Film

Ripley's Game

Ripley's Game finds Tom Ripley in his Italian villa, bored and beastlike, who recruits a dying picture framer to commit murder for money. It's a tense psychological thriller about corruption, manipulation, and whether a man with nothing left to lose can be broken. Malkovich's Ripley is coldly charismatic; the film moves with the deliberate cruelty of watching dominoes fall.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy slow-burning moral thrillers where a charming, amoral schemer toys with an ordinary decent man, and you savour the cool, quiet menace of Malkovich's performance.

Skip it if you need the snappy pace and bright glamour of a heist caper, since this is a patient, grim, morally uneasy film that spends long stretches in quiet rooms.

What it asks of you: Plan on a leisurely 110 minutes, with the dread building through conversations and glances rather than set-piece action, and little to lighten its mood.

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

If you liked this

The Talented Mr. Ripley1999

The original Ripley film, equally stylish and baroque, with Matt Damon as a younger, more anxious version of the same predator. Essential context for understanding how Malkovich's older Ripley has crystallized into pure malevolence.

But Slower paced than Ripley's Game, and Damon's neurotic energy is a different thing entirely from Malkovich's controlled menace.

The Talented Mr. Ripley poster

Shallow Grave1994

Three flatmates find a dead body full of money. Like Ripley's Game, it's about ordinary people corrupted by circumstance and greed, with the same unsettling logic and moral vertigo. Tense, witty, and genuinely unpredictable.

But The pacing can feel herky-jerky to modern eyes. It's a debut and shows it, though that rawness is part of the appeal.

Shallow Grave poster

Sexy Beast2001

Ray Winstone (who's in Ripley's Game) plays a different kind of character—a retired criminal undone by a charismatic monster. Brutal, strange, visually bold. It explores how easily a predator can dismantle a careful life.

But Some found it pretentious or style-over-substance. The surrealist flourishes aren't for everyone, and Winstone spends much of it looking confused.

Sexy Beast poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ripley's Game

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Purple Noon1960

It's the source material done first and best, closer to Patricia Highsmith's novel than the later films. Seeing Ripley's origin changes how you read Malkovich's settled, cruel version.

The first and best Ripley adaptation, with Alain Delon as a seductive, amoral youth in the Italian sun. It has everything—style, Mediterranean beauty, moral decay, and a protagonist you shouldn't like but absolutely do. The template for everything after.

But The pacing is European and deliberate. Modern thrillers move faster, and the film trusts you to be fascinated by character rather than propelled by plot.

Purple Noon poster
More like this (8)

In the Company of Men1997

Two businessmen devise a casual cruelty to pass the time. Like Ripley's Game, it's about how easily manipulation becomes entertainment, and how a game can destroy someone. Bleak and brilliant.

But The misanthropy is wall-to-wall. There's no relief, no moment where you're rooting for anyone. Some viewers find it mean-spirited rather than insightful.

In the Company of Men poster

A Prophet2009

A young man enters prison naive and emerges calculated and predatory, learning the rules of manipulation and survival. Like Ripley, it's about the architecture of corruption—how character becomes strategy.

But It's nearly two and a half hours of increasingly grim prison politics. The pacing demands patience and the worldview is unrelentingly dark.

A Prophet poster

Control2004

A woman imprisoned for murder watches her cellmate manipulate everyone around them with the same cold intelligence as Ripley. Psychological and unsettling, with excellent performances from Katrin Cartlidge and Antonia Campbell-Hughes.

But Confined and claustrophobic by design. The dialogue-heavy script won't satisfy anyone looking for external action or plot momentum.

Control poster

The Grifters1990

Con artists and their games, driven by greed and the thrill of deception. The film has Ripley's interest in how easily people can be drawn into another's scheme, with dark chemistry between characters.

But It's from 1990 and shows it—dated slickness and a plot that can feel slight. The ending divides viewers sharply.

The Grifters poster

You Were Never Really Here2017

Joaquin Phoenix as a brutal fixer moving through a corrupt system. Formally experimental and psychologically intense, with the same sense that violence is the language everyone speaks and the only question is who's fluent.

But Aggressively unpleasant and formally difficult. The visual style prioritizes mood over clarity, and the narrative is deliberately fragmented.

You Were Never Really Here poster

Once Upon a Time in the West1968

A masterclass in how a cold, capable man outthinks and outwaits his enemies. Not a thriller in the modern sense, but the same patience and control, the same understanding that murder is just logistics.

But Nearly three hours of sparse Western aesthetics. Modern audiences often find it glacial. You have to want to sit with silence and landscape.

Once Upon a Time in the West poster

Grave of the Fireflies1988

Both explore how quickly someone can prey on someone else's desperation. Ripley uses wealth and intelligence; this film shows desperation itself becoming the weapon. Same architecture, inverted stakes.

An animated film about two orphaned children trying to survive World War II Japan. It seems unrelated until you realize it's also about manipulation, dependency, and what one person will do to another when circumstance allows it. Devastatingly sad and morally complex.

But It's animated, which sets false expectations. It's not a comfort film or a story with comfort in it anywhere. The sadness is the point and it doesn't relent.

Grave of the Fireflies poster

The Last Seduction1994

Same predatory intelligence and same pleasure in the con, but female, American, and pulpy rather than European and literary. It's what Ripley would look like in a different story entirely.

A woman cons her way through a series of marks with the same cool intelligence as Ripley, but in a contemporary American noir register. It's sharp, funny, erotic, and mean—the game is the whole point. Linda Fiorentino is magnificent.

But It's a B-movie thriller, not prestigious cinema. If you need your dark entertainment seasoned with prestige or gravitas, this won't convince you.

The Last Seduction poster

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