[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/catch_me_if_you_can.jpg]]
Creator/StevenSpielberg 2002 film based on the life of the teenage con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. who managed to pass himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer while he was still too young to drink. It stars Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio, Creator/TomHanks and Creator/ChristopherWalken. BasedOnATrueStory, and the real Frank Abagnale Jr. was on hand as a consultant and was enthusiastic about its production.
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!!This film provides examples of:

* AbusiveParents: Frank's parents are actually very supportive of their son, but his father engages in emotional abuse in one of his last scenes. Frank has been trying to stop his criminal lifestyle for a while now, but can't go through with it until his father tell him that it's alright to do so. Instead Frank Sr. refuses and tries to use his son as a weapon against the government because they didn't support him when his business went under. Note that this did not happen in real life; see VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory below.
* ActorAllusion: When Creator/TomHanks' character is closing in at the engagement party, a dollar bill slips under the bedroom door and floats by him, [[Film/ForrestGump just like a certain feather]].
* AnachronicOrder
* ATeamMontage
* AntiHero: Frank Abagnale Jr.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking / ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Frank confesses to Brenda he's not a doctor, lawyer, or a Lutheran and he's actually a young run-away; her response- "You're not a Lutheran?"
* ArtisticTitle: See {{Pastiche}} below.
* BavarianFireDrill: Half of the cons.
* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: Frank's in a hotel room wearing James Bond's suit, making out with a model when she gets up and negotiates him up to $1000 for the night. Frank's about to walk downstairs to cash a check ... and ends up signing a $1400 check over to her in return for the $400 difference.
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: This is what Hanratty firmly believes in until he discovers that Frank is redeemable.
* BoxedCrook
* BrickJoke: After Hanratty's boss chews him out and clearly gets on Hanratty's nerves, Hanratty references his previous PrecisionFStrike by going "Chief? Knock Knock."
** From that same pair of scenes, Carl tells his fellow agents that if they just keep their eyes open and do their jobs, he'll buy them both a Good Humor bar, though at the time it seems like a throwaway condescending line. Guess what those two agents are munching on back at the boss' office?
* BriefcaseFullOfMoney
* TheCasanova: Frank Jr.
* ChewOutFakeOut: Frank Sr.'s response on finding out that Frank Jr. has been teaching his French class is just to smirk and laugh that his boy had the balls to do it.
* CompositeCharacter: Carl Hanratty, mostly based on former FBI agent Joe Shea.
** Brenda was a combination of two different girlfriends from the original memoirs.
* TheCon
* CriminalMindGames: Played with, as Frank calls Hanratty yearly at Christmas; not to taunt him, but because of crushing loneliness.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Frank eventually gave up the life of crime and discovered he could make more money as a fraud consultant.
* DawsonCasting: Frank ages from 16 to his early twenties over the course of the film; he was played by a 27-year-old LeonardoDiCaprio. Justified in that the real Frank Abagnale looked older than his age, which was how he got away with many of his scams. And that's invoked in-movie; Hanratty's initial profiling of Abagnale after their first encounter includes being age 26 -- 30.
* DistractedByTheSexy: How Frank gave the entire FBI the slip at Miami Airport. Just get in the middle of a group of (wannabe) stewardesses, and you're invisible!
* DoctorDoctorDoctor: when Frank pretends to be a doctor.
* FreudianExcuse: Frank comes from a broken home and he ran away since he couldn't deal with choosing one parent over the other.
** Averted in the book. Abagnale says he had a hard time when his parents divorced, but he also says more than once that it's no excuse for his crimes, and most other children from "broken homes" don't become con artists.
* FriendlyEnemy: Frank Abagnale Jr. and Carl Hanratty. It's done in an interesting way early on. Frank calls Carl to apologize for the fact that Carl has to deal with his crimes. He's being totally sincere, but Carl just thinks he's mocking him. It's one of the many things in the movie that show that while Frank may be a criminal mastermind, he's ultimately just a kid.
* GoodForBad: As a paper hanger, this is Frank's MO, exchanging worthless checks for money and services. The technique is most visibly used when Frank scams a model/hooker, swapping a phony check for the partial amount in cash, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome "paying" for a full night of fulfilling a high school fantasy.]]
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted with [[spoiler: Brenda]].
* HighSchoolHustler --> ConMan: Goes from pretending to be a teacher to get back at some bullies at his school to conning millions of dollars.
* HowWeGotHere
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: "I never said your son was a criminal. I said he was in trouble."
* ItsForABook: More like It's For A School Newspaper Article.
* KnockKnockJoke: Hanratty has a splendid one after his new assistants show disdain over Hanratty's serious nature.
-->'''Carl''': Well, would you like to hear me tell a joke?
-->'''His subordinate''': Yeah, we'd love to hear you tell a joke.
--> '''Carl:''' Knock knock.
--> '''His subordinate:''' Who's there?
--> '''Carl:''' ({{Beat}}) [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Go fuck yourselves.]]
** Doubling as a CrowningMomentOfFunny
* NoSenseOfHumor: Hanratty, whose all-business demeanor irks his partners.
* OneDialogueTwoConversations: When Frank asks Brenda's father for permission to marry her. When Frank says that he isn't a doctor or lawyer but just a kid in love with his daughter, Brenda's father thinks Frank's only being sentimental.
* {{Pastiche}}: John Williams' credit tune as well as the accompanying animation are a ShoutOut to ''ThePinkPanther''.
* ThePerryMasonMethod: Subverted. Watching episodes of the show and knowing a thing or two about spotting forgeries and lies ''does not'' help Frank prosecute a case. Largely because he overplayed his hand and forgot how much [[YouFailLawForever formal procedure there is involved in law practice]].
--> '''Judge:''' There is no defense, there is no jury. It's just me. Son, what in the hell is wrong with you?
* PrecisionFStrike: Two words: [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "knock knock."]]
* PrettyInMink: Jennifer Garner's scene had her in a mink jacket.
* RealPersonCameo: The real Frank Abagnale plays one of the French police officers who finally capture Frank.
* RecordNeedleScratch: We hear one in-universe when Frank comes back to the apartment while his mother is entertaining her new lover.
* ReformedCriminal: [[spoiler:Frank, at the end of the movie.]]
* RefugeInAudacity: The ''other'' half of the cons.
** It should also be noted that something Frank learned from his father plays into this as a bit of a RunningGag. "Why do the Yankees always win?" "Because the other teams are too busy looking at the damn pinstripes."
* RunningGag:
** "Two little mice..."
** "Even better."
** "Why do the Yankees always win?"
* SexyStewardess: To complete his impersonation of an airline pilot, Frank hires pretty young women to pose as flight attendants. He told the girls they had won an internship to train as stewardesses. He engineered the whole scheme in order to be able to enter an airport crammed with FBI agents looking for him and walk RightUnderTheirNoses - knowing that they would [[DistractedByTheSexy never notice him with all those beautiful, vivacious young girls surrounding him!]] And as a RefugeInAudacity, knowing that the FBI agents would never suspect the conman sneaking into the airport to be '''the most obvious freaking guy in the place'''.
* SherlockScan: A non-visual example in Hanratty being able to discern clues of Frank's whereabouts from his telephone calls; e.g. he figures out Frank's from New York from his mention of the Yankees, and that he's a kid from his use of the alias [[{{Flash}} Barry Allen]].
** Frank himself demonstrates a highly acute attention to detail throughout the film, starting with informing a classmate that her fake "note from mother" is missing a crease to be believable.
* TheSeventies: The last fifteen or so minutes of the film.
* TheSixties: The majority of the film.
* ShoutOut: The dollar floating under the door and fluttering like a feather past Tom Hanks is a nod to ''ForrestGump''.
* {{Squick}}: In-Universe: When "Dr" Frank sees the young boy with a broken leg, bleeding, and moaning in pain, he is very squicked and has to hold it in until he gets the other doctors to diagnose the treatment before bolting out to throw-up.
* StarMakingRole: Oddly averted for AmyAdams, who despite being prominently featured as Frank's girlfriend had to wait until ''{{Enchanted}}'' some years later to become an A-lister.
** And Spielberg actually cast her in order to make that star, and said he was crushed when her career didn't take off immediately. But her career got better, so it all worked out in the end.
* SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: Agent Carl Hanratty.
* TeenGenius: Frank.
* ThemedAliases: Frank uses the names of comic book characters as aliases.
** Fleming is an exception being the author of an infamous [[JamesBond British agent]].
* TitleDrop: Sort of. "You gotta catch me."
* ToTellTheTruth: The real Frank Abagnale, Jr. appeared on an episode of this show. The movie is framed by actual episode footage of this appearence with [=DiCaprio=] digitally inserted into Abagnale's place.
* TroubledButCute: Well, he's played by LeonardoDiCaprio, isn't he?
** And Aaron Tveit
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Besides throwing in the FreudianExcuse for Frank becoming a con-artist and counterfeiter, many details from Frank Abagnale Jr.'s life were altered or added in the film. For instance, Frank is shown as an only child, when in real life he had three other siblings. But most notably, he is depicted reaching out to his father in-between cons, whereas the actual Frank never saw or spoke to his father again after leaving home. This drastically changes Frank's motivation in the film: his relationship with his father is portrayed as having been so close that he can only stop his criminal lifestyle if his father wants him to; instead his father (still embittered over the lack of support he received when his business went under) [[AbusiveParents refuses and uses his son as a weapon to get back at the government]]. In reality no such thing happened of course - Frank continued simply because he was good at it, and because it was preferable to getting a hard-working job or going to jail.
** Frank's quasi-friendship with Carl while Frank is on the run is entirely invented, although Frank and the agent who was chasing him did become friends after Frank was released from prison.
** He certainly didn't escape from the plane they way they show it in the film. For one thing the septic tank on aeroplanes rarely detours into the luggage area.
** In his memoir Frank claims to have done exactly that (escaped out an aeroplane toilet). Of course, his memoir was VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory as well. In the memoir, he had flown back to the United States on a Vickers [=VC10=]; the toilet unit lifts out, so he could have escaped.
** Frank was not finally caught in France by any cunning FBI work. What actually happened was that after he had gone to ground in a small village, he was spotted by a Pan Am stewardess on vacation, who notified the police.
** Also they missed out the bit after his release from the appalling French jail when he spend a year in a Swedish jail. And that it was his Swedish lawyers who helped him become repatriated to the US (to jail) so he wouldn't have to serve 5 years in jail in each European country.
* VillainProtagonist: Frank Abagnale Jr., the protagonist, is an adrift and young counterfeiter and con man who uses his natural cleverness to make some money, and [[HeroAntagonist his antagonist]], Hanratty, is an FBI agent trying to, well, Catch Him if He Can. In the end Frank [[spoiler:with Hanratty's support eventually goes straight.]]
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: When Frank first starts his cons, he's shown pressing a check in a hotel Bible; also all of the scenes set at Christmas time.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: A key factor in how Abagnale was able to pull of his scams.
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