Hey, everyone! How’s it going? Today I’m here to review the drama Ripley, which transforms Patricia Highsmith’s iconic con man into a mesmerizing study of identity, obsession, and the seductive power of beautiful deception, all captured in stunning black-and-white cinematography that elevates the material to cinematic art.
Ripley premiered on Netflix on April 4, 2024, featuring 8 episodes with approximately 60-minute runtime each. Created, written, and directed by Steven Zaillian, this limited series adapts Patricia Highsmith’s classic 1955 novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” into the first television series treatment of the material. The series stars Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, and Johnny Flynn in a deliberately paced psychological thriller that prioritizes atmosphere and character development over conventional plotting.
Ripley isn’t just another crime thriller. It’s a meticulous character study that strips away the glamour typically associated with con artist stories to reveal something darker and more unsettling underneath. Zaillian’s direction creates an art film sensibility that treats each frame like a carefully composed photograph, using black-and-white cinematography to create a timeless, dreamlike quality that perfectly matches Tom Ripley’s constructed reality.
The Art of Deception: When Identity Becomes Performance
Ripley follows Tom Ripley, a small-time grifter living in 1960s New York who accepts a wealthy man’s offer to travel to Italy and convince his wayward son Dickie Greenleaf to return home. What begins as a simple retrieval mission becomes an elaborate web of lies, identity theft, and murder as Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie’s privileged lifestyle and social status.
The series excels at showing how Tom’s deceptions begin as survival mechanisms but gradually become pathological compulsions. Each episode reveals new layers of his manipulative abilities while demonstrating how his need for acceptance and status drives him to increasingly desperate measures. Zaillian’s adaptation explores themes of class, sexuality, and the performance of identity with psychological depth that honors Highsmith’s original vision.
Tom Ripley: Andrew Scott’s Masterful Transformation
Andrew Scott delivers a career-defining performance as Tom Ripley, completely transforming his familiar screen persona into something genuinely unsettling. Scott’s Ripley is neither charming nor traditionally attractive, instead presenting a hollow man whose desperate need for belonging makes him both pitiable and terrifying. His performance earned Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations for its captivating psychological complexity.
Scott’s interpretation strips away the romantic anti-hero elements that often surround Ripley adaptations, instead presenting him as a fundamentally empty person who can only exist by inhabiting other people’s lives. His performance is all nervous energy and calculated manipulation, showing us a character who has studied human behavior without truly understanding human connection. The result is both mesmerizing and deeply uncomfortable to watch.
Dickie Greenleaf: Johnny Flynn’s Golden Target
Johnny Flynn portrays Dickie Greenleaf as the epitome of careless privilege, a young man whose wealth and status make him the perfect object of Tom’s obsession. Flynn brings just enough charm and vulnerability to the role to make Dickie sympathetic while never letting viewers forget his fundamental selfishness and obliviousness to his own advantages.
Flynn’s performance creates the perfect foil for Scott’s Tom, representing everything the con man desperately wants but can never truly possess. Their relationship develops with careful pacing that shows how Tom’s fascination gradually transforms into something possessive and dangerous. Flynn captures Dickie’s casual cruelty and thoughtless privilege while making his eventual fate feel both inevitable and tragic.
The Italian Dream Becomes Nightmare
The series’ middle episodes showcase Tom’s complete immersion in Dickie’s world, as he moves into the young man’s Italian villa and begins systematically erasing the boundaries between their identities. The black-and-white cinematography becomes particularly effective here, creating a dreamlike quality that mirrors Tom’s psychological state as reality and fantasy become indistinguishable.
The climactic transformation occurs gradually, with each episode showing Tom’s increasing desperation to maintain his constructed identity. Without spoiling specifics, the series builds to moments of shocking violence that feel both sudden and inevitable, demonstrating how Tom’s psychological needs ultimately override any moral constraints. The Italian setting becomes both paradise and prison, beautiful and suffocating in equal measure.
Witnesses to Deception
Ripley features excellent supporting performances from Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood, Dickie’s girlfriend who becomes increasingly suspicious of Tom’s motives, and Eliot Sumner as Freddie Miles, a friend whose casual cruelty triggers Tom’s most violent impulses. Each supporting character represents different aspects of the privileged world that Tom desperately wants to inhabit.
The series particularly excels in its portrayal of the ex-pat American community in Italy, showing how wealth and status create insular communities that protect their own while remaining willfully blind to uncomfortable truths. The supporting cast helps create an authentic sense of place and social dynamics that make Tom’s infiltration feel both impressive and inevitable.
Success on Netflix
Ripley achieved significant critical acclaim despite mixed audience reception, with viewers divided between those who appreciated its artistic approach and others who found its pacing too deliberate. The series demonstrated Netflix’s commitment to prestige limited series that prioritize artistic vision over conventional entertainment formulas. Ripley earned multiple Emmy nominations and widespread praise for its visual craftsmanship, establishing it as one of the year’s most distinctive television achievements.
Why This Psychological Masterpiece Demands Your Time
If you love character-driven psychological thrillers that treat their source material with artistic respect, Ripley is the perfect series to binge on Netflix. This isn’t just another crime story; it’s a profound meditation on identity, desire, and the terrible price of trying to become someone else that will haunt you long after the final credits.
Why This Adaptation Redefines Literary Television
Ripley succeeds because it understands that the best adaptations don’t simply translate books to screen but find cinematic ways to express literary themes. Zaillian’s direction creates television that functions as both entertainment and art, proving that audiences will embrace challenging material when it’s presented with genuine artistic vision. It’s beautiful, disturbing, and absolutely essential viewing for anyone who appreciates television as a serious artistic medium.
Series Details
Number of Episodes: 8 episodes
Platform: Netflix
Release Year: 2024
Current IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
Genre: Psychological Thriller/Neo-Noir
Status: Limited series (concluded)
Protagonists: Andrew Scott (Tom Ripley), Dakota Fanning (Marge Sherwood)
Antagonist: Tom Ripley’s own psychological compulsions and need for acceptance