Is Registering To Watch A Movie A Scam

(Image credit: Netflix)

It seems that nosotros are thoroughly in the age of the scammer. Over the past few years, movies, TV, podcasts and documentaries have been excessively focused on con artists of varying levels of skill and threat who were larger than life or only outright unhinged.

This year alone, we've seen the Netflix docuseries breakout The Tinder Swindler — featuring the Israeli con artist Simon Leviev who used the eponymous dating app to target women and go thousands of dollars out of them. Netflix has also debuted Inventing Anna , Shonda Rhimes' drama about Anna Delvey, the bedevilled fraudster who pretended to be a wealthy German heiress to defraud her friends, banks, and hotels.

Hot on their heels (out March 3) is The Dropout , starring Amanda Seyfried, one of several adaptations of the Theranos example. Elizabeth Holmes, a hotshot CEO, claimed to have radically disrupted the blood-testing industry with a machine that ultimately never worked. The Theranos story will also somewhen be a big-screen film, starring Jennifer Lawrence in the turtleneck-clad pb.

Stories like this have e'er existed in pop culture. Audiences love a scandal, whether information technology'south a debonair con artist jetting between exotic locales or a buzzword-spouting Silicon Valley bro who's desperately trying to imitation it until he makes information technology. What makes the current era different, notwithstanding, are two elements: one, the lion's share of these stories are based on true stories and 2, there'south a curiously aspirational quality to them.

Ever since Anna Delvey'southward story went wildly viral — thanks to two major stories in Vanity Off-white and New York Mag'south The Cut— she's gained a fandom of sorts. Function of it might be pseudo-ironic merely at that place are besides plenty of folks who think she'southward a Robin Hood-esque anti-heroine trying to reset the scales of financial injustice. Delvey'due south viewed equally someone who lived a fantasy that we all would like to try — stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In this case, the "poor" being herself, then she could live the luxurious life that's sold to the world as aspirational.

This mindset ignores the fact that Delvey financially ruined the lives of individuals along with institutions and betrayed the trust of friends, but the myth at present prevails. As Jia Tolentino noted in her book Play a joke on Mirror, "It would be ameliorate, of class, to do things morally. But who these days has the availability or the time? In that location are fewer and fewer options for a person to survive in this ecosystem in a thoroughly defensible way."

Not all of these stories are most cocky-insert power fantasies. Some are cases of good old-fashioned schadenfreude. Possibly the most infamous example of this is the Fyre Festival — an outcome that also got the Netflix documentary treatment in Fyre (whose director is next doing a Bitcoin scam documentary) and another documentary on Hulu, Fyre Fraud . Billed as an opulent weekend experience where visitors could accept the time of their lives on a role island formerly endemic by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, the music festival turned out to exist a mismanaged mess that immediately went viral. The memes were hilarious, with the general tone being that of giddy mockery of the rich kids silly enough to shell out thousands of dollars to watch a Ja Dominion bear witness.

Documentaries followed, as did a slew of coverage of the unabridged concept of the scam. Fyre Fest was seen as the "right kind" of high-depression stakes silliness that'south piece of cake to express joy at and with, in a way that many of the conned victims aren't. Yous tin't exactly guffaw at, for example, the patients taken in past Theranos who received faulty medical testing and potentially had their lives put at hazard.

Some scams are ones y'all root for and others are for booing at like they're pantomime villains, but at the middle of both ideas is a hunt for oft futile righteousness. Information technology's rare that white-collar criminals or massive examples of institutional fraud face whatever sort of tangible legal repercussions. Seeing Elizabeth Holmes constitute guilty on several charges of fraud was a genuine surprise because we're so used to these figures getting away with it. Nosotros live with so much injustice that seeing even a sliver of decency prevail feels radical.

Even though scammers are conspicuously having a moment on screen, we've been entertained by them for years at present. Hither are some of the best scammer stories.

Hustlers

Based on a true story, Lorene Scafaria's noir-esque drama detailed how a grouping of strippers managed to fleece their rich Wall Street clients through a combination of seduction, drugs and embarrassment. While information technology's easy to root for the women (including a career-best Jennifer Lopez), Hustlers smartly focuses on the economic crash of the 2000s and the fiscal disparities it created, especially for working-class women. Their form of sleazy justice was undoubtedly satisfying for many but led to dire consequences.

Where to picket Hustlers :

In the United states: streaming on Hulu.
In the U.k.: streaming on Netflix.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

The first of the glut of Elizabeth Holmes stories, Alex Gibney'south documentary offers a concise breakdown of Theranos' crimes, how information technology managed to go a multi-billion-dollar enterprise based off of hype and not much else, and some of the weirder goings-on that led to i of Silicon Valley'due south nigh infamous downfalls.

Where to sentinel The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley :

In the US: streaming on HBO Max
In the UK: streaming on Sky TV.

Operation Varsity Dejection

Celebrities like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were embroiled in a nationwide scam wherein rich parents gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kids into elite colleges they weren't qualified to utilize to. From paying other people to have tests to faking sports skills, the investigation (detailed in this Netflix documentary) exposed the high stakes world of higher admissions and how money can assistance to bypass issues of merit.

Where to watch Operation Varsity Blues :

In the US and United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland: available on Netflix

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Melissa McCarthy rightly received an Oscar nomination for her performance as Lee Israel, an impoverished writer who made money through literary fraud, faking messages and signatures from the likes of Noel Coward and Ernest Hemingway. Marielle Heller's tender and melancholy film depicts an unsympathetic figure driven to painful lengths due to unavoidable poverty.

Where to watch Tin can You E'er Forgive Me? :

In the Us and UK: available for digital rental on Prime number Video, Google Play, Apple Idiot box

Catch Me If You lot Can

Catch Me If You can Leonardo DiCaprio — (Paradigm credit: Dreamworks)

Years before the scammer became ubiquitous in pop culture, Steven Spielberg made ane of his near underrated stories, a snappy noir-esque drama almost Frank Abagnale Jr., a homo who claimed to accept impersonated a doctor, lawyer and a pilot all while existence pursued by the FBI. That his story continues to be called into question all these decades later is a reminder of how endlessly appealing the scammer figure can be.

Where to sentry Catch Me If You Can :

In the US: available to rent digitally through Prime number Video, Google Play, Apple tree Idiot box and more
In the UK: available to stream on Virgin TV Go.

Kayleigh is a pop civilisation author and critic based in Dundee, Scotland. Her work can be found on Pajiba, IGN, Uproxx, RogerEbert.com, SlashFilm, and WhatToWatch, amidst other places. She's besides the creator of the newsletter The Gossip Reading Club.