141 articles
Motherless Brooklyn
Motherless Brooklyn: Jonathan Lethem's 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award-winning detective novel about Lionel Essrog, a Tourette-affected orphan gumshoe, and Edward Norton's 2019 neo-noir film adaptation, which resets the story to 1950s New York against a Robert Moses-like master builder, Moses Randolph.
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.
Night Train (夜车)
Night Train (夜车, Ye che) is Diao Yinan's 2007 Chinese drama, premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard, starring Liu Dan as a bailiff drawn to the widower of a woman she executed; distinct from Yim Ho's 1980 Hong Kong film The Happenings.
Nightcrawler (film)
Nightcrawler (2014) is Dan Gilroy's directorial debut thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a Los Angeles stringer filming night crime scenes for TV news; Oscar-nominated screenplay, 95% Rotten Tomatoes.
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.
Nightmare Alley (2021 film)
Nightmare Alley (2021) is Guillermo del Toro's noir psychological thriller, co-written with Kim Morgan from William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel, starring Bradley Cooper as carnival mentalist-turned-conman Stanton Carlisle; second adaptation after the 1947 film, Best Picture nominee, 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.
No Habrá Paz para los Malvados
No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked) is Enrique Urbizu's 2011 Spanish noir thriller starring José Coronado as corrupt inspector Santos Trinidad; it won six Goya awards including Best Film.
Nocturnal Animals
Nocturnal Animals (2016) is a thriller directed by Tom Ford, adapted from Austin Wright's novel Tony and Susan, starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal; released by Focus Features November 18, 2016, it won Aaron Taylor-Johnson a Golden Globe.
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.
On the Job
On the Job is a 2013 Philippine neo-noir crime thriller by Erik Matti, premiering at Cannes Directors' Fortnight, about prison hitmen furloughed for political assassinations; extended as On the Job: The Missing 8 (Venice 2021) and an HBO Go series.
One False Move
Directed by Carl Franklin, One False Move (1992) is a highly acclaimed crime drama about three Los Angeles drug dealers who seek refuge in a small Arkansas town.
Ossessione
Ossessione (Obsession), Luchino Visconti's 1943 debut feature, is an unofficial adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice set in the Po Valley, acknowledged as the first Italian neorealist film, censored and destroyed by Fascist authorities but preserved in a hidden negative.
Out of the Past
Out of the Past (1947) is a Jacques Tourneur film noir from RKO starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas, adapted from Daniel Mainwaring's novel Build My Gallows High; a National Film Registry classic remade as Against All Odds.
Phantom Lady
Phantom Lady (1944) is a Universal film noir directed by Robert Siodmak, based on Cornell Woolrich's novel, starring Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, and Alan Curtis; Joan Harrison's first producing credit and Siodmak's first Hollywood noir.
Phoenix (2014 film)
Phoenix (2014) is Christian Petzold's German drama, also known by its original German title Phoenix, in which Nina Hoss plays Auschwitz survivor Nelly Lenz, unrecognized by husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), who asks her to impersonate herself; based on Monteilhet's Le retour des cendres, co-written with Harun Farocki, premiered at Toronto 2014.
Purple Butterfly (パープル・バタフライ)
Purple Butterfly (紫蝴蝶, Zi hudie) is Lou Ye's 2003 China-France romantic spy drama starring Zhang Ziyi, Toru Nakamura, and Liu Ye, set in 1931 occupied Shanghai, in competition at the 56th Cannes Film Festival.
Red Rock West
Red Rock West (1993) is a neo-noir thriller directed by John Dahl, starring Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle, and J.T. Walsh; a drifter mistaken for a hitman in a Wyoming town, released via HBO before a Roxie Theater rescue.
Reminiscence (2021 film)
Reminiscence is a 2021 American science fiction mystery thriller written and directed by Lisa Joy, starring Hugh Jackman as a private investigator who relives clients' memories in a sunken Miami.
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs (1992) is Quentin Tarantino's debut crime thriller about a jewelry heist gone wrong, premiered at Sundance on 21 January 1992, notable for never showing the heist and its ear-cutting torture scene.
Romeo Is Bleeding
Romeo Is Bleeding (1993) is a Peter Medak neo-noir crime film, written by Hilary Henkin, starring Gary Oldman as a corrupt cop and Lena Olin as a Russian hitwoman; it grossed $3.3M and scored 28% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Salón México
Salón México (1949), also known as Salon Mexico, is an Emilio Fernández cabaretera melodrama starring Marga López, with Gabriel Figueroa cinematography, an Ariel for López, and a 1996 remake with María Rojo.
Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street (1945) is Fritz Lang's film noir remake of Renoir's La Chienne, starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea; first Diana Productions film, banned in New York, Atlanta, and Milwaukee, now in the US public domain.
Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor is Samuel Fuller's 1963 psychological thriller, also called Straitjacket or The Long Corridor, in which reporter Johnny Barrett feigns insanity to solve an asylum murder and wins a Pulitzer Prize at the cost of his sanity.
Shoot the Piano Player
Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste) is François Truffaut's 1960 French New Wave neo-noir, adapted from David Goodis's Down There, starring Charles Aznavour as a former concert pianist in a Paris bar.
Shutter Island (film)
Shutter Island is a 2010 Martin Scorsese psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. marshal investigating a 1954 disappearance at a remote island hospital for the criminally insane.
Sorry, Wrong Number
Sorry, Wrong Number is a 1948 Paramount film noir directed by Anatole Litvak, written by Lucille Fletcher from her 1943 Suspense radio play, starring Barbara Stanwyck as an invalid who overhears a murder plot, her own, by phone.