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- The Lady from Shanghai (1948) Orson Welles was given the chance to direct again after his falling out at RKO and he produced The Stranger (1946), a solid film noir that starred Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young.
- Laura (1944) Of all the women of film noir, Gene Tierney was perhaps the most alluring, and the 1944 film Laura, directed by Otto Preminger, is a great vehicle for her talents.
- Mildred Pierce (1945) Warner Brothers, with its emphasis on crime and social problem films, was one of the earliest and most successful studios to make noir films.
- The Woman in the Window (1944) Many characters in film noir based their actions on deeply seeded psychological motivations, and nowhere is this more evident than in The Woman in the Window, directed by German emigre Fritz Lang, who made a number of classic films in Germany (such as Metropolis and M) before fleeing Hitler.
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2 days ago · For the sake of this list, we’ve highlighted the top-reviewed films from the classic film noir era, roughly defined as starting in 1940 and ending in 1959. On this list you’ll find some of...
- 15 Nightmare Alley
- 14 Kiss Me, Deadly
- 13 Out of The Past
- 12 Sweet Smell of Success
- 11 The Big Sleep
- 10 Touch of Evil
- 9 Double Indemnity
- 8 The Night of The Hunter
- 7 The Maltese Falcon
- 6 The Killing
Nightmare Alleyis the circus noir movie that inspired the recent Guillermo Del Toro film of the same name. Tyrone Power stars as Stan, a con man who is part of a circus and wants to learn from Mademoiselle Zeena’s "mental powers". After killing her husband (maybe involuntarily), Stan leaves with his lover and goes to Chicago to start his own scheme...
A tough private eye named Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up an almost naked mysterious hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman in one of her first roles ever). When she ends up dead, and he ends up in the hospital after some bad guys get to them, Hammer decides to solve the mystery. That’s the start of Kiss Me, Deadly,one of the weirdest noir movies as what ...
Out of the Pastis as exemplary noir film as they come. Robert Mitchum plays the tough detective, that drinks too much and gives voice-over exposition and whose past comes to get him one last time. Kirk Douglas plays the mobster who knows all his secrets and makes him get dirtier, and Jane Greer plays the femme fatale. The movie is dark, sad, violen...
Taking the realm of noir and moving it to the world of journalism to show how the game can be played by dirty, seedy men without morals was a fascinating ride. With a towering Burt Lancaster performance as the man behind the curtain, calling the shots, and a desperate Tony Curtis battling it out to move up in the world, The Sweet Smell of Successis...
The Big Sleep is one of the best Raymond Chandler books and one of his best adaptations, as Humphrey Bogart becomes Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall is the femme fatale. As with many Chandler stories, the mystery resolution is the least important part. Howard Hawkes’ direction, the incredible Chandler dialogue, and the absolutely incredible chemist...
Touch of Evil was one of the last classical film noirs ever made as the genre concluded in 1959. It was also one the best possible ways to end the genre as the film has all the characteristics of a great noir film with some modern touches by director Orson Welles. The film is still known as one of the best movie beginnings ever, with a unique three...
One of Billy Wilder’s strongest assets as a director is his ability to find bursts of comic joy and playfulness amidst films ripe with cynicism. Double Indemnityisn’t just a mysterious noir with a multilayered plot scheme that at times confuses its audience. It's also an anti-capitalist dig and the dangers of getting lost in your work. With a stack...
The multi-faceted, layered, and haunting noir from Charles Laughton was much maligned by critics upon its release but, in recent years it has come back to retain its status as a seminal work from the longtime actor whose only chance to direct was The Night of The Hunter. Dark for its subject matter at the time, Robert Mitchum plays the killer preac...
The reliable cool of Humphrey Bogart is itself, a staple of noir. In John Huston’s powerful debut as a filmmaker, he directed one of the greatest noir mysteries of all time, The Maltese Falcon. Packed with eloquently hard-boiled dialogue where no line is spared, slowly moving the tightly wound and mysterious plot with double-crosses and murders abo...
The lone noir in Stanley Kubrick’s historic filmography is a slaughterhouse of nihilism where every player is liable to kill or be killed. With a steely Sterling Hayden in the center, he rallies a troop of desperate criminals to perform a daring heist at the horse track. Kubrick opts for an approach only he would take, by focusing on the build-up b...
May 13, 2024 · A list of the Best 1940s Film Noirs by Year. This post is all about the Best 1940s Film Noir Movies by Year. What is a Film noir? For other film noir lovers out there, you know it's hard to exactly describe or define what makes a movie a film noir.
- I Wake Up Screaming (1941) There are two true reasons to watch this melodrama that functions as an early example of noir. Carole Landis plays an opportunistic femme fatale looking to turn her beguiling good looks into a lucrative career.
- Phantom Lady (1944) Here we have what might be one of the first great female-driven noir, with intrepid working girl Ella Raines quickly becoming the driving force behind the film.
- Hangover Square (1945) It would be just as easy to pick The Lodger, a nominally similar picture also boasting a standout Laird Cregar performance and directed by John Brahm.
- Fallen Angel (1945) So we just talked about Linda Darnell, and she’s back again up to her old tantalizing tricks, this time joining forces with a fast-talking schemer (Dana Andrews) who soon gets an entire town eating out of his hand.
Nov 22, 2017 · The movies borrowed angular lighting effects from 1920s German films and a poetic gloominess from 1930s French films, wrapping it all up in tantalising packages of grit, glamour and cynicism. Here’s one key film from each of the influential cycle’s peak years.
Jun 17, 2022 · The classic noir era is considered to span from the early 1940s to the end of the 1950s and its parameters were infinite, hence the inclusion of a couple of debatable entries in this list of the 20...
