Genre: Mystery
Mystery stories pose a question and pull you toward the answer — a crime, a secret, a puzzle, unraveled clue by clue until the truth comes clear.
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The Paw
A cat catches a hamster behind the dryer, pins his tail, and gives him a choice: find her missing kitten or get eaten. He goes down into a pipe no cat can follow, finds the kitten, and finds out why it went missing, which turns a simple errand into the most dangerous standoff of his four-ounce life. -
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Nicolas Roeg's 1973 Venice grief drama. Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie. Red coat, drowned daughter. The famous sex-scene editing. -
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
A small-time thief stumbles into an LA acting career and a noir investigation, with Robert Downey Jr. as narrator across the Christmas season. -
Brick (2005)
Rian Johnson's 2005 high school neo-noir debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dashiell Hammett character among teenagers. Singular voice. -
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 Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks' 1946 Chandler adaptation. Bogart and Bacall. Plot incomprehensible even to the screenwriters. Doesn't matter. -
The Name of the Rose (1986)
Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1986 Eco adaptation. Sean Connery as Franciscan monk investigating monastery murders. Christian Slater debut. -
And Then There Were None (1945)
Rene Clair's 1945 Agatha Christie adaptation. Ten strangers on an island. The template for every isolation murder mystery since. -
Rebecca (1940)
Hitchcock's 1940 Daphne du Maurier adaptation. Manderley as character. Joan Fontaine. Won Best Picture, Hitchcock's only one.