Here’s are 13 movie con artists we fall for every single time.
Louis Winthorpe III and Billy Ray Valentine in Trading Places (1983)
After a mean-spirited bet causes them to trade lives, Dan Aykroyd’s yuppie-turned-homeless man Louis and Eddie Murphy’s homeless-man-turned-yuppie Billy Ray team up to take down Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche), the bored rich brothers who played them like puppets.
Louis learns street smarts and Billy Ray learns market manipulation, making them both adept con man at opposite sides of the social hierarchy. Trading Places takes the view that luck matters every bit as much in life as hard work — unless you find a way to manipulate the odds.
It’s impossible not to root for Louis and Billy Ray, especially once they enlist the stagecraft of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Ophelia, a sex worker with a heart of gold.
Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker in The Sting (1973)
Everything about. George Roy Hill’s Depression-era caper The Sting is a joy — the Scott Joplin music, the re-pairing of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman, the pacing — but what’s most fun is trying to figure out how the scams work.
The film’s many complicated schemes culminate in a brilliant reality-bending betting parlor setup concocted by Newman’s Henry and Redford’s Johnny, two of the most influential of all movie con artists.
The film deservedly won a slew of Oscars, including for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Lawrence Jamieson and Freddy Benson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Steve Martin and Michael Caine are irresistible as a pair of rivals-turned-partners in Frank Oz’s endlessly inventive farce about womanizing con artists in the French Riviera. Caine’s Lawrence Jamieson is sophisticated and impressive, and Martin’s Freddy Benson cheap and crass.
When they try to team up to bilk Janet Colgate ( an excellent Glenne Headly), the naïve “United States Soap Queen” out of her millions, things don’t break as anyone expects. You’ll love this movie or my name isn’t Dr. Dr. Emil Schaffhausen.
This is a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story, starring Marlon Brando, David Niven and Shirley Jones.
‘Fast Eddie Felson’ and Vincent Lauria in The Color of Money (1986)
The second appearance on this list for Paul Newman is a sequel to 1961’s The Hustler and finds Newman reprising his role as “Fast Eddie” Felson, for which he won an Oscar. In the original film, he’s a hotshot humbled by Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats. This time, he’s the old hand, and Tom Cruise plays Vincent, the young hotshot who thinks he knows everything.
One of the joys of The Color of Money is how much fun it has with the fact that being good at pool hustling isn’t the same as just being good at pool: Felson has to constantly calculate how good he is compared to his opponent, and mislead his adversary accordingly.
More on The Color of Money
There’s a long stretch of The Color of Money — directed by Martin Scorsese — in which Newman’s Eddie and Cruise’s Vincent go from being partners to rivals, and you have no idea what kind of scam Eddie is running. It’s completely compelling.
Yes, Tom Cruise was the hot young actor when The Color of Money came out, and Paul Newman was the classic Hollywood icon — but you find yourself rooting for the older actor throughout.
Both The Hustler and The Color of Money are based on novels by Walter Tevis, who also wrote the novel that inspired the recent Netflix phenomenon The Queen’s Gambit.
Kelly Van Ryan and Suzie Toller in Wild Things (1998)
Kelly (Denise Richards, above right) and Suzie (Neve Campbell, above left) play up their supposed innocence to set up an intricate, very twisty scam in this can’t-look-away modern noir in which nothing is as it seems.
Both leads are excellent, and the seediness of the whole affair makes you feel like you’re seeing the inner workings of something you shouldn’t.
There are many elements of Wild Things that would probably make it a non-starter for modern critics, but it has an undeniable atmosphere and slow-burn propulsion that are impossible to resist. And if you find the whole thing kind of exploitative, well, at least Kevin Bacon’s totally unnecessary shower makes it equal opportunity.
Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can (2002)
It’s been said that charm is a quality that makes you want to say yes before you even know the question, and Leonardo DiCaprio overflows with it onscreen. He’s extremely adept at playing endearing young con artists. Somehow the people around them, especially women, always want them with their schemes instead of calling the cops.
One of the best examples is in his portrayal of Frank Abagnale Jr., the real-life young con artist turned security consultant who stars in Steven Spielberg’s kinetic and fun Catch Me If You Can.
Its stunning lineup of great actors, in roles big and small, also includes Tom Hanks, as a fictionalized version of the fed who caught the real Abagnale, Christopher Walken, and Amy Adams, who appears later in this gallery.
Sydney Prosser in American Hustle (2013)
Amy Adams in American Hustle. Sony Pictures Releasing.
Amy Adams’ Sydney Prosser — who also goes by the “Lady Edith Greensly” — is the more lovable, seductive half of a con artist partnership with Christian Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld.
When FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) catches them in a loan scheme, the FBI enlists them in a sting operation to snare the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner).
You can get caught up in the complicated criminal machinations of American Hustle, or just enjoy the lavish late ’70s-early ’80s vibes and incredible performances, as well as the glitzy wardrobes of Prosser and Irving’s wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence.) The movie looks dazzling, and Prosser is so charming that you find yourself rooting for her even when you shouldn’t.
12 Movie Con Artists We Fall for Every Time
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Main image: Wild Things. Columbia
