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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988), starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, follows two rival con artists competing to swindle a wealthy American heiress along the French Riviera, structured as a comedic remake of the earlier 1964 film "Bedtime Story." Its competitive dynamic between the two lead con artists, each attempting to outmaneuver and eventually sabotage the other's separate schemes targeting the same victim, gave the film a distinctly comedic two-hander structure relative to more single-protagonist-focused entries in the genre. The film's glamorous French Riviera setting became closely associated with its identity, reinforcing the con artist genre's broader tendency to pair criminal deception with aspirational, wealthy European settings that heighten the visual contrast between surface elegance and underlying dishonesty. Its combination of its comedic dual-con-artist structure and its glamorous Riviera setting has made "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" one of the most beloved comedic entries in the con artist film genre.
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The Sting
"The Sting" (1973), reuniting "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, follows two Depression-era con artists orchestrating an elaborate scheme to swindle a ruthless crime boss, winning seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. Its Scott Joplin-based ragtime musical score, arranged by Marvin Hamlisch and built around the piece "The Entertainer," triggered a significant mainstream revival of ragtime music's popularity decades after the genre's original early-20th-century commercial peak. The film's carefully structured plot, built around a series of escalating cons whose full mechanics are only revealed to the audience in the final act, established a template for the "elaborate reveal" con artist film structure that numerous subsequent films in the genre have directly followed. Its combination of its Best Picture-winning critical success and its genre-defining twist-reveal structure has made "The Sting" widely regarded as the greatest con artist film ever made.
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