A slick, highly watchable cat-and-mouse caper that turns a real-life con artist story into a breezy but melancholy character study. Spielberg keeps it playful and fast, while the performances give it warmth, wit, and a surprising emotional sting.
Catch Me If You Can
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Crime
Mon · 2h 21m
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
Overview
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.
Director
Steven Spielberg
Cast
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
Curator Review
Verdict
A slick, highly watchable cat-and-mouse caper that turns a real-life con artist story into a breezy but melancholy character study. Spielberg keeps it playful and fast, while the performances give it warmth, wit, and a surprising emotional sting.
Best for
fans of stylish true-crime dramas
viewers who like charming antiheroes
people who enjoy FBI-vs-fugitive pursuits
audiences looking for a fun but bittersweet crime film
fans of polished, star-driven 2000s studio filmmaking
Skip if
you want a dark or gritty crime thriller
you dislike sympathetic criminals as protagonists
you prefer strict procedural realism
you want a heavy, morally severe true-story drama
Overview
Catch Me If You Can is one of Spielberg’s lightest films on the surface, but it’s doing more than just chasing a clever con man from one disguise to the next. The movie moves with real comic momentum, treating fraud like performance art and turning pursuit into a kind of flirtatious game between two lonely men on opposite sides of the law.
Worth noting
What makes it linger is the sadness underneath the charm. Frank’s talent for reinvention is also a defense mechanism, and the film quietly suggests that all the costumes and confidence are covering a kid who never learned how to stay put. Tom Hanks grounds the chase with patience and melancholy, giving the movie its emotional counterweight.
Bottom line
It’s polished, funny, and easy to enjoy, but it also has a wistful edge that keeps it from feeling disposable. The result is a crowd-pleaser with a little ache in it: a con movie that understands the cost of always running.
Top Letterboxd reviews
☆ sophie ☆ (4.5★) · 13987 likes
I like the part where they try to catch him
kat (4★) · 11474 likes
why does this movie's poster read like a gay romantic comedy between a twink and a dad finding love in a business financially driven world editing this review after 8 years because i still get comments to this day: it had a different goddamn poster displayed when i reviewed. go look up the alternate posters and guess which one. my god
jeanie (3.5★) · 11465 likes
how I feel when I forge my mum's signature in my school planner
jilliana 🎨 (4★) · 9405 likes
for a minute there i thought he flushed himself in the plane toilet
maddie (4★) · 7527 likes
and to think at age sixteen i was posting pretty little liars fan theories on tumblr
Themes
identity and reinvention, cat-and-mouse pursuit, fraud and impersonation, father-son longing, loneliness beneath charisma, performance as survival, institutional authority, coming-of-age