John Travolta wears a Rolex Submariner

Gabriel Shear talks for a living. Swordfish opens with him alone at a cafe table, coffee in hand, lecturing an unseen listener about why every Hollywood hostage movie gets it wrong, and the speech sets the tone: this is a man who believes he is the smartest operator in any room. In Dominic Sena's 2001 thriller, John Travolta plays Shear as a slick, untouchable manipulator who blackmails a paroled hacker, Stanley Jobson, played by Hugh Jackman, into breaking into a dormant federal slush fund worth billions. On Shear's wrist is a Rolex Submariner in solid yellow gold, the dive watch rendered entirely in 18-karat gold.

Rolex built the first Submariner in 1953 as a tool for divers, a steel watch made to survive deep water, with a rotating bezel for timing a dive. The gold version, which arrived at the end of the 1960s, kept every working part of that design, the screw-down crown, the rotating bezel, the luminous dial, and rendered it all in 18-karat gold on a matching gold Oyster bracelet. That is the version on Shear's wrist.