Film

F for Fake

Orson Welles's last completed film is less a documentary about forger Elmyr de Hory and hoax-biographer Clifford Irving than a magic trick performed with a razor blade and a Moviola. Welles narrates, edits, contradicts himself, and dares you to catch him at it. It's dense, funny, and genuinely about nothing less than whether art or truth-telling can ever be trusted.

TMDb rating3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy films that blur their own rules and treat the viewer as a co-conspirator, where a clever essay on trickery keeps tipping into playful magic tricks and mischief.

Skip it if you want a tidy, linear story or a steady argument; this one wanders, circles back on itself, and can feel more like clever mood piece than a focused investigation.

What it asks of you: Loose and ruminative in pace, it runs under ninety minutes but keeps changing shape, so you have to stay alert and let it wander.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Catch Me If You Can2002

Spielberg's glossy, propulsive take on a real con artist gives you the same charm-of-the-swindle pleasure as Welles's film, but wrapped in a chase movie you can watch with anyone.

But It's slicker and far more conventional — there's no formal trickery here, just a great story told straight.ed

Catch Me If You Can poster

Exit Through the Gift Shop2010

Banksy's documentary about the art world's gullibility keeps you guessing right up to the credits whether you're watching a real story or an elaborate joke on the audience — very much Welles's territory.

But If you dislike not knowing what's real by the end, this will needle you the same way F for Fake does, only with less warning.

Exit Through the Gift Shop poster

The Imposter2012

A documentary about a serial fraud who inserted himself into a missing child's family, using dramatic reenactments that make you question everything you're being shown — a chilling cousin to Welles's playfulness.

But It's genuinely unsettling rather than delightful; there's real harm and grief here, not just clever mischief.

The Imposter poster

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Close-Up1990

Both films put a real fraud on screen and dissolve the line between reenactment and reality, but where Welles is a grinning magician delighted by his own trickery, Kiarostami is quietly asking why a poor man might need to become someone else — same con, opposite temperature.

An Iranian film in which a real impostor, arrested for pretending to be a famous director, reenacts his own deception alongside the actual people he deceived — documentary and fiction fused so seamlessly you stop trying to separate them.

But It's slow, contemplative, and subtitled, with none of Welles's showman patter — the mystery is emotional, not a puzzle to be solved.

Close-Up poster

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