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Connections, in both directions

A Prophet poster
If James Toback's petty-criminal tale "Fingers" inspired Jacques Audiard's previous "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," it's Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" that looms over his latest "A Prophet."
Anthony Kaufman • IndieWire • May 16, 2009
archive.org ↗
That one was very loosely inspired by James Toback's "Fingers," with Harvey Keitel as the vulnerable son of a gangster.
Audiard may have had the stones to tweak Jim Toback 's Fingers in '05 (with the racy The Beat That My Heart Skipped), but here, his approach to cinematic '70s-isms is slavish—and downright corny.
Sleeping with Other People poster
Master cocksman Jake (Jason Sudeikis), a fast-talker in the mold of the master cocksman played by Robert Downey Jr. in The Pick-Up Artist, peppers his speech with references to Aaron Sorkin and "Game of Thrones" and Wes Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell because he's totally hip.
Film Freak Central
filmfreakcentral.net ↗
Hitch poster
Hitch (Smith), a smooth, fourth-wall breaking ladies man (like Alfie or Robert Downey Jr. in The Pick-Up Artist), makes his living helping the helpless attract the attention of their ladies fair.
Tuner poster
…after a while it starts feeling more like James Toback’s Fingers…
Chris Bumbray, www.facebook.com, christopher.bumbray • JoBlo • May 22, 2026
joblo.com ↗
The Gambler poster
The Gambler remakes Karel Reisz’s gritty 1974 film of the same title, which was based on a semi-autobiographical script by the irrepressible James Toback, who went on to write and direct 1978’s Fingers and a number of provocative indies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including Two Girls And A Guy, Black & White, and Harvard Man.
Scott Tobias • The Dissolve
thedissolve.com ↗
He wrote and directed the underrated The Pick-Up Artist (another semi-autobiographic story, in which Robert Downey Jr. was the Toback surrogate) in 1987 and followed that up with the documentary The Big Bang.

That's all the connections!