stolen blueprints

His films obsessively explore intellectual theft and the architecture of ideas, most directly in Inception where dreams and concepts are literally stolen blueprints of the mind.

Reed's classic espionage thrillers like The Third Man and Our Man in Havana center on stolen secrets and blueprints as MacGuffins driving moral ambiguity and political intrigue.

De Palma's signature style throughout films like Blow Out and Body Double involves voyeurism, theft of information, and the violation of private blueprints of identity and surveillance.