7. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
This is one of my favorite Spielberg movies of all time, and one of his least fondly remembered and least respected, but this is one of the most thrilling, engaging crime films of all time, and better still, it is based on a fascinating true story. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this great film, the film follows a 16 year old boy, Frank Abagnale Jr. After he witnesses his father become bankrupt, going from being a high flier to living in a small apartment, and his parents who were once greatly in love get divorced, he runs away from home. In order to survive and earn lots of money, he uses his great intelligence to impersonate a pilot, a lawyer and a doctor. He also learns to forge checks to pay for his extravagant lifestyle which takes him all around America and later into Europe. The conflict in this film comes from the antagonist; good guy FBI bank fraud agent, who makes it his mission to track down Frank. Despite essentially being enemies, the two form an almost father and son relationship through the few phone conversations and meetings they share together. This film, and the films true story is set in the 1960s so immediately will be appealing to many television producers because of the huge critical success that is Mad Men. Seeing as Mad Men will be ending fairly shortly, a super cool 1960s styled show should really take its place, and I can't think of a better story to fill that void. There is the risk that people could become sick of a cat and mouse story lasting for over one season, however Dexter has gotten away with this more or less for 6 seasons, so, if done correctly this wouldn't be the biggest obstacle in the world. Also, it could be quite exciting to explore Frank's life after he is caught by the FBI, and is given a job within the FBI tracking down other people who forge checks for them. Potentially he could even spend one season working with the FBI (say season 3) before deciding to run away from them once again like he very almost did in the film. The whole "bad" but innocent guy helping to track down other criminals could have a very Silence of the Lambs style edge to it, which would make for fascinating TV. I'd see this show working best on a network like AMC, HBO or Showtime... the show will need the bigger budget cable shows allow in order to give the show the Mad Men style it will need to be successful. Plus, anchoring this show around a younger lead male character could help to bring in much needed female and teenage audiences.