If you’re obsessed with the Louvre heist, watch this hit French Netflix series

If you’re fascinated by the recent Louvre heist, I have some strangely good news for you: there’s a French Netflix show in which the protagonist steals jewelry from the Louvre in the first episode.

Let me back up. Before 10 a.m. Central European Summer Time on Sunday, October 19, 2025, a group of thieves attacked the Louvre Museum in Paris using a furniture lifta familiar machine to Parisians across the city because it is used to place huge pieces of furniture in the windows of buildings that have narrow stairs and no elevators. After breaking into a window, wearing balaclavas and disguised as museum guards thanks to vests, the thieves managed to seize a ton of historic French jewelry, including a tiara that belonged to Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, a decorative jewel-encrusted brooch and bow that also belonged to the Empress, jewelry that belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte and was gifted to his second wife, and an elaborate sapphire ensemble that included a tiara, a necklace and earrings. A crown belonging to Empress Eugenie that is covered in jewels and made of gold was found after the gang’s great escape, indicating that they abandoned or dropped the high-priced item; It is now extremely damaged.

I’m sorry but this is so metallicand I haven’t stopped thinking about it since it happened… especially since the whole heist seems like something out of a movie or TV show. Specifically, it seems almost straight out of “Lupin,” the thriller series directed by George Kay and François Uzan and starring French superstar Omar Sy. Sy’s character Assane Diop, a master thief modeled after the fictional master thief Arséne Lupin, robs the Louvre in the pilot, so that’s pretty accurate!

When we first meet Assane Diop, the son of a Senegalese immigrant who came to France as a child, he is strugglingto put it lightly. Unable to maintain alimony payments to his ex-wife Claire Laurent (Ludivine Sagnier) and son Raoul (Etan Simon) and pursued around Paris by loan sharks, Assane proposes a plan to rob the Louvre and steal a diamond necklace said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. However, there is a deeper intention behind Assane’s plan, and it has to do with his late father Babakar Diop (Fargass Assandé), who worked as a driver for the rich and famous Pellegrini family in France.

As we learn in flashbacks, a young Assane frequently accompanied his father to work while Babakar drove the Pellegrini and witnessed his father’s mistreatment at the hands of the wealthy family, especially when it came to the patriarch, Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre). Unfortunately for Babakar, Hubert once owned the same necklace now up for auction at the Louvre (an important difference here is that the necklace is not part of the Louvre’s collection, but still) and, concocting a ruse to get insurance money for the important item, Hubert hides it and then frames Babakar for the theft.

Anne (Nicole García), Hubert’s slightly kinder wife, convinces Babakar to plead guilty to a lesser sentence, and although Babakar passes a coded note to Assane (in a book by “Arséne Lupin”, which gives the future thief his inspiration) proving his innocence, he ultimately takes his own life in prison. It is understandable that Assane wants revenge. and the necklace So how do you do it?

To be totally fair to the gang that literally broke into the world’s most famous museum, opened a few windows and made off with a handful of priceless French jewels, Assane Diop’s Louvre robbery in “Lupin” was significantly more sophisticated (and even involves great betrayal). Assane poses as a wealthy businessman under the false name “Paul Sernine”, which is an anagram of “Arséne Lupine”, and bids for the necklace, winning fairly during the auction and being escorted to the vault housing the necklace alongside the auctioneer and the loan sharks themselves, who are disguised as museum security guards with full authorization to roam the Louvre. The loan sharks beat both the auctioneer and “Paul”, but in fact they intend to steal the necklace and get rid of Assane.

During the beating, Assane manages change the necklace with a replica, leaving the loan sharks with a fake, making their “winning bidder” Paul look like he was personally robbed, and quietly leaving the Louvre with the real necklace. As? Assane had a second secret identity as the Louvre’s janitor and is able to leave the museum without fanfare in a cap and uniform pushing a trash can containing this multimillion-dollar necklace. It’s simply the first step in Assane’s larger plan to play around with and destroy the Pellegrini, and with all due respect to these real-life thieves, it’s a fascinating and basically flawless heist. (At the time of writing, the thieves have not yet been caught, so only time will tell if they “succeed,” so to speak.) Interestingly, at one point items were stolen from the “Lupin” set itself, coming full circle.

“Lupin,” which will return for a fourth season in 2026, is now streaming on Netflix, and is very good! Go see it!