelve and a revenge plot against Willy Bank in Ocean's Thirteen. Each film gives him a different kind of job to run.

In the 1960 film he plans a military style raid on five Las Vegas casinos (the Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands and Flamingo) at midnight on New Year's Eve. His crew blows up a power transmission tower, the Strip goes dark, and rewired backup systems open the cashier cages. The plan then unravels when the electrician Tony Bergdorf dies of a heart attack in the middle of the Strip, and the retired gangster Duke Santos works out who is behind the robbery.

In Ocean's Eleven (2001), Danny walks out of a New Jersey prison and heads straight for a vault shared by three casinos owned by Terry Benedict. He and Rusty Ryan assemble the crew, build a replica vault to rehearse, and time the job for a boxing match night when the vault holds the most cash. An electromagnetic pulse knocks out the city's power, crew members dressed as a SWAT team enter the vault, and a looped recording keeps Benedict's security staff watching an apparently untouched room.

Ocean's Twelve flips the setup. Benedict tracks down the whole crew and demands his money back with interest in two weeks, so they scatter to Europe, where an Amsterdam job collapses. Danny then accepts a bet from the rival thief François Toulour, the Night Fox, over a Fabergé egg, while the Europol detective Isabel Lahiri closes in. Tess joins the plan by posing as the actress Julia Roberts, and the crew ends up in custody before Danny shows the real egg had been swapped earlier.

Ocean's Thirteen turns the series into a revenge story. Willy Bank cheats Reuben Tishkoff out of a Las Vegas hotel deal, Reuben collapses, and Danny gathers the crew to ruin Bank's opening night by rigging the tables and slot machines so players win big. When the drilling equipment fails, Danny turns to his old target Benedict for money, and Benedict asks for Bank's diamonds in return.

Danny's closest working relationship is with Rusty Ryan, played by Brad Pitt, the old partner he calls first in Ocean's Eleven (2001), where Clooney is billed first and Pitt second. His closest personal tie is Tess Ocean, played by Julia Roberts, who is his ex-wife and is dating Terry Benedict when the 2001 story begins.

Benedict, played by Andy Garcia, is the rival who ties the first three Clooney films together. See Terry Benedict for his full profile. He is the target in 2001, the creditor in Ocean's Twelve, and an unwilling financier in Ocean's Thirteen.

The rest of the crew each own one specialty. Reuben Tishkoff is the retired casino owner who backs the first job and becomes the reason for the third. Linus Caldwell is the pickpocket who gets close to Benedict, and Basher Tarr, Frank Catton, Yen, Saul Bloom and Livingston Dell fill out the ensemble. Willy Bank is the villain of the third film.

In the 1960 film, Danny's partner is Jimmy Foster, played by Peter Lawford, his wife is Beatrice Ocean, played by Angie Dickinson, and the gangster Duke Santos, played by Cesar Romero, is the threat. Danny's sister is Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock in Ocean's Eight (2018). For the crew as a unit, see the Ocean's Eleven crew.

Danny survives every film in which he appears, but he is dead by the time of Ocean's Eight (2018). In the 1960 original, the hidden money is burned when Bergdorf's widow has him cremated in Las Vegas, so Danny's crew ends with nothing, and the final shot shows the men walking away from the funeral home while the Sands marquee displays the stars' names.

In Ocean's Eleven (2001), Benedict traces the robbery to Danny and has him jailed on a parole violation. The crew had already swapped the cash out, so Benedict has no proof and no money. Danny is later released, Rusty and Tess pick him up, and the film closes with the gang in front of the Bellagio fountain. In Ocean's Twelve the debt is settled when Toulour pays Benedict, and in Ocean's Thirteen the crew goes free and wealthy while Danny gives Benedict's share to charity in Benedict's name.

Ocean's Eight opens with Debbie Ocean leaving prison as the sister of the late Danny Ocean, and the film closes with her visiting his grave and raising a martini to him. The published plot outlines give no cause of death.

A prequel dated June 25, 2027 is reported to center on Danny's parents.

Danny Ocean's best moment is the vault heist in Ocean's Eleven (2001), where a replica-vault rehearsal, an electromagnetic pulse and a looped security feed hide the robbery. The plan is finished before anyone else knows the job has started, and that is the series at its sharpest.

Second is the Fabergé egg reveal in Ocean's Twelve. Toulour thinks he is racing Danny to the prize, but the crew had swapped the real egg earlier with help from Toulour's own mentor, Gaspar LeMarc, so Danny wins a bet he was never at risk of losing. It is the most efficient trick in the series.

Third is the decoy diamonds in Ocean's Thirteen. Benedict secretly hires a thief to take Bank's diamonds first, but Danny foresaw the double cross, so the stones that get stolen are decoys, and the donation made in Benedict's name is a neat final twist.

The 1960 film earns a mention for its midnight blackout, with five casinos going dark at once, and for its ironic cremation ending, which gives Sinatra's Danny the only heist in the series that ends with nothing. Finally, Debbie's toast at his grave in Ocean's Eight is a quiet way to honor a character who does not appear on screen in that film.