%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1601661866076246200
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_the_talented_mr_ripley_cover.png]]
%%
A series of novels written by Patricia Highsmith that chronicle the life of the title character Ripley, a charming and utterly sociopathic man. All evidence much black humor, and are notable as inverted mysteries in which Ripley always gets away with his crimes in the end.

The labels AffablyEvil, SociopathicHero and VillainProtagonist describe Ripley well, and every novel after the first invokes VillainsOutShopping by depicting Ripley's affluent life in the French countryside, beloved by his servants and engaging in artistic pursuits. Ripley is also somewhat AmbiguouslyGay (or rather, explicitly states he just doesn't ''know'' what he is), although it could be argued that, like Series/{{Dexter}}, he is simply a rather warped ChasteHero, having difficulty forming any kind of relationship given his psychological problems.
----
!! Books in the series:
* ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1955)
* ''Ripley Under Ground'' (1970)
* ''Ripley's Game'' (1974)
* ''The Boy Who Followed Ripley'' (1980)
* ''Ripley Under Water'' (1991)

!!Film adaptations:

* ''Film/PurpleNoon'' (1960) -- French version of ''The Talented Mr. Ripley''. Creator/AlainDelon as Ripley.
* ''Les Biches'' (1968) -- French film loosely based on ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' with the genders of the primary characters changed. Jacqueline Sassard plays Why, the Ripley equivalent.
* ''Film/TheAmericanFriend'' (1977) -- German; a mix of ''Ripley Underground'' and ''Ripley's Game''. Creator/DennisHopper as Ripley.
* ''Film/TheTalentedMrRipley'' (1999) -- Creator/MattDamon as Ripley.
* ''Ripley's Game'' (2002) -- Creator/JohnMalkovich as Ripley.
* ''Ripley Under Ground'' (2005) -- Creator/BarryPepper as Ripley.
* ''Naan'' (2012) -- Indian Tamil-language film loosely based on ''The Talented Mr. Ripley''. Vijay Antony plays Karthik, the Ripley equivalent. The film received a sequel in 2014 called ''Salim'', though this wasn't an adaption of any of the sequels to ''The Talented Mr. Ripley''. ''Naan'' was remade twice: as ''Amanush 2'' in Bengali (2015) and as ''Asthitva'' in Kannada (2016).
* ''{{Series/Ripley}}'' (2024) -- A Creator/{{Netflix}} series based on the books. Creator/AndrewScott as Ripley.

!!Other tropes used in the series:

* AffablyEvil: Ripley may be a liar, conman, and murderer, but he really ''is'' polite and charming and he only hurts people (by killing or manipulation) if he absolutely has to or if they pose a threat to him.
* AlterEgoActing: In ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'', Tom is able to both convincingly take Dickie Greenleaf's identity, and portray an exaggerated version of him before the same police officers who saw him as Dickie and get away with it.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Many readers suspect that Ripley may have closeted homosexual tendencies -- there are homoerotic overtones in his relationships with, in particular, Dickie in ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' and Frank Pierson in ''The Boy Who Followed Ripley'', and his relationship in the later books with his wife Heloise is notably lacking in sexual passion.
* {{Main/Character Development}}: As the series progresses, Ripley develops from an insecure petty criminal to a remorseless murderer to a charismatic anti-hero with a strange code of ethics.
* TheCharmer: Ripley. This is standard for any good conman but it's shown that it isn't a facade or at least it isn't entirely one. He genuinely is charming, polite and doesn't hurt people unless he has to.
%%* ComicbookTime
%%* {{Conman}}
%%* ConsummateLiar: Tom, he is very quick to fall back on his feet.
* DeadArtistsAreBetter: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''Ripley Under Ground'', in that it features Ripley as part of a scam to produce further works of an artist unsuccessful in life who killed himself at a young age, and Ripley ends up masquerading as the artist.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: Ripley's MO in the first two novels.
* DevilInPlainSight: Ripley is a version of this from the second book onward, as he has a lot of suspicion attached to himself but no one has ever been able to pin any crimes on him.
* DumbBlonde: Ripley seems to think Marge is a dumb blonde in the first book. She's the first one to suspect that Tom isn't quite what he seems in Mongibello, but she fails to connect the dots in the second half of the book, and in fact becomes much friendlier towards him by the end.
* EntertaininglyWrong: In the first book, Ripley has to [[spoiler:become Tom again]] in part because the authorities suspect that Dickie murdered Tom.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Ripley tries to avoid killing people unless absolutely necessary, first trying to get them to cooperate with his schemes. The only people he ever kills without any guilt are some gangsters in ''Ripley's Game''. ''Ripley Under Water'' has this as a major part of its EvilVersusEvil plot, where Ripley's peaceful life is threatened by a nasty InspectorJavert who is a wife-beater and [[{{Eagleland}} ugly American]] who while ironically on the side of good (he tries to expose Ripley's murders), is mostly interested in the [[PsychoForHire sadistic pleasure in hurting others]].
* FreudianExcuse: Ripley was an orphan brought up by his emotionally abusive aunt. As such, he greatly resents people like Dickie who have far more privileged lives and opportunities but take them for granted.
* FunetikAksent: Used for all of the French characters who call Ripley "Tome".
* GoodWithNumbers: Even when drunk Tom can tell if he's being cheated.
%%* GrievousBottleyHarm: How Muchison buys the farm.
%%* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming
%%* IfICantHaveYou: Part of Ripley's motive for murdering Dickie.
* InspectorJavert: Ripley is often dogged by someone on to his crimes, but if they're police he ultimately escapes them, and if not, likely kills them.
%%* IvyLeagueForEveryone
* JerkassHasAPoint: Marge is a sententious homophobe, but she correctly intuits that there's something less than platonic about Tom's fixation with Dickie.
* KarmaHoudini: Except for the film ''Purple Noon'', where he just barely misses pulling one of these off.
* LittleBlackDress: In ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'', Marge wears a black dress and stole to a party.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Ripley's preferred targets and done so he can take up their own lives of privilege.
* ManipulativeBastard: Tom. While generally amicable, he's a master at getting people to do what he wants. In the film in particular, the scene where he engineers a meeting between Marge and Meredith so that they can realize that Dickie is a jerk who's been stringing them both along and thus make Marge give up on trying to find out what's happened to him. In truth, he's been posing as Dickie while courting Meredith.
* MasterActor: Tom can play Dickie, Derwatt, etc.
* MissedHimByThatMuch: Tom uses this to keep up the illusion that Dickie is alive and that his disappearance is the result of him willfully abandoning Marge.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Along with Dickie's devil-may-care attitude towards life, this is the main reason Tom is able to get away with his crime, as everyone, even the intelligent and experienced private detective assumes that Dickie has simply abandoned everything and everyone from his past.
* NeverSuicide: Tom lays a careful series of letters and clues that hint at the possibility Dickie committed suicide. In the film, he outright forges a suicide note from Dickie to provide everyone with an explanation for his disappearance.
%%* NervousWreck: Bernard.
* TheNondescript: Tom has a 'bland face', being conventionally handsome but lacking any distinguishing traits, which comes in handy when he impersonates someone.
%%* PoliceAreUseless
* PrettyInMink: In ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'', Marge wears a fur coat and hat.
* [[invoked]]ReclusiveArtist: In ''Ripley Underground,'' the painter Phillip Derwatt has been living off the grid for years. Some time into his isolation, he commits suicide. His friends cover up his suicide, initially just to protect his reputation, but later so they can keep selling new paintings [[MasterForger supposedly painted by Phillip.]]
* RedRightHand: One of Ripley's criminal contacts is a gangster, Reeves Minot, whose handsome features are marred by a nasty scar on his face, which he attempts to explain away with various unconvincing stories.
* SceneryPorn: Italy, obviously.
* ShaggyDogStory: The second, third, and fourth books all devote a significant amount of page time to Ripley trying to save an acquaintance from either committing suicide or being murdered. He fails all three times.
%%* SociopathicHero
* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Bernard]] in the film adaptation of ''Ripley Under Ground''.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Dickie's cousin Chris, a guest of Ripley's in the second book, strongly resembles his late cousin. Given how Ripley killed Dickie, this causes him some anxiety.
* SupportingProtagonist: In ''Ripley's Game'', Ripley becomes this to the actual main character, Jonathan Trevanny.
* UnreliableNarrator: While the books are narrated in third-person, everything is essentially from Ripley's perspective as he has the SympatheticPOV, and thus his reasoning for his various crimes are presented as legitimate.
%%* VillainProtagonist
%%* WickedCultured: Tom.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Ripley. Despite all the horrible things he's done, there's something incredibly pitiful about him and it's implied he doesn't actually ''like'' what he does and it's a compulsion he is unable to resist.
** An excellent example of this occurs in the first book. He gets so violently ill he can't stand or leave his hotel room, but still crawls around on the floor following sun beams, hoping that they'll tan him so he fits in better.
** This line the movie:
--->'''Tom''': "I always thought it would be better...to be a fake somebody...than a real nobody."
%%* XanatosSpeedChess: Tom's freedom is testament to his mastery of the game.
----