Death Defying Acts is a British-Australian 2007 supernatural romance film, directed by Gillian Armstrong, and starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

In 1926, 13 years after his mother's death, illusionist and escapologist Harry Houdini has begun debunking mystics, psychics, and others who claim to have paranormal powers.

Impoverished and uneducated Scottish con artist Mary McGarvie and her daughter, Benji, set their sights on Houdini's reward when he visits Edinburgh on tour.

Mary, wearing Houdini's mother's wedding dress, performs the heavily publicized act surrounded by a crowd of reporters.

When a note written to confirm the veracity of the experiment is shown to be blank, Houdini reveals to the press the "eternal shame" he feels because he wasn't able to reach his mother before she died.

At a cinema in Scotland, Benji weeps while viewing newsreel footage about Houdini's death, in which he faces the camera and appears to bid goodbye.

The film was shot on location in London and Edinburgh, and at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, produced by Myriad Pictures and was distributed by The Weinstein Company.