Directed by Anthony Minghella • 1999 • United States
Starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow

Gorgeous Italian coastal scenery and equally gorgeous stars are the beautiful facade belying an undercurrent of creeping menace in Anthony Minghella’s sumptuous adaptation of the first book in Patricia Highsmith’s series of novels centered on the cunning sociopath Tom Ripley. Here, the young Ripley (Matt Damon) is a New York nobody who gets a chance to experience the good life when he is mistaken for a friend of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the playboy son of a wealthy businessman living in Italy. Using his charm and facility for deception to insinuate himself into the glamorous lives of Dickie and his girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow), Ripley hatches a sinister scheme to get ahead in the world.