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The male version of the Classy Cat Burglar may lack the cat jokes and themes, but he makes up for it with roguish good looks coupled with a breeding and style that manifests as a suave and debonair manner. He's usually a charmer, too - think James Bond without the government authorization. Cary Grant used to play this type of character frequently.
He steals for the challenge/pleasure of the job and generally avoids violence while restricting his targets to those who can afford the loss. More importantly for plots, the character will often go out of their way to stop more serious crimes - especially with lives at stake - either on their own or with the help of the police.
Like the Classy Cat Burglar, the Gentleman Thief usually regards the police with a certain amount of disdain and condescension, and frequently leaves behind "calling cards" announcing who performed the crime; especially confident versions may announce their targets in advance to ensure a challenge. With a Worthy Opponent, they may have a less adversarial relationship, verging at times on friendship (and when the Opponent is of the opposite gender, fraught with UST of the Dating Catwoman variety).
Compare Phantom Thief.
Examples
Anime
- Lupin III: The classic modern anime gentleman thief. In fact, in the show he's an actual descendant of the aforementioned Arsène Lupin.
- Ijyuin Akira, the Man of Twenty Faces, in CLAMP School Detectives: A young gentleman thief, he steals according to the direction of his two mothers. This character is based on Japanese mystery author Edogawa Ranpo's "Fiend With Twenty Faces" character.
- This character also reappears as "Twenty Faces" in The Daughter Of Twenty Faces, who among other things steals national treasures that have been mislocated due to war, to return them to their rightful place.
- Kaito Kid (aka Kaito Kuroba), a young thief and magician. Main character of a manga and by Gosho Aoyama (also known for "Detective Conan"), and relative anime.
- Sorata Muon from the anime/manga "Mouse".
- The Title Character in From Eroica With Love, the title is actually what he leaves on his calling cards.
- Cobra from Cobra Space Adventure is a gentleman thief in a Space Opera setting. Despite being one of the most thought-after criminals of the galaxy, he ends up helping the Space Police and battling the Space Mafia more often than not.
- Carson D. Carson from the Dirty Pair movie, Project EDEN.
- Black Rose aka Keith Harcourt from Ashita no Nadja.
- This one can't believe Dark from DN Angel hasn't been referenced. He's the epitome of the gentleman thief!
Comic Book
- The Phantom Blot, a '40 Disney villain.
- Gambit, from X-Men: Charms the ladies while taking their pocketbooks.
- The Riddler from Batman, occasionally. His personality varies, actually.
- The Penguin started out this way but eventually settled into a role as a semi-legit restauranteur/arms dealer.
- Diabolik, Anti Hero of the Italian comic book series and a movie adaptation (released as Danger: Diabolik in the U.S. and best known for being the movie riffed on in the final episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000).
- Zagar, by the Italian comic artist Jacovitti. This thief, master of disguises, is a very parody of this trope.
- Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin.
- Spider Man foe, the Black Fox.
- Cattivik, by Bonvi (and others), is a very (very) rough and unlucky thief that clearly is not this trope.
Film
- Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief follows John Robie (Cary Grant), a reformed Gentleman Thief, as he attempts to discover who has been framing him for a new spate of burglaries. It turns out to be a Classy Cat Burglar.
- David Niven's character Sir Charles Lytton, "the Phantom" in the Pink Panther movies.
- Pierce Brosnan plays a millionaire trying to be a Gentleman Thief in the film The Thomas Crown Affair. "It's just a game, love; it's just a game."
- Complete with literal calling card, a pencil with the name of his firm left plainly at the scene of the final caper!
- And of course the original 1968 film starring Steve Mc Queen.
- Sean Connery's character in Entrapment is just the bearded Scottish version of Pierce Brosnan's Irish Thomas Crown. Except Connery shares his screen time with a Classy Cat Burglar and the infamous Laser Hallway.
- Robert De Niro's character in Heat, Neil McCauley, is a somewhat more realistic version of the Gentleman Thief.
- Basically every protagonist in Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12, and Ocean's 13, as well as the antagonist "Night Fox" Toulour, though Toulour to a lesser extent.
- The film version of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen boasts the cheeky Cockney rogue Rodney Skinner, 'Genn'lemun Thief', as the Invisible Man in lieu of the psyochotic original Invisible Man Dr. Hawley Griffin. Skinner apparently stole Griffin's invisibility formula.
Literature
- The Thieves Guild in Discworld is said to run special courses for Gentleman Thieves. It's one thing being robbed, but it's annoying to learn that your possessions were stolen by a man in a borrowed suit.
- Raffles: A character who has been around in literary form since at least the First World War. Recently appeared as a minor character in the webcomic Scary-Go-Round.
- Arsène Lupin in the series of short stories and books written by Maurice Leblanc between 1905 and 1939, and in five additional volumes written by Boileau-Narcejac in the 1970s, is a Gentleman Thief who moonlights as a detective.
- Flambeau is a clever, strong, joking and very tall jewel thief of the "Father Brown" series by G. K. Chesterton. His name means "torche" in French. He liked to use paradoxical disguises (as in "The Queer Feet"). After he met recurrently Father Brown, he gave his ways and reformed.
- The Saint AKA Simon Templar was such a Gentleman Thief in the original stories (and also mixed race as well, unusual in those days) The TV series cleaned him up a lot, though not entirely.
- The Saint doesn't quite fit the trope, in that he was in the habit of murdering criminals as well as taking their money. On one occasion he tied the villains of the story up in an abandoned house, to which he then set fire, leaving them to burn alive. Granted, they were going to do the same to him and his cohorts, but still: not entirely gentlemanly behaviour.
- "Slippery" Jim diGriz, the protagonist of The Stainless Steel Rat. Living in a future where only a genius could ever make it as a crook, he considers himself a public benefactor by spicing up the lives of local police and keeping the money in circulation.
- Seregil (and Alec) in Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner books.
- Subverted to pieces in Memoirs of a Private Detective by Dashiell Hammett:
Second only to Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is Raffles in the affections of the daily press. The phrase "gentleman crook" is used on the slightest provocation. A composite portrait of the gentry upon whom the newspapers have bestowed this title would show a laudanum-drinker, with a large rhinestone-horseshow aglow in the soiled bosom of his shirt below a bow-tie, leering at his victim, and saying: "Now don't get scared, lady, I ain't gonna crack you on the bean. I ain't a rough-neck!"
- The series title of Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard sequence (The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies) gives a nod to this trope and to the nature of the central protagonists.
- Locke is pretty much a deconstruction of this trope: his deeds inspired the legend of the "Thorn of Camorr", who is a gentleman thief, but the real Lock Lamora will not hesitate to kick a few dogs to reach his goals even if he still have his standards (after all, he is also a priest of the 13th), hence the bastard (singular) in the sequence title
- Nicholas Valiarde/Donatien in The Death Of The Necromancer by Martha Wells.
- Nobby Cranton from the Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Nine Tailors. The other characters find his schtick a little annoying, though.
- Kelsier and his crew from Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
Live Action TV
- Dennis Stanton, a Recurring Character in Murder She Wrote, was a Gentleman Thief in his first appearance, although in later appearances he uses his skills as an insurance investigator. He works by three rules: He never steals from anyone who can't afford it, he never steals anything with sentimental value, and he makes sure everything he steals is insured by the company who refused to pay for his late wife to have a lifesaving operation.
- Jerry Fagin, an international jewel thief who made a single appearance in Cagney and Lacey, solely to challenge Cagney to a duel of wits. His first action is to pull a heist and plant evidence all over the scene that points to the police department itself. When this becomes clear, Cagney immediately says, "Jerry Fagin! Nobody else would do this with such unmitigated . . . style!"
- Autolycus, the King of Thieves of Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess fame.
- The Cat from the Funky Squad episode "Diamond's Are a Cat's Best Friend".
- Remington Steele was this kind of character before taking over his role as private investigator.
Video Games
- Sly Cooper is a cartoonish, raccoon, video game equivalent. He even brings his own Worthy Opponent in the form of Carmelita Fox, with whom the UST is a pronounced, recurring theme.
- Carmen Sandiego is a rare female example. A fabulous Affably Evil Friendly Enemy, the original Sandiego, and a Magnificent Bastard all rolled into one red-trenched package.
- Balthier from Final Fantasy XII is the embodiment of this trope.
- Locke from Final Fantasy VI (though he prefers the term “treasure hunter”).
- Mask Demasque, from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, who carries out his thieving with Don Quixote-esque enthusiasm.
- Trilby
 , from the excellent Chzo Mythos series of AGS-based adventure games( 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, etc.), as well as Spin Off stealth platformer Trilby: The Art of Theft. [1], all by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, of Zero Punctuation fame, who stole his hat.
- The Gentleman Thief from Zork I, naturally.
Western Animation
- Stan's real father in American Dad.
- The one-shot character Malloy from The Simpsons. After being caught at the end of the episode, he graciously returns the items he has stolen — immediately followed by tricking the entire town of Springfield into searching for his buried stash while he escapes their jail.
- Then again, there aren't that many smart people in Springfield, although some of them should have figured it out.
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