Confidence tricks in film and television

Fictional portrayals

Movies and television

• The Lady Eve (1941) – directed by Preston Sturges; the main character, Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck), is a con artist.

1950s

• Racket Squad (1951–1953) – TV series in the style of Dragnet with all episodes focused on confidence crimes.
• The Rainmaker (1956) – directed by Joseph Anthony; the main character, Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), is a con artist.
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957) — directed by Billy Wilder

1960s

• The Music Man (1962) — produced and directed by Morton DaCosta; the main character, Harold Hill (Robert Preston), is a con artist.
• Mission: Impossible (1966–73 TV series, revived 1988-1989) – the IMF team's adventures usually take the form of an elaborate con game in which the villain is the mark. Series writer William Read Woodfield was a self-professed confidence enthusiast and had read David Maurer's books on the subject.
• The Flim-Flam Man (1967) — directed by Irvin Kershner; the main character, Mordecai Jones (George C. Scott), is a con artist.
• The Producers (1968) – written and directed by Mel Brooks; the main characters, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and Leopold Bloom (Gene Wilder), are con artists.

1970s

• Midnight Cowboy — directed by John Schlesinger; the main character, Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) is a small-time con artist.
• Skin Game (1971) – directed by Paul Bogart; the main characters, Quincy Drew (James Garner) and Jason O'Rourke (Louis Gossett Jr.), con people.
• Paper Moon (1973) – directed by Peter Bogdanovich; a con-man (Ryan O'Neal) and a young girl (Tatum O'Neal) travel around the United States, engaging in a variety of confidence schemes.
• The Sting (1973) – directed by George Roy Hill; two professional grifters, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) try to con a mob boss.

1980s

• The A-Team (1983–1986, TV) — created by Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell; con tricks are performed mostly by team member Tempelton Peck (played by Dirk Benedict)
• House of Games (1987) – directed by David Mamet; features con artists as main characters
• The Vanishing (1988) – directed by George Sluizer; directed by Frank Oz the main character is a victim of a confidence trick; a remake was released in 1993
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) – directed by Frank Oz; main characters, Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) and Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine), are con artists

1990s

• The Grifters (1990) – directed by Stephen Frears; the story of Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston), a con artist
• Diggstown (1992) – directed by Michael Ritchie; the main character, Gabriel Caine (James Woods), is a con man
• Six Degrees of Separation (1993) – directed by Fred Schepisi; the plot was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man
• The Usual Suspects (1995) – directed by Bryan Singer; one of the characters is a con man
• Traveller (1997) – Bokky (Bill Paxton) is a confidence man
• The Spanish Prisoner (1997) – directed by David Mamet; named after the confidence game "Spanish Prisoner"
• The Pest (1997 film) — Pestario 'Pest' Vargas (John Leguizamo) is a Latino con man
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (film) (1999) - directed by Anthony Minghella; Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is a con artist.
• Ed, Edd, n Eddy (1999) - three main characters spend their time scamming other kids to get money in order to buy jawbreakers
• The movies F/X and F/X2 as well as it's spin-off TV series F/X: The Series centers around a group of special effects specialist helping the law authorities bring criminals to justice, more than often using cons in the forms of elaborate special effects during the climax to draw the criminals out to the authorities, similar to the cons pulled of by the IMF team in Mission: Impossible.

2000s

• Boiler Room (2000) – directed by Ben Younger. Giovanni Ribisi plays entry-level investment broker working in a boiler room operation as part of a microcap stock fraud, with Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel.
• Nine Queens (Nueve Reinas) (2000) – directed by Fabián Bielinsky; tells the story of two con artists who meet by chance and decide to cooperate in a scam; remade as Criminal (2004)
• The Prime Gig (2000) – directed by Gregory Mosher; Pendelton "Penny" Wise (Vince Vaughn) is a con artist
• Birthday Girl (2001) – directed by Jez Butterworth; the main character, John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), is a victim of a scam based on the con
• Heist (2001) — directed by David Mamet; the plot is based on a confidence game
• Heartbreakers (2001) – directed by David Mirkin; Max (mother) and Page Conners (daughter) con women
• Ocean's Eleven (2001) (remake of the 1960 film by Lewis Milestone) and sequels Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007) – directed by Steven Soderbergh; films about con artists and the con
• The Score (2001) — directed by Frank Oz; the main characters try to con one another
• Catch Me If You Can (2002) — directed by Steven Spielberg; story about a real-life con artist and impostor Frank Abagnale
• Confidence (2003) – directed by James Foley; a group of con artists attempt to rip off a corrupt bank president
• Matchstick Men (2003) – directed by Ridley Scott; the main characters are con artists
• Shade (2003) – directed by Damian Nieman; story about poker hustlers who try to con other players
• Hustle (2004 – present) — a BBC series about a team of con artists
• Criminal (2004) — directed by Gregory Jacobs; about a team of con artists
• Lost (2004), TV series, two characters, James "Sawyer" Ford and Anthony Cooper, are both con-artists.
• Going Postal (2004), a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, features the semi-ex confidence artist Moist Von Lipwig as the protagonist, as does its 2007 sequel, Making Money.
• A Con (2005) — created by a con artist Skyler Stone, who reveals the secrets of his profession by performing confidence tricks, scams, and hoaxes
• Revolver (2005) — directed by Guy Ritchie; one of the main characters, Jake Green (Jason Statham), is a con artist, and the premise of the film is a con
• Bluffmaster (2005) — directed by Rohan Sippy; the main character, Roy, is a professional conman
• Colour Me Kubrick (2006) – directed by Brian W. Cook; based on a true story of Alan Conway, who posed as director Stanley Kubrick
• Lucky Number Slevin (2006) – directed by Paul McGuigan; main character, Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett) performs an elaborate con as a revenge
• The Real Hustle (2006 – present) — BBC series; actors playing a team of ex-grifters explain the secrets of the con to the public
• Kurosagi (2006) — Japanese drama that reflects on the art of different cons and swindling methods.Starring Yamashita Tomohisa
• Viva Pinata (2007) Features a character "The Bonboon" who is constantly pulling tricks on pinatas to get candy.
• Believe (2007) — directed by Loki Mulholland; a mockumentary about multi-level marketing
• The Riches (2007) — FX series about a nomadic, drifter family
• Liar Game (2007) — Japanese drama which is about a honest college student, receives 100 million yen (about $1,000,000) one day, along with a card saying that she has been chosen to participate in the "Liar Game". In order to win the game, she must trick other players.
• Futurama: Bender's Big Score (2007) — film based on the TV series of the same name; the villains of the film are Internet scammers
• Burn Notice (2007 – present) — USA Network series; an ex covert operative works as a freelance spy, with his jobs often taking the form of a con

Notable confidence tricks in literature

Nineteenth century

• The Confidence-Man (1857) — novel by Herman Melville; the main character tests confidence of other people
• Les Misérables (1862) — novel by Victor Hugo; the Thénardiers, two of the primary villains, scam money from people
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) — novel by Mark Twain; two characters, The Duke and the Dauphin are grifters
• "The Red-Headed League" (1891) — Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle, which involves a sort of confidence trick used to enable a bank robbery

Twentieth century

• Simon Templar (1928—1963), also known as "The Saint," a main character in Leslie Charteris' novels and stories who is often involved in scams and cons
• The Twelve Chairs (1928) and The Little Golden Calf (1931) – satirical novels by Ilf and Petrov; the main character, Ostap Bender, is a con man, who has carried out most of the tricks listed below, and The Little Golden Calf contains a fictional secret society of con men called Children of Lieutenant Schmidt
• The Space Merchants (1953) — sci-fi novel by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth is replete with con games practiced by corporations
• Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years (1954) – Thomas Mann's unfinished novel about a German con man
• The Stainless Steel Rat (1961 – present) – series of sci-fi novels by Harry Harrison; the protagonist, James Bolivar diGriz ("Slippery Jim"), is a con man and uses abundant schemes and frauds
• Travis McGee (1964–1984), fictional character in John D. MacDonald's series of detective novels, frequently uses con games or has them tried against him
• The Golden Egg (1984) — psychological thriller novel by Tim Krabbé features a chemistry teacher who employs con for the purpose of kidnapping
• Repairman Jack (1984–present), fictional character in F. Paul Wilson's series of novels, often runs scams on other con artists.
• If Tomorrow Comes (1985) — novel by Sidney Sheldon, which has a con artist as the main character and is mostly based on trickery and deception
• Hellblazer (1988 – present) — ongoing horror comic book series; the main character, John Constantine, uses confidence scams, trickery and magick

Twenty-first century

• The Brethren (2000) — novel by John Grisham features a con run by three incarcerated judges
• Matchstick Men (2002) — novel by Eric Garcia; the main characters are con artists
• American Gods (2001) — novel by Neil Gaiman uses a two-man con as a major plot element
• The Egyptologist (2004) — In this Arthur Phillips novel, Ralph Trilipush is a brilliant con who eventually cons himself.
• Going Postal (2004) — Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel features a convicted and condemned con artist Moist von Lipwig, who applies the principles of the con in his new job as Postmaster General
• The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) — fantasy novel by Scott Lynch follows the adventures of a group of con artists known as the Gentlemen Bastards
• Many of the crime novels by Jim Thompson involve confidence artists

See also

Confidence trick