Why Ripley Is the Best Thing Streaming Right Now

Netflix Ripley, an eight-episode adaptation of Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel, reimagines the story in stunning black-and-white cinematography that transforms 1960s Italy into a noir dreamscape. Andrew Scott Tom Ripley is colder, more deliberate, and more terrifyingly composed than previous screen versions.

Director Steven Zaillian shoots every frame like a photograph. The black-and-white palette turns Rome, Atrani, and Venice into stark compositions of light and shadow that mirror Ripley internal landscape.

The cinematographer is Robert Elswit, who shot There Will Be Blood and Nightcrawler and who took an Emmy for this. It was shot on location rather than on sets: Rome, Naples, Palermo, Venice, and the cliffside town of Atrani standing in for the fictional Mongibello. The black and white was not a filter applied in post. It was the plan from the start, which is why the frames are built around stone, shadow and wet pavement instead of colour.

Scott Ripley is stripped of the charm that Matt Damon brought to the 1999 film. This version is calculating, emotionally vacant, and almost alien in his ability to observe and mimic human warmth without possessing it.

Watch for Caravaggio. The painter runs through the series as a deliberate rhyme: a man who made his name on violent light and dark, killed someone, and spent his last years on the run. Ripley goes to look at the paintings, and several scenes are lit to match them. It is the one piece of commentary Zaillian allows himself, and it tells you how to read everything else.

The pacing is deliberately slow. Each episode unfolds at the pace of a man who has freed himself from moral constraint. Scenes linger on empty rooms and architectural details. The tension builds through the creeping realization of what he is capable of.

A warning about the pace, because it defeats people. Eight episodes at roughly an hour, and the first two are largely a man walking around Italy failing to persuade another man to go home. The murder does not arrive until episode three. Bail before that and you have watched the setup and none of the payoff, which includes a body being carried down several flights of stairs in something close to real time.

John Malkovich turns up as Reeves Minot, a small part with a large joke inside it. Malkovich played Ripley himself in the Liliana Cavani film Ripley's Game in 2002, which makes his scenes with Scott feel like a handover between owners of the character.

Supporting performances from Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn provide the warmth and humanity that Ripley lacks.

If it lands, Highsmith wrote five Ripley novels between 1955 and 1991, and the character gets stranger and more domestic as they go. The other screen versions are worth the time too: Plein Soleil from 1960 with Alain Delon, Wim Wenders and The American Friend from 1977 with Dennis Hopper, and the 1999 Anthony Minghella film. Each pulls a different Ripley out of the same book, and none is attempting what Zaillian does here.

Stream on Netflix at https://www.netflix.com/title/81578483.

Ripley is essential for anyone who values television as a visual art form. It is slow, cold, and gorgeous, a noir thriller that prioritizes atmosphere over action and rewards patience with some of the most beautiful images in recent television.