Arts Diary: Top ten of great film conmen.

ROBERT Redford and Paul Newman played the movie world's greatest con artists of all time,according to a new poll.

They were named the big screen's most crafty swindlers for their part as depression era gamblers in the 1973 film The Sting.

They played Johnny Hooker and Henry Gondorff, who set out to avenge the death of a fellow con artist in 1930s Chicago.

Frank Sinatra,Dean Martin,and Sammy Davis Jnr are second on the list,compiled by UCI Cinemas, with the classic rat pack movie Ocean's Eleven.

In the movie, Sinatra's character, Danny Ocean, assembles 10 friends to rob five of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night.(The 2001 Ocean's Eleven remake, starringBrad Pitt and George Clooney,comes sixth on the list.) Third is Steve McQueen as the suave but bored millionaire in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968),although the 1999 remake starring Pierce Brosnan fails to make the top ten.

Leonardo DiCaprio takes fifth place in Catch Me if You Can (2002), the true story of con artist Frank Abagnale Jr, who poses as everything from a pilot to an attorney while forging cheques and evading the FBI.

Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers are eighth for the 1995 film The Ladykillers (1955), the dark comedy set in London. This classic was recently remade by the Coen brothers, starring Tom Hanks.

The chain surveyed 2,000 cinemagoers.