9 Shows and Movies Like Lupin to Watch While You Wait for Part 3

Netflix's Lupin was one of the great stories of 2021. It became an international hit that showed the potency of Netflix's global strategy, and elevated its star, Omar Sy, to superstar levels. The French crime thriller stars Sy as a thief named Assane Diop, who is known as the "gentleman burglar" and uses his skills as a thief and con man to exact revenge on a man who framed his father, all while being utterly charming while doing it. Part 1 came to us in early 2021 and Part 2 came out in June 2021, but we're still waiting for news about Part 3. All we know is that Sy says it's happening. But what should you watch while you wait for it?

If you're looking to cozy up to some more con artists, want to tag along on some other great heists, or simply want to build up your French TV library, here are eight other shows and one movie worth considering.

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The Takedown

If Lupin was your introduction to Omar Sy, then the first thing you wanted to do after finishing Lupin Season 1 was go find more Omar Sy. He's still locked into more seasons of Lupin, so there's not a whole lot of new stuff that he's done, but he did shoot this movie that was released on Netflix in May. It's the sequel to the 2012 French film On the Other Side of the Tracks and features Sy and Laurent Lafitte reprising their roles as buddy cops who investigate a new crime. It got middling reviews, but Sy's performance was praised, naturally.

Money Heist 

One of the highlights of part one of Lupin is Diop's heist of a necklace from The Louvre — watching the heist play out and then going back to see how he pulled it off is clever, exciting, and a great way to introduce us to how Diop operates. Spanish series Money Heist doubles down on that feeling. It follows two different bank robberies put together by the mysterious Professor who recruits a group of people with specific skill sets to pull off the heist. While the heist plays out over the course of each season, there are flashbacks, plot twists, and emotional drama between the crew (nothing makes people fall in love like robbing banks!). The award-winning series was a huge hit in Spain and globally once it debuted on Netflix, and with its easily bingeable installments and strong ensemble cast, it's easy to see why.

Sneaky Pete

Assane Diop is a thief and a con artist and obviously wasn't the best or most present partner, but despite all of those things that could easily turn him into a villain, he is impossible not to like. Thanks to his desire to avenge his wronged father and an unbelievably charming performance by Omar Sy, there's no question about rooting for Diop. The same can be said for Sneaky Pete's Marius. By all accounts, we should hate Giovanni Ribisi's criminal conman: Upon being released from prison, Marius dons his cellmate Pete's identity and tricks Pete's estranged family into believing he's their relative in order to hide from the powerful and deadly gangster (played by Bryan Cranston) who he crossed before landing in prison. But even as he's lying to this family who are so excited to have him back, we like Marius! Aside from navigating that tricky concept well, Sneaky Pete has a great ensemble cast that, in addition to Ribisi and Cranston, includes Margo Martindale, Peter Gerety, and Marin Ireland.

Revenge

The 2011 ABC drama Revenge is like Lupin but with a whole lot more soap. Both shows clearly have ties to Alexander Dumas's novel The Count of Monte Cristo, with their protagonists pulling long cons on people from their past who wronged them, and both shows are about a child avenging a parent who was falsely accused of a crime. Revenge, however, takes the deception to the shores of the Hamptons, and with it comes all the juicy drama you'd expect from the lifestyles of the rich and powerful. Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp) returns to her old summer stomping grounds to target anyone involved in what happened to her father but sets most of her focus on the Grayson family next door, which means she spends a lot of time pitted against the formidable foe that is Madeleine Stowe's matriarch, Victoria. The first season is where this show really shines, but there are moments throughout its four-season run where it continues to be a sudsy romp.

Good Behavior

Do you want the cons but with a darker, more antihero type of feel? TNT's short-lived Good Behavior should provide what you're looking for. Michelle Dockery, in what was her post-Downton Abbey return to television, stars as Letty Raines, a criminal and drug addict who is released on parole for, say it with me, good behavior, and turns back to life as a con artist in order to make money and eventually win back custody of her young son. She ends up getting caught up in the dealings of extremely handsome hitman Javier (Juan Diego Botto); chaos and loads and loads of chemistry ensue. It's sad and sexy and there are lots of disguises!

Imposters

Think con artists but Bravo-style! The Bravo series ran for two seasons and is a little lighter than some other con artist and nefarious thief TV fare. Imposters follows Maddie (Inbar Lavi), a con artist whose M.O. is to marry a target before stealing everything from them and disappearing. While she's on the run from the FBI, by way of (undercover) Agent Campbell (Stephen Bishop), three of her former marks, Ezra (Rob Heaps), Richard (Parker Young), and Jules (Marianne Rendón) team up to find the woman they thought they were married to and realize that maybe they still want to help the woman they all once loved. Thanks to solid performances from the main cast, Imposters is an easy-to-watch take on the con artist genre. Plus, Uma Thurman shows up as a deadly assassin, so that's fun!

Sherlock

The criminal mastermind protagonist in Lupin is named Assane Diop, but the show gets its title from Diop's inspiration, the famous French literary character Arsène Lupin. Created by author Maurice Leblanc, Lupin was a "gentleman thief" and a master of disguise who appeared in dozens of novels in the early 1900s. If you love a show with a clever nod to some famous literature, it's time to give the Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman-led take on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson a go. The BBC and PBS's Sherlock modernizes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective series, but there are lots of people, places, and cases from the original tied into the story. Thanks to the clever writing and strong performances you'll want to plow through Sherlock's four seasons, but with only 13 episodes, be sure to savor it — you don't find fun chemistry like Cumberbatch's and Freeman's every day, you know?

Call My Agent!

If Lupin was your first foray into French television and you're looking to spend some more time taking in the sights in and around Paris, your next stop should be French dramedy Call My Agent! (or Dix Pour Cent). The series — which recently made a surprise announcement of plans for a movie and fifth season after what was supposedly the show's fourth and final season aired — follows the shenanigans at a French talent agency staffed by a group of talent agents and assistants who are at times both cutthroat and ridiculous and full of appearances by French actors playing heightened versions of themselves. It takes the mystique of French cinema and turns it into a familiar workplace comedy with very French sensibilities.

The Americans

If you're just looking for your next wig and disguise fix and you haven't yet spent time with The Americans, here's yet another reason (not that you need one!). The award-winning Keri Russell-Matthew Rhys 1980s-set spy drama has less of a "caper" type vibe and more of a "fate of the free world rests on this" one, but the deceit and trickery featured on this show is Lupin on steroids. You think Assane is a great con artist? Phillip (Rhys) and Elizabeth (Russell) Jennings are Russian spies who have been pretending to be the all-American family living in the D.C. area for years. Now, that's a long con. The series is full of exciting action and political intrigue, but where it truly excels is as a complex, haunting look inside a very complicated marriage.