Film

The Great Impostor

Name: The Great Impostor
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1960
Cast: Tony Curtis, Karl Malden, Edmond O'Brien, Arthur O'Connell, Gary Merrill

A charming, zippy 1960 biography-comedy about a con artist who bluffed his way through postwar America, impersonating surgeons, monks, and naval officers with audacious confidence and no credentials whatsoever. Tony Curtis carries the film with infectious energy, playing a man whose talent for reinvention is both his gift and his curse. It's a heist film without a heist—just one guy's relentless hustle.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like a con-artist story told with a light touch, where the pleasure is watching one man bluff his way through one unlikely job after another.

Skip it if you want tight plotting or a steady emotional thread, since it hops from one disguise to the next and the gaps between schemes can feel loose.

What it asks of you: Expect a brisk episodic run under two hours that stays light even as the stakes rise, asking you to savor the performance more than track a tight plot.

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

If you liked this

Catch Me If You Can2002

Spielberg's sleek account of another real-life impostor, Frank Abagnale Jr., who forged his way through banking and aviation. Same DNA: charm, quick thinking, and the seductive fantasy of total reinvention. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks are magnetic.

But It's more forensic and less playful than Curtis's film—a cat-and-mouse game rather than a romp. The 2000s sheen doesn't quite have the vintage spark.

Paper Moon1973

Ryan O'Neal and young Tatum O'Neal con their way through Depression-era America with the same breezy audacity. It's got the same picaresque energy—a con game as a father-daughter bonding exercise. Black-and-white, droll, perfect.

But It moves at a deliberately slack pace and won't satisfy anyone craving plot momentum. The humour is dry to the point of dryness.

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Scorsese's three-hour engine of charisma-gone-wrong. DiCaprio plays another American grifter whose gift for self-invention is intoxicating until it isn't. The film is virtuosic, energized, and asks hard questions about charm as a weapon.

But It's bloated, repetitive, and revels in the excess in ways that can feel like endorsement. Three hours is a long time to spend in a garbage fire.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Great Impostor

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kind Hearts and Coronets1949

Both are built on the premise that identity is performable—that you can become anyone if you commit to the role. Curtis's film plays this as farce; Guinness plays it as damnation.

Ealing Studios' dark masterpiece: Alec Guinness plays eight members of a family, and Dennis Price murders his way up the line of succession. It's about imposture and identity too, but as tragedy and noir, not comedy. Brilliant, disturbing, and criminally underseen.

But It's bleak and morally ambiguous in ways that can feel unsettling. The British class politics take effort to parse. Guinness's multiple roles are a technical marvel but can be distracting.

The Sting1973

Newman and Redford orchestrate an elaborate con against a Chicago gangster with style and precision. Same era, same flavor of Americana, same pleasure in watching smart people outthink everyone else. It's pure craft disguised as fun.

But The twist ending has become famous enough that surprises are hard to come by now. It's more about execution than emotional stakes.

Singin' in the Rain1952

Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in a Hollywood backstage musical where identity is negotiable and reinvention is the whole plot. Effervescent, genuinely funny, and technically dazzling. Watch for the pure joy of watching people who can do anything.

But If musicals aren't your thing, this won't convert you. It's unironic happiness, which can feel naive to modern sensibilities.

Marty1955

Paddy Chayefsky's tender portrait of a working-class butcher looking for connection in postwar America. Like Curtis's film, it's about ordinary men navigating identity and belonging. It's sweet without being saccharine, real without being bleak.

But The plot is minimal—it's mostly just a guy talking to his friends. If you need narrative propulsion, it will feel like nothing happens.

Some Like It Hot1959

Billy Wilder's masterpiece about two musicians who go undercover as women in an all-female jazz band. Tony Curtis is actually in this too, and it's the gold standard for identity-switching comedy. Funny, sexy, and genuinely clever.

But It's an older comedy, so some of the gender gags haven't aged as smoothly as others. The premise is built on laughs that land differently now.

The Italian Job1969

A heist film about a team of crooks who con their way into a goldsmith's vault in Turin. Energetic, clever, and wildly entertaining. Michael Caine is effortless, and the ensemble cast works like a Swiss watch. A masterclass in genre filmmaking.

But The feminism is nonexistent and actively regrettable. It's also less interested in character than in logistics.

Breakfast at Tiffany's1961

Audrey Hepburn as a woman reinventing herself in Manhattan, working grift and manipulation as her primary tools. It's about identity and transformation as much as Curtis's film, just dressed in Givenchy. Elegant, funny, and surprisingly complex.

But Hepburn's Holly Golightly is sometimes accused of being shallow, and the film doesn't push back much on that reading. The Mickey Rooney subplot is cringe.

F for Fake1973

Both examine the question: what makes a forgery 'work'? Demara and de Hory are similar creatures—they reveal that imposture isn't really about deception, it's about conviction. If you believe yourself, so will everyone else.

Orson Welles's essay-film about forgery, imposture, and the nature of authenticity. He interviews Elmyr de Hory, a real-life art forger, and builds a meditation on what it means to fake anything. Ninety minutes of pure cinematic playfulness—Welles at his most brilliant.

But It's not a narrative film. It's an argument delivered in fragments, and if you're not tuned to Welles's wavelength, it can feel like pretentious noodling. Also, famously, Welles lies about parts of it.

My Name Is Khan2010

Where Demara actively chooses his identities, Khan is trapped in an identity imposed on him. Both explore how American identity is something you perform or have performed upon you. Curtis's film is about agency; this one is about what happens when you have none.

Karan Johar's Bollywood drama about a Muslim man with Asperger's navigating post-9/11 America. It's not a con film, but it's deeply interested in how identity is constructed, mistaken, and misread. Shah Rukh Khan gives a quiet, powerful performance. It's moving without being maudlin.

But It's a three-hour Bollywood melodrama with all the genre's excesses: songs, length, emotional escalation. The political messaging can feel heavy-handed. Not designed for speed.