The Heist is a 2006 British Derren Brown television special that aired on Channel 4. In the special, Brown purports to use the cover of a motivational seminar and documentary to see if he can persuade four members of a group of thirteen businessmen and businesswomen to steal £100,000 in what they believe is a genuine "armed robbery" of a bank's security guard (using a realistic-looking toy gun).

The special was filmed over two weeks, during which Brown tells the viewer he has used various psychological tools, including conditioning, anchoring and suggestion, to get the group into a mental state in which they would willingly try to rob a security guard, without ever directly being told to do so. The anchoring supposedly involved creating an emotional state that combined feelings of invulnerability, euphoria and aggression, that was then tied to various stimuli, such as the colour green, the song "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons, and the sight of a security guard uniform; which could then all be presented to the participants when it came time to perform "the heist". The participants were also asked to perform various deviant acts, such as stealing sweets from a store, which served both to condition participants to enjoy the feeling of criminality, and to identify the four members who would be most likely to perform the heist.

Brown said that the show was inspired in part by "a vague distaste for the cult of selfishness apotheosised through self-help seminars".The Heist first aired on Channel 4 on 4 January 2006 at 9pm. It was Brown's fifth Channel 4 special.