71 articles
Angel Face
Angel Face is a 1953 RKO film noir directed by Otto Preminger, starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons; Diane Tremayne ensnares chauffeur Frank Jessup in murder schemes, ending in a famous cliff crash.
Bob le Flambeur
Bob le flambeur (Bob the Gambler) is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1955 French black-and-white crime film starring Roger Duchesne as an aging Montmartre gambler planning the Deauville casino heist; a key precursor of the French New Wave.
Branded to Kill (殺しの烙印)
Branded to Kill (殺しの烙印, Koroshi no rakuin) is Seijun Suzuki's 1967 black-and-white Nikkatsu hitman noir starring Joe Shishido as third-ranked killer Goro Hanada; its absurdist style got Suzuki fired from the studio.
Brute Force
Brute Force (1947) is Jules Dassin's American prison film noir starring Burt Lancaster as escape-plotting inmate Joe Collins against Hume Cronyn's sadistic Captain Munsey at Westgate Penitentiary; produced by Mark Hellinger, written by Richard Brooks, and famously censored by the Production Code.
Criss Cross
Criss Cross (1949) is a Robert Siodmak film noir starring Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, and Dan Duryea, based on Don Tracy's novel, about an armored-car driver drawn into a fatal heist by his ex-wife; remade as The Underneath (1995).
D.O.A.
D.O.A. (1950), also called Dead on Arrival, is an American film noir directed by Rudolph Maté in which poisoned accountant Frank Bigelow investigates his own murder; a public-domain National Film Registry selection remade in 1969 and 1988.
Detour (1945 film)
Detour (1945) is an Edgar G. Ulmer film noir made at Poverty Row studio PRC, starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. A hitchhiking pianist assumes a dead man's identity; a National Film Registry classic restored in 2018.
Elevator to the Gallows
Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) is Louis Malle's 1958 debut feature, a French noir starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet with an improvised one-night Miles Davis score; Prix Louis-Delluc 1957.
Fallen Angel (1945 film)
Fallen Angel (1945) is an Otto Preminger film noir for Twentieth Century-Fox, starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, and Linda Darnell, adapted from Marty Holland's novel; Faye left Fox after its editing cut her scenes.
Five Men of Edo
Five Men of Edo (大江戸五人男, Ōedo gonin otoko) is Daisuke Itō's 1951 Shochiku 30th-anniversary jidaigeki starring Tsumasaburō Bandō as Banzui-in Chōbei against Utaemon Ichikawa's Mizuno Jūrōzaemon, adapted from Kabuki plays and Japan's second-highest earner of 1951.
Force of Evil
Force of Evil (1948) is Abraham Polonsky's film noir directorial debut, starring John Garfield as lawyer Joe Morse in an adaptation of Ira Wolfert's Tucker's People about the New York numbers racket; a box office failure later named to the National Film Registry in 1994.
Gilda
Gilda (1946) is a Columbia Pictures film noir directed by Charles Vidor, starring Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, and George Macready. Set in a Buenos Aires casino, famous for "Put the Blame on Mame" and the black satin gown; added to the National Film Registry in 2013.
Gun Crazy
Gun Crazy (Deadly Is the Female) is a 1950 film noir by Joseph H. Lewis starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins as armed robbers in love, famous for its single-take bank robbery and influence on Bonnie and Clyde.
He Walked by Night
He Walked by Night is a 1948 American film noir police procedural by Alfred L. Werker with uncredited Anthony Mann, starring Richard Basehart, photographed by John Alton, based on the Erwin Walker case, and inspiring Dragnet.
Intimidation (ある脅迫) (1960 film)
Intimidation (ある脅迫, Aru kyōhaku) is a 1960 Nikkatsu black-and-white noir directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara, adapted from Kyō Takigawa's Naoki Prize story, in which a blackmailed bank executive played by Nobuo Kaneko robs his own bank while Kō Nishimura's meek clerk watches.
Key Largo (film)
Key Largo is John Huston's 1948 Warner Bros. film noir starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lauren Bacall, adapted from Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play; a gangster holds a Florida Keys hotel during a hurricane, and Claire Trevor won a supporting-actress Oscar.
Kiss of Death (1947 film)
Kiss of Death (1947) is a Henry Hathaway film noir for 20th Century Fox, starring Victor Mature as informant Nick Bianco and Richard Widmark, Oscar-nominated in his debut, as killer Tommy Udo; written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from Eleazar Lipsky's story.
Klute
Klute (1971) is Alan J. Pakula's neo-noir psychological thriller starring Jane Fonda, who won the Best Actress Oscar as call girl Bree Daniels, and Donald Sutherland as detective John Klute; first of Pakula's paranoia trilogy.
Laura (1944 film)
Laura (1944), Otto Preminger's film noir for Twentieth Century-Fox from Vera Caspary's novel, stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and Vincent Price; a detective falls for the woman whose murder he investigates, and she turns up alive.
Le Corbeau
Le Corbeau (The Raven) is Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1943 French thriller about anonymous poison-pen letters in an occupied provincial town, made for German-backed Continental Films, banned after the Liberation, and later recognized as the first classic French film noir.
Le Doulos
Le Doulos, 1962 French-Italian film noir by Jean-Pierre Melville from Pierre Lesou's 1957 novel, starring Belmondo as suspected informer Silien and Reggiani as Faugel; released in France 8 February 1963.
Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag
Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) is Lino Brocka's 1975 Filipino drama, adapted from Edgardo Reyes's novel, about Julio Madiaga searching Manila for Ligaya Paraiso; it swept the 1976 FAMAS Awards and was restored in 2013.
Mississippi Mermaid
Mississippi Mermaid (La Sirène du Mississipi) is François Truffaut's 1969 romantic thriller starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve, adapted from Cornell Woolrich's novel Waltz into Darkness, set on Réunion, a 1969 box office flop reappraised after restoration.
Murder by Contract
Murder by Contract (1958) is an Irving Lerner film noir starring Vince Edwards as hitman Claude, with Perry Botkin's guitar score; a low-budget Columbia B picture that influenced Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
Murder, My Sweet
Murder, My Sweet, aka Farewell, My Lovely, is RKO's 1944 film noir directed by Edward Dmytryk, the first screen appearance of Philip Marlowe, with Dick Powell adapting Chandler's 1940 novel; retitled because Powell was known for musicals.
Niagara (1953 film)
Niagara (1953) is a Henry Hathaway Technicolor film noir from Twentieth Century-Fox, starring Marilyn Monroe in her first top-billed, color role as murderous wife Rose Loomis, with Joseph Cotten and Jean Peters, shot on location at Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Night and the City
Night and the City (1950) is a Jules Dassin film noir starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney, adapted from Gerald Kersh's novel, shot on London locations for Fox, with distinct 95-minute American and 101-minute British cuts and different scores.
Nightmare Alley (1947 film)
Nightmare Alley (1947) is a Twentieth Century-Fox film noir directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Tyrone Power as carnival hustler Stanton Carlisle, adapted from William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel and later remade by Guillermo del Toro in 2021.
Notorious (1946 film)
Notorious is Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 RKO spy thriller starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains, written by Ben Hecht from John Taintor Foote's story. A US agent recruits a traitor's daughter to infiltrate ex-Nazis in Rio de Janeiro storing uranium ore.
Odd Man Out
Odd Man Out: 1947 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, starring James Mason as wounded IRA-style gunman Johnny McQueen hunted through Belfast; adapted from F. L. Green's novel, shot by Robert Krasker, winner of the 1947 British Film Academy Best Film award.