60 Greatest Film Noirs of All Eras

I have trouble stopping at 60 on this list of the 60 Greatest Film Noirs of All Eras. This list contains the top 20 films as I have ranked them from Pre-Noir, Film-Noir, and Neo-Noir lists. I will continue to update the list as more movies are added. Your comments are appreciated.

I wanted to add a definition for Film-Noir, so I went to the great movie critic Roger Ebert.  I have shortened his definitions but included the link below so you can read the complete original.

1. A French term meaning “black film,” or film of the night.

2. Doesn’t mislead you into thinking there will be a happy ending.

3. Locations that reek of the night, of shadows, of alleys, of the back doors of fancy places.

4. Cigarettes. Everybody in Film-Noir is always smoking. The best smoking movie of all time is Out of the Past, in which Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas smoke furiously at each other.

5. Women who would just as soon kill you as love you, and vice versa. This is priceless JEC.

6. For women: low necklines, floppy hats, mascara, lipstick, boudoirs, calling the doorman by his first name, high heels, red dresses, having gangsters as boyfriends, having soft spots for alcoholic private eyes, and sprawling dead on the floor with every limb meticulously arranged and every hair in place.

7. For men: fedoras, suits and ties, shabby residential hotels with a neon sign blinking through the window, buying yourself a drink out of the office bottle, cars with running boards, all-night diners, on first-name terms with homicide cops, knowing a lot of people whose descriptions end in “ies,” such as bookies, newsies, junkies, alkys, jockeys and cabbies.

8. Movies either shot in black and white, or feeling like they were.

9. Relationships in which love is only the final flop card in the poker game of death.

10. The most American film genre because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear, and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic.

Linking	startYear	Comment	MyRank	Noir
The Maltese Falcon (1941)	1941	The best of ALL the Film Noir. Humphrey Bogart is amazing so is everyone else…	1	Classic
Double Indemnity (1944)	1944	Foolish insurance man meets one of the best Femme Fatale in this must see drama...	2	Classic
Sunset Blvd. (1950)	1950	A young man is murdered after he gets involved with a much older actress.	3	Classic
Out of the Past (1947)	1947	The best Femme Fatale ever...	4	Classic
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)	1950	Director John Huston pulls off another Film Noir masterpiece in this gritty heist drama where everything falls apart. Sterling Hayden and Sam Jaffe are amazing. They are supported by James Whitmor	5	Classic
iMDB - Touch of Evil (1958)	1958	Orson Welles directed this masterpieces that starred Charleton Heston as Mexican detective...	6	Classic
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)	1955	One of the greatest and most stylistic Film Noirs ever made. Based on a Mickey Spillane novel, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is a thrilling movie.	7	Classic
The Big Sleep (1946)	1946	Detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by a wealthy client. By the end of the case, there is murder, blackmail, and maybe love…	8	Classic
Murder, My Sweet (1944)	1944	(Aka Farewell, my Lovely). The most noir fun you will ever have. Raymond Chandler prose crackles with moody noir direction from Edward Dmytryk…	9	Classic
iMDB - The Killers (1946)	1946	Burt Lancaster in his file debut is amazing...	10	Classic
D.O.A. (1949)	1949	A "who done it" like you have never seen before…	11	Classic
iMDB - Chinatown (1974)	1974		12	Neo
The Killing (1956)	1956	Sterling Hayden is amazing in the tale of a robbery gone horribly wrong...	13	Classic
Pickup on South Street (1953)	1953	A very good Film Noir with pickpockets, Feds, and Commies…	14	Classic
Nightmare Alley (1947)	1947	One of the greatest, yet subdued, Femme Fatale, she uses greed instead of sex to drive a man to the lowest depths possible at the end of a Gin bottle…	15	Classic
Ace in the Hole (1951)	1951	A savage critique of corrupt mass media. Kirk Douglas is on fire…	16	Classic
Born to Kill (1947)	1947	A really dark Film Noir with a Femme Fatale and a Homme Fatale...	17	Classic
The Narrow Margin (1952)	1952	Set on a train, this is the classic Film Noir featuring Marie Windsor and Charles McGraw	18	Classic
Notorious (1946)	1946	Spies with Carey Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains…	19	Classic
Blood on the Moon (1948)	1948	A rare Film Noir Western with the two leads being Robert Mitchum and Robert Preston. Blood on the Moon (1948) has a great support cast and a good storyline.	20	Classic
The Harder They Fall (1956)	1956	This is a gritty boxing Film Noir without a series Femme Fatale. This movie was Humphrey Bogart last film. Rod Steiger	21	Classic
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)	1947	Disillusioned WW2 vet arrives in a New Mexico town to blackmail a war racketeer. Imbued with a rare humanity...	22	Classic
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)	1941	Set in a Chinesse gambling den, Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Ona Muson, and Walter Huston are amazing…	23	Classic
I Wake Up Screaming (1941)	1941	Early crooked cop psycho-noir. Redolent noir motifs, dark shadows, off-kilter framing and expressionist imagery.	24	Classic
All the King's Men (1949)	1949	Southern politics the real way…	25	Classic
Scarface (1932) / Scarface: The Shame of the Nation	1932	This is a real tense and well made gangster flick. It has a cameo from horror master Boris Karloff, and was heavily copied for Scarface (1983).	26	Early
Brute Force (1947)	1947	Prisoners obsessed with a pin-up tell their tale as they wait to escape. Burt Lancaster leads a fantastic cast with Hume Cronin as a sadistic guard…	27	Classic
iMDB - The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)	1946	Infidelity and murder...	28	Classic
Detour (1945)	1945	66 minutes of pure Film Noir grit and dispare	29	Classic
Key Largo (1948)	1948	Gangsters and a hurricane in the Florida Keys. Plus Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall…	30	Classic
Trapped (1949)	1949	A recently restored Film Noir fearing a very young Lloyd Bridges as a tough criminal and Barbara Payton as his lovely girlfriend. See Trapped (1949)	31	Classic
Cry Danger (1951)	1951	A very sharp Film Noir set in the Bunker Hill area of LA. Cry Danger (1951) features Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Erdman, and Jean Porter	32	Classic
Scarlet Street (1945)	1945	A lonely man and an evil couple...	33	Classic
The Big Combo (1955)	1955	Obsessed cop hunts down a psychotic crime boss...	34	Classic
iMDB - The Lady from Shanghai (1947)	1947	Orson Welles' brilliant jigsaw with a Femme Fatale that is one of the greatest...	35	Classic
Lady in the Lake (1946)	1946	Filmed in POV style. This film standouts because of Audry Totter's acting as a Femme Fatale	36	Classic
iMDB - Reservoir Dogs (1992)	1992		37	Neo
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)	1946	A lustful vixen (Barbara Stanwyck), a dipsomaniac Kirk Douglas in his first film, a tough guy (Van Heflin), and dame (Lizabeth Scott) that had nothing but bad breaks intersect in The Strange Lo	38	Classic
Johnny O'Clock (1947)	1947	In this stylistic Film Noir, Dick Powell is tough and sophisticated, Lee J. Cobb is understated and practical, Ellen Drew is as beautiful as she is bad, Evelyn Keyes is solid, and Thomas Gomez is a	39	Classic
iMDB - Sweet Smell of Success (1957)	1957	Ambition and betrayal stripped of all pretense...	40	Classic
The Big Heat (1953)	1953	A tough cop, played by Glenn Ford takes on a well-connected mob. Gloria Grahame is great in this film…	41	Classic
Shield for Murder (1954)	1954	Crooked cop Detective Lt. Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) murders and robs a bookie so he can start a new life with his girlfriend Patty (Marla English) while cops	42	Classic
Border Incident (1949)	1949	Subversive expressionist noir from Dir Anthony Mann DP John Alton and writer John C Higgin indicts US agribusiness.	43	Classic
The Set-Up (1949)	1949	Robert Ryan is great as washed-up boxer in Robert Wise's sharp expose of the fight game. Brooding and intense Film Noir classic.	44	Classic
Thieves' Highway (1949)	1949	Moody Richard Conte hauling fruit to Frisco. Rich socio-realist melodrama from Jules Dassin and A.I. Bezzerides.	45	Classic
The Phenix City Story (1955)	1955	The entire town is corrupt. Alabama! ...	46	Classic
Dark Passage (1947)	1947	An escaped convict and his helper starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall…	47	Classic
iMDB - Elevator to the Gallows (1958) / Ascenseur pour l'échafaud	1958		48	Classic
Laura (1944)	1944	Gene Tierney is an iridescent angel and Dana Andrews a stolid cop who nails the killer after falling for a dead dame...	49	Classic
iMDB - Niagara (1953)	1953		50	Classic
Mystery Street (1950)	1950	Ricardo Montalban is this Film Noir criminal forensic investigation story…	51	Classic
Blood Money (1933)	1933	Frances Dee plays a kleptomaniac that get between a bail bondsman and his girlfriend. Norish but not a Film Noir.	52	Early
The Yakuza (1974)	1974	A very good Neo-Noir with Film Noir veteran Robet Mitchum and Japanese Noir icon Ken Takakura. Great international crime mash up.	53	Neo
iMDB - The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)	1942		54	Classic
99 River Street (1953)	1953	An ex-boxer falls into a trap and is accused on murder...	55	Classic
iMDB - The Night of the Hunter (1955)	1955	Robert Mitchum is amazing, along with Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish in this Film Noir about a sadistic bluebeard posing as a preacher	56	Classic
Armored Car Robbery (1950)	1950	Granite jawed cop Charles McGraw is in a criminal chess match with criminal William Talman in the Film Noir Armo	57	Classic
The Blue Gardenia (1953)	1953	A woman blacks out while drinking and thinks she may have killed the man that tried to sexually assault her	58	Classic
Human Desire (1954)	1954	A good Film Noir focused around trains and murder. Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Brodrick Crawford at get in this twisted love story...	59	Classic
The Dark Corner (1946)	1946	A solid Film Noir starring the queen of comedy, Lucille Ball, as a hardened big city secretary in The Dark Corner (1946)	60	Classic