movielex
movie
L
ex

Movies like The Grifters

Key Features:
Con artists, Neo-noir, Crime, Betrayal, Family drama, Mother-son relationship, Femme fatale, High-stakes, Moral ambiguity, Deception, Violence-moderate
Tone:
cynical, gritty, serious
Target Audience:
Crime drama fans, Neo-noir enthusiasts, Fans of complex characters, Adults
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Suspicion → Despair

The Grifters

1990-08-08
The Grifters Poster - Find Similar Movies

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

Genres
Crime, Drama
Cast
Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening, Jan Munroe, Robert Weems, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jimmy Noonan, Richard Holden, Henry Jones, Michael Laskin
Crew
Stephen Frears, Donald E. Westlake
Rating
6.5(450 votes)
The GriftersThe Grifters
Select exactly what you are looking for


Confidence
6.3

What Jake Vig doesn't know just might get him killed. A sharp and polished grifter, Jake has just swindled thousands of dollars from the unsuspecting Lionel Dolby with the help of his crew. It becomes clear that Lionel wasn't just any mark, he was an accountant for eccentric crime boss Winston King. Jake and his crew will have to stay one step ahead of both the criminals and the cops to finally settle their debt.



Criminal
Criminal(2004)
6.2

Needing a new partner capable of intricate cons, Richard Gaddis, recruits Rodrigo, a crook with a perfect poker face. The two plan a big-time scam: selling a fake Silver Certificate to currency collector William Hannigan. Rodrigo distrusts his new associate, but needs money to help out his ill father. The situation becomes more complicated when Rodrigo falls for Gaddis' sister, Valerie, drawing another player into the game.



Focus
Focus(2015)
6.9

Nicky, an accomplished con artist, gets romantically involved with his disciple Jess but later ends their relationship. Years later, she returns as a femme fatale to spoil his plans.



The Good Liar
6.7

Career con man Roy sets his sights on his latest mark: recently widowed Betty, worth millions. And he means to take it all. But as the two draw closer, what should have been another simple swindle takes on the ultimate stakes.



The Con Artists
6.957

A wily safecracker is forced to help a mob boss pull off a $150 million heist, but smells a double-cross in the works.



Sharper
Sharper(2023)
6.864

A small, wealthy family in New York City gets progressively torn apart by secrets, lies, and the theft that orchestrates all of it.



The Killing
7.649

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.



Matchstick Men
7.005

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.



Shade
Shade(2003)
6.2

Tiffany, Charlie and Vernon are con artists looking to up the ante from their typical scams. They figure a good way of doing this is taking down Dean "The Dean" Stevens, a well-known cardsharp, in a rigged game. However, they first need enough money to enter a game with Stevens, so they decide to strike a deal with fellow crook Larry Jennings to scam a local gangster -- which turns out to be a bad idea.



Heartbreakers
6.1

Max and Page are a brilliant mother/daughter con team who have their grift down to a fine science. Max targets wealthy, willing men and marries them. Page then seduces them, and Max catches her husband in the act. Then it's off to palimony city and the next easy mark.



The Swindlers
6.71

A group of swindlers unite to hunt down an infamous con man who was known dead, amid their hidden motives and deception.



The Killers
6.9

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.



Choke
Choke(2008)
6.1

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.



The Forger
5.802

A former child art prodigy and second generation petty thief arranges to buy his way out of prison to spend time with his ailing son, only to be forced to alter his plans and commit one more job for the man who financed his release.



Jack of the Red Hearts

A teenage con artist tricks a desperate mother into hiring her as a live-in companion for her autistic daughter.



The Swindle
7.306

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.



The Sting
The Sting(1973)
8

A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.



The Forger
5.711

While staying at a picturesque village, a teen encounters the underground world of art forgery.



American Hustle
6.855

A conman and his seductive partner are forced to work for a wild FBI agent, who pushes them into a world of Jersey power-brokers and the Mafia.



The Underneath
5.6

A recovering gambling addict attempts to reconcile with his family and friends but finds trouble and temptation when caught between feelings for his ex-wife and her dangerous hoodlum boyfriend.



In the Beginning
6.6

France, present day. A professional conman passes himself off as the boss of a construction site building a highway extension. He cons the whole region, hires dozens of workers and cynically enjoys the profits of his scam until he meets the lady mayor of a small village that the road will go through. She intrigues and unsettles him, before revealing to him a world he never knew: feelings. How far will he go now to save his victims and save himself from his own lies?



Klute
Klute(1971)
6.733

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.



The Courier
6.413

After shrewdly seizing his chance to join a money-laundering scheme, a modest valet dives into a world of fast cash, fast cars — and an inevitable crash.



The Betrayed
5.546

Kidnappers force a young mother to recover money stolen by her shady husband.



Playing God
6.038

A brother and sister con-artist duo find themselves scamming a grieving billionaire by convincing him they can introduce him to God, face-to-face.



The Con Is On
3.9

In an effort to avoid paying off a massive gambling debt to a notorious mobster in England, a couple flees to Los Angeles and hatch a jewel theft plot.



Arbitrage
Arbitrage(2012)
6.3

A troubled hedge fund magnate, desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire, makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.



The Good Thief
6.072

An aging gambler on a losing streak attempts to rob a casino in Monte Carlo. But someone's already tipped off the cops before he even makes a move.



Lying and Stealing
5.9

Hoping to leave his criminal lifestyle behind him, a successful art thief teams up with a sexy con woman to pull off the ultimate heist and set himself free.



Money
Money(2016)
5.379

Two wealthy businessmen are about to get away with $5 million in ill-gotten money until their plans are revealed by an uninvited house guest.



Deceiver
Deceiver(1997)
5.955

The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland, a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton and Kennesaw take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.



Joy House
Joy House(1964)
6.419

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.



The Escort
5.968

Desperate for a good story, a sex-addicted journalist throws himself into the world of high-class escorts when he starts following a Stanford-educated prostitute.



The Hustle
6.189

Two female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, compete to swindle a naïve tech prodigy out of his fortune. A remake of the 1988 comedy "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."



Incognito
Incognito(1997)
5.762

Harry Donovan is an art forger who paints fake Rembrandt picture for $500,000. The girl he meets and gets into bed with in Paris, Marieke, turns out to be an arts expert Harry's clients are using to check the counterfeit picture he painted.



The Salton Sea
6.547

After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.



Maverick
Maverick(1994)
6.9

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.



The Last Seduction
6.765

A devious femme fatale steals her husband’s drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.



Housesitter
6.1

Con artist Gwen moves into Newton's empty home without his knowledge and begins setting up house, posing as his new wife.



Shooting Fish
6.3

Two con artists hire an unwitting medical-school student as a secretary for their latest scam.



Casino
Casino(1995)
7.993

In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.



Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Con artist Lawrence Jamieson is a longtime resident of a luxurious coastal resort, where he enjoys the lavish fruits of his deceptions -- that is, until a competitor, Freddy Benson, shows up. When the new guy's lowbrow tactics impinge on his own sophisticated work and believing him to be the infamous conman 'The Jackal', Lawrence resolves to get rid of him. Confident of his own duplicitous talents, he challenges Freddy to a winner-takes-all competition: whoever swindles their latest mark, American heiress Janet Colgate, out of $50,000 first can stay, while the other must leave town.



Shadowboxer
5.033

Mikey and Rose are professional assassins. They are also lovers, and once upon a time Rose also knew Mikey's father. During an elaborate hit job for a malicious gangster, Rose fails to kill the main target, the gangster's pregnant girlfriend. Instead, she delivers her baby and convinces Mikey to help her protect them both. As Rose weakens from cancer, Mikey becomes breadwinner for this unusual family. But tranquility will not last.



Heist
Heist(2015)
6.142

A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. As a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino. When things go awry they're forced to hijack a city bus.



Boy
Boy(1969)
7.2

A family of four lives off of scams in which they pretend to be injured by automobiles.



The Informer
6.5

In New York, former convict Pete Koslow, related to the Polish mafia, must deal with both Klimek the General, his ruthless boss, and the twisted ambitions of two federal agents, as he tries to survive and protect the lives of his loved ones.



Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.



Masquerade
5.6

A recently orphaned heiress meets a young racing yacht captain on Long Island. He shows interest in her and, being heiress to $200,000,000, love may not be the reason.



Marlowe
Marlowe(2023)
5.726

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.



Runner Runner
5.641

When a poor college student who cracks an online poker game goes bust, he arranges a face-to-face with the man he thinks cheated him, a sly offshore entrepreneur.



The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.



Pain Hustlers
6.652

After losing her job, a single mom falls into a lucrative but ultimately dangerous scheme selling prescription drugs.



Mo' Money
Mo' Money(1992)
5.528

Trying to get his act together, a con artist gets a job in a credit card company. He falls in love with a fellow employee, he steals a couple of cards, everything is going great. But soon, the chief of security drags him into the big leagues of criminals...



The Love Scam
6.386

Drowning in debt, two brothers concoct a plan to scam a wealthy heiress and save their home in Naples — but unexpected love soon complicates the scheme.



The Runner
4.8

In the aftermath of the BP oil spill, an idealistic but imperfect New Orleans politician (Nicolas Cage) finds his plans of restoration unraveling as his own life becomes contaminated with corruption, scandal and deceit.



Billionaire Boys Club

A group of wealthy boys in Los Angeles during the early 1980s establishes a get rich quick scam that turns deadly.



Pickpocket
7.3

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.



The Hot Spot
6.2

Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter quickly gets into trouble with the local authorities — and the local women — after he robs a bank.



Nightmare Alley
7

An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.



The Debt Collector
5.789

A classically-trained martial artist goes to work as a debt collector for the mob. The job seems easy enough, until one “client” pulls him into a situation deeper than could ever be expected.



Michael Clayton
6.8

A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.



The Dinner
4.542

Two brothers and their wives meet up at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss what to do about a horrific crime that their sons committed together. As the quartet debate their options, the conversation reopens old wounds between the siblings.



Atlantic City
6.8

In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.



The Craigslist Killer
5.106

Based on a true story. Philip Markoff, a charismatic and popular med student at Boston University, leads a double life as a brutal and cruel sexual deviant who abuses prostitutes he finds via Craigslist.



The Man from Elysian Fields

A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.



American Gigolo
6.2

Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.



The Swindle
6.5

Betty and Victor are a pair of scam artists. One day Betty brings in Maurice, a treasurer of a multinational company. Maurice is due to transfer 5 millions francs out of Switzerland, and Betty is convinced he plans to steal that money.



Silver City
6.1

The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado.



Six Degrees of Separation

The story of a young, gay, black, con artist who, posing as the son of Sidney Poitier, cunningly maneuvers his way into the lives of a white, upper-class New York family.



The Wizard of Lies
6.618

A look behind the scenes at Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, how it was perpetrated on the public and the trail of destruction it left in its wake, both for the victims and Madoff's family.



Ransom
Ransom(1996)
6.7

When a rich man's son is kidnapped, he cooperates with the police at first but then tries a unique tactic against the criminals.



Joe
Joe(1970)
6.415

After murdering his daughter's drug-dealing boyfriend, a wealthy ad executive stumbles into a bar and strikes up an uneasy alliance with Joe Curran, a drunken bigot with a bloodlust who works at a local factory.



The Yards
The Yards(2000)
6.2

In the rail yards of Queens, contractors repair and rebuild the city's subway cars. These contracts are lucrative, so graft and corruption are rife. When Leo Handler gets out of prison, he finds his aunt married to Frank Olchin, one of the big contractors; he's battling with a minority-owned firm for contracts.



Original Sin
6.1

A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.



The American Friend
7.063

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.



Deceived
Deceived(1991)
5.741

The murder of a museum curator places art dealer Jack Saunders under suspicion for selling forged treasures to museums. When Jack suddenly dies in a car crash, his wife Adrienne tries to discover what he did on her own. She finds that she knew little about the man she was married to. The more she learns about her husband's possible illegal activities and double life, the more she places her daughter, and herself, in grave danger.



The Two Faces of January

1962. A con artist, his wife, and a dangerous stranger are caught up in the murder of a private detective and are forced to try and escape Athens.



Believer
Believer(2018)
7.198

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel.



Detective
Detective(1985)
5.2

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.



The Goldfinch
7.131

A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.



The Horse
The Horse(1970)
7

Auguste Maroilleur, an elderly farmer, exploits 400 hectares of crop land with the help of his family, over which he rules with an iron hand. Things go awry the day he discovers one of his grandsons is involved in drug traffic. To make matters worse, the reckless youth has hidden the white powder in the Maroilleur farm. Without a moment's hesitation, Auguste gets rid of the toxic substance but, of course, the mob has different views...



The Getaway
5.8

An ex-con and his devoted wife must flee from danger when a heist doesn't go as planned.



Killing Them Softly

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.



The Deep End
6.2

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?



Rogue Agent
6.344

Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.



Woman of Straw
6.2

Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.



Neon Flesh
5.944

Hoping to earn his mother's respect, a young hustler-turned-businessman tries to open a brothel with his two useless buddies.



Armored Car Robbery
6.515

While executing an armored car heist in Los Angeles, icy crook Dave Purvis shoots policeman Lt. Phillips before he and his cronies make off with the loot. Thinking he got away scot-free, Purvis collects his money-crazy mistress, Yvonne, then disposes of his partners and heads out of town. What Purvis doesn't know is that Phillips' partner, tough-as-nails Lt. Cordell, is wise to the criminal's plans and is closing in on his prey.



Phoenix
Phoenix(1998)
5.324

Gambling fever -- along with a brutal bookie -- leads three crooked cops into a double-dealing scheme that lands them in hot water way over their heads.



The Postman Always Rings Twice

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.



Money Trap
5.641

Asim Noyan swindles people with his lies and games. Asim Noyan and his gang, who no one else has been able to catch, get into a ruse again.



Freelancers
5.055

The son of a slain NYPD officer joins the force, where he falls in with his father's former partner and a team of rogue cops. His new boss, Sarcone, will see if he has what it takes to be rogue through many trials and tribulations of loyalty, trust and respect. When the truth about his father's death is revealed revenge takes him over and he won't stop until justice has been truly served.



Hard Eight
6.9

A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.



The Con Artists
7.024

Belle Duke, in order to get revenge on her former lover Philip Bang, organize his jail break. But instead of Philip is the Italian Felice Brianza, AKAS Felix, to escape. Now Felix is obliged to help Philip to escape. He will succeeded and from that moment on the two will join to defraud Belle. The swindle plot become more complicate when Felix falls in love for Philip's daughter.



The Friends of Eddie Coyle

An aging hood is about to go back to prison. Hoping to escape his fate, he supplies information on stolen guns to the feds, while simultaneously supplying arms to his bank robbing chums.



Happiness
Happiness(1998)
7.4

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.



Catch Me If You Can
7.979

A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.



Nine Queens
7.76

Two con artists try to swindle a stamp collector by selling him a sheet of counterfeit rare stamps, the "nine queens".



The Mother and the Whore

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

AboutPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceContact Us