Ok, first of all i rewatched it this morning and its still a fantastic movie with great acting from Hanks and Leo and great pace that hits on every mark. But after watching it I found out that the real life frank abergnale was pretty thoroughly debunked in 2020. The recruiting Pan Am stewardesses (as a scam) appears to have actually happened. The scene where he uses them to board the plane is probably my favorite scene in the movie.

quote:
In 2020, author Alan C. Logan published The Greatest Hoax on Earth, an investigation into Abagnale's claimed criminal history drawing on prison records, administrative documents, and newspaper archives. Logan demonstrated using New York State Archives records that Abagnale was incarcerated at Great Meadow Prison as inmate #25367 from July 26, 1965, to December 24, 1968, the precise period during which Abagnale claimed to have committed his most celebrated frauds. Logan's research also documented numerous petty crimes Abagnale had never publicly acknowledged.[6] Abagnale declined to address the book's specific findings, calling it "not worthy of a comment."[6][25]

In 2022, investigative journalist Javier Leiva independently verified Logan's findings, confirmed federal court records showing Abagnale's Pan Am check conviction involved less than $1,500, and calculated that Abagnale was free for only a matter of months between 1965 and 1970. On June 23, 2022, Leiva confronted Abagnale at the Connect IT Global conference in Las Vegas with prison and court records in hand.

Doesnt affect the movie, but the real life version woulda probably been a lot more boring