Television series

Hustle

Name: Hustle
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2004
Cast: Robert Vaughn, Robert Glenister, Rob Jarvis, Adrian Lester, Jaime Murray

Hustle is BBC's glossy love letter to the confidence trick: a tight five-person crew fleecing the corrupt and the arrogant, narrating their own cleverness straight to camera. It's less about crime than craftsmanship — the pleasure of watching an elaborate plan click into place exactly as designed. Breezy, funny, stylish, with almost no real-world consequence. Robin Hood with better tailoring and a killer soundtrack.

TVMaze rating

8.0

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Leverage2008

The clearest heir to Hustle's DNA — same five-person crew, same joy in explaining the con after it's already worked, but with a modern-day Robin Hood mission and bigger set-pieces.

But The moral clarity can feel a little too tidy; every mark deserves it, every episode ends the same satisfying way.

Ocean's Eleven2001

Soderbergh's ensemble heist at its most stylish — cool jazz score, a cast having visible fun, and a plan so elaborate you'll want a rewatch just to catch how it clicked together.

But It's a film, so you get one satisfying job instead of a whole season of them — over almost as soon as it starts.

White Collar2009

A charming forger turned FBI asset works cons for the good guys, with the same twinkly rapport and dapper wardrobe that made Hustle's cast so watchable week to week.

But Leans more procedural than pure con-artistry — less long game, more case-of-the-week with a criminal consultant twist.

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Something you would not have found on your own.

The Imposter2012

Same obsession with the con's construction and reveal, but stripped of fiction's safety net — this really happened, and nobody walks away clean.

A real con so audacious it makes Hustle's schemes look modest — told through interviews and reenactment, the reveal unfolds with the same slow, delicious dread of watching a lie build itself.

But There's no charm here, no wink to camera — it's unsettling and genuinely upsetting once you understand what actually happened to that family.

Lupin2021

A modern master thief inspired by Arsène Lupin runs elaborate revenge schemes through Paris with real style and wit, each episode a puzzle box clicking into place.

But Subtitled, and its serialised revenge plot asks for more patience than Hustle's tidy episodic cons.

The Sting1973

Newman and Redford run a long con on a crime boss in Depression-era Chicago — ragtime score, sepia charm, and a final twist that essentially wrote the rulebook Hustle borrows from.

But Older pacing and a period setting some viewers find slow to warm to next to Hustle's zippy present-day energy.

Sneaky Pete2015no page yet

A con man hides from a debt collector by posing as his cellmate's estranged grandson — messier, grittier family drama wrapped around the same instincts for the long grift.

But Tonally darker and slower-burn than Hustle; the cons matter less than the family tension underneath them.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels1988no page yet

Michael Caine and Steve Martin as rival con men battling over the same Riviera mark — pure comic one-upmanship, and a spiritual grandparent to every double-cross Hustle ever pulled.

But Broader and campier than Hustle's slicker cool — more farce than finesse.

Catch Me If You Can2002

DiCaprio's real-life teenage forger cons his way across identities while Tom Hanks' FBI agent chases him — glossy, propulsive, and full of the same delight in the perfect impersonation.

But Based on a real story that stretches the truth; less ensemble teamwork, more one dazzling con man's solo run.

Focus2015no page yet

Will Smith runs a crew of pickpockets and grifters in a slick, sexy caper-romance that borrows Hustle's love of the reveal and adds a will-they-won't-they twist.

But The romance sometimes crowds out the cons, and its bag of tricks is thinner than Hustle's.

Big Deal on Madonna Street1958

The Italian comedy that arguably invented the 'lovable inept crew planning one big score' template Hustle plays straight — same structure, opposite outcome.

A black-and-white Roman comedy about a gang of small-time crooks planning a jewellery heist who are almost hilariously bad at it — the ancestor of every heist-gone-wrong caper since.

But Subtitled, over sixty years old, and deliberately shaggy — if you want slickness and competence, this is the opposite of that.

The Grifters1990

Same world of long cons and marks getting worked, but drained of all Hustle's warmth and replaced with a noir triangle that ends somewhere genuinely dark.

Anjelica Huston, John Cusack and Annette Bening play three grifters entangled in cons and each other — a bleak, brilliant noir about what happens when the con becomes who you actually are.

But It's cold and morally bruising where Hustle is fun — this is confidence artistry without the caper-movie safety net.