The films of Michael Mann are sleek, aerodynamic machines driven by men bound to ironclad codes. These characters often have guns, and violence is an essential part of their vocabulary. Mann's career is a love affair with the criminal world and, with exacting perfectionism, he brings an unerring authenticity and eye for detail to his male-centric pictures. You can see it in 'Miami Vice,' the stylish '80s television series he produced, through and beyond the 2006 film of the same name. One of our great filmmakers, Mann's consistency of vision and the cool, formal beauty of his movies make the release of a new Mann movie a cinematic event. With the opening of 'Public Enemies' this week, I look at five films that reveal Mann at his best. 1. 'Heat' (1995) -- The quintessential Mann movie crystallizes his pet obsessions: professional men of integrity, their work and implacable codes. Robert De Niro is the expert thief and Al Pacino is the relentless cop on his tail in a crime film that transcends genre and attains chiseled, neon-washed art. In this mano-a-mano pitting of hunted and hunter, Mann examines the duality of opposites, a well-traveled theme he delves in 'Manhunter' and the new 'Public Enemies,' among other films. Neither man knows what else to do but their respective jobs, which they perform extremely well. An existential devotion to making one's work the meaning of one's life offers a serious and sophisticated meditation that also happens to feature one of the great -- if not the greatest -- bank heists and shootouts in movies. 2. 'Manhunter'(1986) -- The hunter gets creepily close to the hunted's mind in this prequel to 'Silence of the Lambs,' based on the Thomas Harris novel 'Red Dragon.' In a still mystifyingly unsung performance, Brian Cox plays Hannibal Lecter years before Anthony Hopkins supposedly created the role, and he brings a less flashy hiss and slither to the caged madman. He oozes British gentility, like Hopkins, but he's frumpier, more natural and more believably insidious than Hopkins' cartoon supervillain. With Lecter leering nearby, an FBI agent (William Petersen) channels his obsession with a serial killer (Tom Noonan) by trying to think like him and follow his patterns -- a dangerous ploy that invites its own mania. 3. 'Thief' (1981) -- Deep-dish film noir. James Caan plays Mann's classic existential loner -- the spiritual brother of De Niro's crook in 'Heat' -- in a somber crime picture throbbing with wounded humanity. Caan's antihero thief is part crack criminal, part junkyard philosopher and dreamer, scrabbling to replace a life of crime with the 'normal' existence of suburban bliss. Unfortunately, like De Niro in 'Heat,' he has one last errand to run before he can quit, and it could prove his ruin. 4. 'The Last of the Mohicans' (1992) -- Known for his urban crime settings, Mann shows himself supremely comfortable with this 18th-century period piece set during the French and English wars in the American colonies. It's a romance wrapped in an action film, and it moves with the sweep of history and the granular realism Mann demands. Scalpings have never looked so horrifying. It crackles with great performances -- Daniel Day-Lewis, Wes Studi, Madeleine Stowe -- and the breathtaking tour de force climax weds Mann's highly evolved instincts for art and action into something transcendent. 5. 'The Insider'(1999) -- Pacino plays '60 Minutes' producer Lowell Bergman, who's as rabid as his itchy-pants cop in 'Heat.' He wants the story, and he finds it in reluctant Big Tobacco whistle-blower Jeff Wigand. They are two men with clashing goals, and the result in this multi-Oscar-nominated white-collar thriller is an epic battle between dueling codes of honor -- vintage Mann. Chris Garcia writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: cgarcia@statesman.com. 