Tom Ripley fever may well have hit a peak in 2024, with a new miniseries about the infamous con artist called Ripley debuting on Netflix to a high level of acclaim. This is a character and a story that has had its fair share of movie adaptations in the past, but this continual retelling of a familiar narrative is never objected to too greatly, given how engaging and relevant much of the content remains. It also helps that the Tom Ripley book series, written by Patricia Highsmith, has five entries within it, each involving Ripley getting involved in some kind of new messy situation, then scheming and/or murdering his way out of the troubles he gets himself into.
Coincidentally, there are also five movies that have served as adaptations for the series, but not every movie adapts a different book. Of the five novels in Highsmith’s series, two have actually never received major movie adaptations: the last two: The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) and Ripley Under Water (1991), the latter being published four years before Highsmith passed away. Of the other three, the first novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, forms the basis for the aforementioned TV show. It’s also had two film adaptations, the second novel, Ripley Under Ground, has one adaptation, and the third novel, Ripley’s Game, has two. Those five movies are ranked below, starting with the decent and ending with the great.
5 ‘Ripley Under Ground’ (2005)
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
This take on Ripley doesn’t lack talent entirely, but it is quite easy to single out as the least compelling of all the movies to feature Tom Ripley, and certainly the most obscure, too. Released in 2005, Ripley Under Ground is also the most recent film adaptation of one of the books from the series, and the only feature film version of the novel of the same name. Ripley Under Ground takes place some years on from The Talented Mr. Ripley, with the premise involving Tom engaging in a scheme to get rich by covering up the death of one of his friends: a talented painter, and then selling his artworks himself.
Despite the obscurity, Ripley Under Ground does have some fairly well-known names attached to it, with Barry Pepper playing the lead role (perhaps a little miscast) and the supporting cast including the likes of Tom Wilkinson, Willem Dafoe, and Alan Cumming. It functions as a somewhat competent thriller, and it’s unlikely too many people will find it abhorrent in terms of quality… though it is ultimately disappointing as an adaptation of a story in this acclaimed series, and the other four films about Tom Ripley – all of which were released before 2005 – are noticeably superior.
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4 ‘Ripley’s Game’ (2002)
Director: Liliana Cavani
It might not quite be criminally good, and it’s also not the best version of Ripley’s Game, but 2002’s Ripley’s Game is still compelling and a worthy cinematic take on the source material. It’s hard to call it one part of a movie series, necessarily, because no actor has played the character of Tom Ripley more than once on-screen (this could change if 2024’s Ripley has more than one season, because Andrew Scott would likely return to the role). But, at the same time, having a different actor play a familiar and distinctive character is interesting, with John Malkovich bringing his typically offbeat and sometimes unsettling energy to the role with success.
Malkovich’s Ripley is a little older than most other depictions of the character, but he makes it work, and it also feels logical with this being the third story in the series; the character should naturally have matured a little. Ripley’s Game sees Tom Ripley being even more in control and manipulative than ever before, convincing a dying man to become a hitman, after an old associate of Ripley’s asks for a rival to be killed. Befitting the title, Ripley treats the whole thing like a game and seems to enjoy the power he holds more than ever before, giving the film a consistent sense of tension and uneasiness that makes it a compelling psychological thriller.
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3 ‘The American Friend’ (1977)
Director: Wim Wenders
Given it’s also an adaptation of Ripley’s Game, The American Friend follows roughly the same premise as that aforementioned 2002 movie, but feels distinctive enough in several ways to stand on its own. It might be the most unusual and unexpected of all the adaptations, with legendary German filmmaker Wim Wenders showing himself to be unafraid of mixing things up in certain regards. For one thing, Dennis Hopper as Tom Ripley might be the most unusual or unexpected actor to play the character to date, given Hopper often excels in larger-than-life roles, and Ripley tends to be more measured and someone who doesn’t necessarily want to showcase large emotions.
Hopper makes it work, somehow, though, and ends up being a great Ripley alongside fellow acting legend Bruno Ganz, who also famously appeared in Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987), and here plays the dying man turned hitman that Ripley manipulates. The American Friend takes its time and certainly feels slow during some scenes, but nevertheless always builds tension and proves able to keep one’s interest, so long as they don’t mind a slow burn. When it gets to the more intense sequences, the payoffs prove worth the build-up, and the film overall is atmospheric, excellently acted, and perfectly suspenseful.
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2 ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ (1999)
Director: Anthony Minghella
1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley is likely the Tom Ripley movie most are familiar with, and that’s okay, because it’s undoubtedly one of the best and perhaps the most approachable. For anyone new to the series who wants to explore it through the movie adaptations, The Talented Mr. Ripley is an excellent starting point, being an adaptation of the first book and being arguably the clearest and most straightforward of the films. Narratively, it excels in introducing Tom Ripley and his obsession with another young man called Dickie Greenleaf, and the consequences of what happens when the two grow close and then have a dramatic fallout.
Ripley engages in the sort of conman behavior that defines his character in later stories, but there’s a sense of messiness to it all here, with Tom being young and not as experienced when it comes to things like lying, murder, and stealing identities. It was a key role for Matt Damon, further showing the depths he had as an actor in much the same way Good Will Hunting did, and the supporting cast of The Talented Mr. Ripley is also great, including the likes of Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s proven to be an influential movie that does justice to an influential and groundbreaking crime/thriller novel, and has aged extremely well in the quarter-century since its release.
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1 ‘Purple Noon’ (1960)
Director: René Clément
The first of all the Tom Ripley adaptations, 1960’s Purple Noon, arguably remains the best, even after more than six decades. It came out just five years after the original The Talented Mr. Ripley was published, and so it also narratively centers on the same basic premise found in the 1999 film of the same name. It’s all about Tom, his relationship with Dickie, and the drastic change Tom experiences in his life after their brief friendship comes to a violent conclusion.
Purple Noon is a French release, and perhaps it was that country’s willingness to push things a little further when it came to things like adult themes and violence that made the film work so well, and feel quite revolutionary for a 1960s release. It might not seem too confronting nowadays, but it’s easy to imagine it being more of a shock to the system for many back in 1960. It’s also the nicest-looking of all the movies about Tom Ripley, having a richness and bold use of color that gives the visuals a timeless quality, and, of course, the untouchable Alain Delon is fantastic as Tom Ripley; perhaps the definitive portrayal of the character on the silver screen to date.
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