Genre: Film Noir
Film noir is shadow and moral fog — hard-boiled characters, fatal attractions, and cities where everyone’s compromised and no one’s clean.
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Sin City (2005)
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's 2005 hyper-stylized noir. Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen. Black-white with red accents. -
Brick (2005)
Rian Johnson's 2005 high school neo-noir debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dashiell Hammett character among teenagers. Singular voice. -
Body Heat (1981)
Lawrence Kasdan's 1981 directorial debut. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner. Double Indemnity through 1980s Florida humidity. Murder plot. -
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Robert Altman's 1973 Chandler revisionism. Elliott Gould as Marlowe out of place in 1970s LA. Cat opening. Hooray for Hollywood. -
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Robert Aldrich's 1955 apocalyptic noir. Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. The great whatsit. Foundation for Pulp Fiction's briefcase. -
The Killers (1946)
Robert Siodmak's 1946 Hemingway adaptation. Burt Lancaster debut. Ava Gardner. The murder happens in the first ten minutes. -
Out of the Past (1947)
Jacques Tourneur's 1947 fatalist noir. Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas. Past catches up template. Acapulco and California. -
Touch of Evil (1958)
Orson Welles' 1958 border noir. Three-minute opening tracking shot. Welles as corrupt cop. The genre's late masterpiece. -
The Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks' 1946 Chandler adaptation. Bogart and Bacall. Plot incomprehensible even to the screenwriters. Doesn't matter. -
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
John Huston's 1950 jewel heist noir. Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, brief Marilyn Monroe. The original ensemble heist film.