Television series

Inventing Anna

Julia Garner plays Anna Delvey — the fake heiress who talked, dressed and swindled her way through Manhattan's elite — in a slick, talky Shondaland drama that's part courtroom procedural, part journalism thriller. It's less interested in whether Anna is guilty than in why everyone, including us, wanted so badly to believe her. Watch it for the performance and the delicious moral squirm.

TVMaze rating6.7

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The Dropout2022

Amanda Seyfried's Elizabeth Holmes is the Anna Delvey of blood testing — same charisma-as-weapon energy, same slow-motion collapse of an empire built on a voice and a stare.

But If you've had your fill of Silicon Valley fraudsters this year, this covers similar ground and similar beats.

The Dropout poster

WeCrashed2022

Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway as the WeWork founders chasing an idea more than a fraud — messier, funnier, and just as obsessed with the seduction of belief.

But It's baggier and less focused than Anna's story, with a shakier hold on why we should care.

WeCrashed poster

Catch Me If You Can2002

Spielberg's slickest, warmest film — a teenage con man talks his way into cockpits and courtrooms, and you'll root for him the whole disgraceful way.

But It's a fairy tale version of fraud, all charm and no real reckoning — go elsewhere for consequences.

Catch Me If You Can poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sweet Smell of Success1957

Same engine as Anna's story — media complicity in myth-making — running on manual typewriters instead of hashtags.

A vicious, gorgeous black-and-white noir about a press agent and a columnist who manufacture reputations out of nothing — decades before Instagram made it easy.

But The rat-a-tat 1950s dialogue and moral nastiness are a world away from Netflix gloss — no one here is remotely likable.

Sweet Smell of Success poster
More like this (8)

American Hustle2013

A tangle of grifters, feds and disco-era ambition, played by an all-star cast having an enormous amount of fun with bad wigs and worse decisions.

But The plot sprawls and doubles back on itself; style occasionally outruns substance.

American Hustle poster

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

DiCaprio at his most unhinged, narrating his own fraud with such relish you forget to be horrified — until you remember, and that's the point.

But Three hours of excess for excess's sake will exhaust some viewers long before it makes its moral case.

The Wolf of Wall Street poster

I Care a Lot2021no page yet

Rosamund Pike as a legal con artist preying on the elderly, gliding through her scheme with the same icy self-belief Garner brings to Anna.

But Its cynicism is total and unrelieved — there's no journalist here trying to find the human underneath.

Big Eyes2014no page yet

Amy Adams as a real woman erased by her husband's lies about who made the art — a quieter, sadder study of deception and who gets to own the story.

But It's a much smaller, gentler film with none of Anna's glitz or courtroom fireworks.

Spotlight2015

If Vivian Kent's dogged reporting is your favorite thread, here's journalism done as procedural craft — patient, exacting, and quietly thrilling.

But No charismatic con at the center; the drama is entirely in the digging, which some will find slow.

Spotlight poster

She Said2022

Another true story of reporters chasing a truth everyone would rather not hear, with the same tension between deadline pressure and getting it right.

But It's far heavier material — this one has real victims and no charm offensive to enjoy.

She Said poster

The Tinder Swindler2022

Strips away the dramatization to show you the same trick performed live, by an actual person, with actual victims.

A real documentary about a real con man who fleeced women out of fortunes using fake wealth and total charm — the raw material Anna's story is dramatizing, unfiltered.

But No script, no Julia Garner performance to hide behind — just the plain, uncomfortable facts of how easily people are fooled.

The Tinder Swindler poster

Parasite2019

Same question Anna's story asks — what does it cost to perform wealth you don't have — answered in a completely different genre and language.

A Korean family cons its way into a wealthy household by performing competence and class they don't have — funnier, then far darker, than you expect.

But Subtitles and a hard tonal swing into violence will surprise anyone expecting another glossy con-artist romp.

Parasite poster

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