9 Smart Movies That Tricked Us Into Rooting For The Bad Guys

2. It Succeeds As An Adaptation Of The Character - Tom Ripley In Purple Noon

While I'll always be quick to say a film adapting a novel doesn't need to be strict to the source, I'm happy to label myself a hypocrite when it comes to the Ripley series. Slowly unravelled over five books, we got to see this sociopath kill his way to inheritance, single-handedly clear up an art forgery gone wrong and cross dress to infiltrate a German nightclub. And all the while Patricia Highsmith's writing keeps us gleefully on side.

The first in the series, The Talented Mr Ripley, was most famously adapted with Matt Damon as the lead, but while general audiences loved it, to fans of the novel it was real disservice; the nuanced Ripley had become a simple, psychotic homosexual.

You have to go back really far to find a character that gives Tom Ripley his dues. Purple Noon, a French 1960 adaptation recently re-released in UK cinemas, doesn't stick definitively to the plot - the central murder scene is altered and openly discussed by its participants while the ending has everything begin to unravel for Tom (at this point Highsmith hadn't written the follow ups) - but the character is spot on. As with the novel we know what we're witnessing is wrong, but all the while we're willing it on.