I have trouble stopping at 40 on this Forty Essential Film Noir Classics. I will continue to update the list as more movies are added.
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.
Out of the Past (1947) – Forty Film Noir Classics
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.
Noir Fest
| Rank | Name | Year | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Maltese Falcon | 1941 | The best of ALL the film noir. Humphrey Bogart is amazing so is everyone else... |
| 2 | Double Indemnity Double Indemnity">  | 1944 | Foolish insurance man meets one of the best femme fatale in this must see drama... |
| 3 | The Postman Always Rings Twice | 1946 | Infidelity and murder... |
| 4 | Out of the Past | 1947 | The best femme fatale ever... |
| 5 | Sunset Boulevard | 1950 | ... |
| 6 | The Asphalt Jungle | 1950 | Gritty heist drama as everything falls apart... |
| 7 | The Big Sleep | 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 | Touch of Evil | 1958 | Orson Welles directed this masterpieces that starred Charleton Heston as Mexican detective... |
| 9 | D.O.A. | 1950 | A "who done it" like you have never seen before... |
| 10 | Brute Force | 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... |
| 11 | Ace in the Hole | 1952 | A savage critique of corrupt mass media. Kirk Douglas is on fire... |
| 12 | Crime of Passion | 1957 | Crime of Passion (1957) is a great film noir, focused on the woman played by Barbara Stanwyck. Featuring Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, and Fay Wray... |
| 13 | All the King's Men | 1949 | Southern politics the real way... |
| 14 | Shield for Murder | 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 Sgt. Mark Brewster (John Agar) and Capt. Gunnarson (Emile Meyer) follow the clues. Also, features Carolyn Jones and Claude Akins. Super intense film noir... |
| 15 | The Narrow Margin | 1952 | Set on a train, this is the classic Film Noir featuring Marie Windsor and Charles McGraw |
| 16 | Laura | 1944 | Gene Tierney is an iridescent angel and Dana Andrews a stolid cop who nails the killer after falling for a dead dame... |
| 17 | The Killing | 1956 | Sterling Hayden is amazing in the tale of a robbery gone horribly wrong... |
| 18 | The Killers | 1946 | Burt Lancaster in his file debut is amazing... |
| 19 | Key Largo | 1948 | Gangsters and a hurricane in the Florida Keys. Plus Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall... |
| 20 | Sweet Smell of Success | 1957 | Ambition and betrayal stripped of all pretense... |
| 21 | The Naked City | 1948 | Two New York City detectives investigating a suicide that turns out to be murder... |
| 22 | The Lady From Shanghai | 1947 | Orson Welles’ brilliant jigsaw with a femme fatale that is one of the greatest... |
| 23 | The Big Heat | 1953 | A tough cop, played by Glenn Ford takes on a well-connected mob. Gloria Grahame is great in this film... |
| 24 | Dark Passage | 1947 | An escaped convict and his helper starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall... |
| 25 | The Big Combo | 1955 | Obsessed cop hunts down a psychotic crime boss... |
| 26 | The Stranger | 1946 | Orson Welles directs and stars as a War Crimes Commission investigator travels to New England in search of Nazis. t to find an infamous Nazi... |
| 27 | Fallen Angel | 1945 | Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, and John Carridine... |
| 28 | I Want to Live! | 1958 | I Want to Live! (1958) is a gritty film noir that focuses on the femme side of the story. Susan Hayward is amazing as the condemned woman... |
| 29 | 99 River Street | 1953 | An ex-boxer falls into a trap and is accused on murder... |
| 30 | Requiem For A Heavyweight | 1962 | A washed-up boxer... |
| 31 | The Set-Up | 1949 | Robert Ryan is great as washed-up boxer in Robert Wise’ sharp expose of the fight game. Brooding and intense noir classic.. |
| 32 | The Harder They Fall | 1956 | This is a gritty boxing Film-Noir without a series femme fatale. This movie was Humphrey Bogart last film. Rod Steiger led a vicious crew of gangsters. Real boxers rounded out the crew. Mark Robson directed this tale of corruption and betrayal in the sweet science... |
| 33 | The Blue Gardenia | 1953 | US |
| 35 | The Prowler | 1951 | Van Heflin is homme-fatale in Trumbo thriller. Director Losey is unforgiving. Each squalid act is suffocatingly framed. |
| 36 | Gilda | 1946 | A small-time hood goes to work in a casino only to find his new boss is married to his ex-lover... |
| 37 | The Phenix City Story | 1955 | The entire town is corrupt. Alabama! ... |
| 38 | High Sierra | 1941 | A thief, after being released from prison, is hired by his old boss to learn an inept group in the robbery of a mountain resort... |
| 39 | Caged | 1950 | This film has a great female cast. Set in a woman's prison this film has a very dark ending... |
| 40 | White Heat | 1949 | Cagney plays a psychopathic con with a mother complex trying to break out of prison to rejoin his old gang. The ending goes off with a bang... |
| 41 | In A Lonely Place | 1950 | Nick Ray deftly explores effect of isolation, frustration, and anxiety on the creative psyche as noir entrapment... |
| 42 | Dead Reckoning | 1947 | A soldier flees rather than receive the Medal of Honor, his war buddy, played by Humphrey Bogart goes to his buddy's hometown where love and murder follow... |
Forty Essential Film Noir Classics
Lorre and Greenstreet
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