Brad Pitt wears a Rolex GMT-Master II

I keep coming back to the poolside scene in Ocean's Thirteen. Rusty Ryan is wedged between his two partners, arms crossed, grey blazer over a tan shirt, and there's a flash of gold at his wrist. It's a yellow gold Rolex GMT-Master II, reference 116718 - the one Rolex rolled out in 2005 in solid 18-karat gold, with a black dial, gold applied markers, and a black Cerachrom ceramic bezel that had just taken over from the old aluminium insert. He wears it through most of the film. BAMF Style follows the same gold case on a gold Oyster bracelet across at least three of his looks: the silver suit at the pool, the mustard outfit at the airport, the white pinstripe suit.

The GMT complication itself goes back to 1954, when Rolex built it for Pan Am pilots who had to read a second time zone in the air. So on paper it's the obvious watch for a man running a job across a few cities at once. But here's what gets me: nothing about a solid-gold Rolex is quiet, and Rusty's whole job is not getting looked at. Why would the guy who needs to disappear pick the loudest thing on the table?

His watches change as the films go on, a platinum Day-Date in Twelve and this gold GMT in Thirteen, and the jump from a dress watch to a pilot's watch isn't really a downgrade, it's a change of subject. People will tell you the gold GMT is close to Pitt's own taste in Rolex, and maybe it is, but that's collector lore, not anything the production ever confirmed. What's on screen is simpler than any of that: the showiest watch in the room, sitting on the one guy who spends all three movies trying not to be looked at.