How many Tom Ripley adaptations are there? Details explored ahead of Netflix series
Tom Ripley, the iconic character was first introduced in Patricia Highsmith’s crime novel series which started in 1955. The enigmatic protagonist dons a range of roles in the series itself, which lasted for five novels. However, the character has truly become a global sensation after a range of movie representations came out.
The story began way back in 1960, via Alain Delon’s portrayal of the iconic character. Tom Ripley was originally shown as a career criminal, con artist, and serial killer. The subsequent movie representations have taken inspiration, in part, from all the above elements of the character.
Thus far, there have been a total of 5 movie representations of Tom Ripley. This is in addition to a number of appearances in odd TV series episodes, along with a BBC 4 radio iteration of all the five novels. The radio series had Ian Hart as the voice of Tom Ripley for all of the novels.
Regardless, the following article will focus on all the 5 movie representations of Tom Ripley.
The 5 major movie representations of Tom Ripley
First and foremost, perhaps the most iconic and well-remembered portrayals of the iconic multi-faceted character took place in the movie Ripley Underground, which was released back in 2005. A modern rendition of a familiar tale, the movie starred Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley and gave the character a fresh, almost suave look, while perfectly capturing its essence and the tendency to regularly surprise.
However, Pepper’s portrayal of Ripley was hardly the first one to occur on the major screen. That achievement was taken by none other than Alain Delon, who starred as Tom Ripley in the 1960 movie Purple Noon. Perhaps the most pure rendition of the original source material, the movie became a bit of a cult classic due to the kind of homoerotic subtext that it became famous for.
At the same time, Delon’s portrayal of Ripley proved to be straightforward and very faithful to the original books, as he was seen embarking on an ambitious journey in pursuit of a lavish lifestyle. Moving on, Dennis Hopper played the role of Ripley in the 1977 release The American Friend.
Hopper’s portrayal of the character was also different from the original novels. Rather than presenting Ripley as a conman, the movie focused on his deception, and tendency towards violence and manipulation, and presented a very cold, almost scary version of the character.
Moving on, one of the most famous actors of the modern generation, Matt Damon, also played the titular role in the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley. The movie also presented a unique version of the character.
Damon was praised for his dedication to the obsessive, almost completely controlled-by-desires version of the character. Finally, the fifth and last portrayal of this iconic character happened in the movie Ripley’s Game. It was John Malkovich who played the character in the latest representation of Ripley on the big screen.
While the movie itself did not receive widespread success, Malkovich’s version of the character was arguably closer to the original version of the character than most of the other movies on this list. Malkovich presented a whimsical, calculated yet distracted representation of the role.