ESSENTIAL FILM NOIR

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1. Double Indemnity (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

95 Metascore

A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr

Votes: 167,433 | Gross: $5.72M

Ukr

2. The Big Sleep (1946)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

86 Metascore

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers

Votes: 90,514 | Gross: $6.54M

Ukr

3. Out of the Past (1947)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming

Votes: 40,903

4. The Third Man (1949)

Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

97 Metascore

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard

Votes: 181,812 | Gross: $0.45M

5. In a Lonely Place (1950)

Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. However, she soon starts to have her doubts.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid

Votes: 35,245

6. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

94 Metascore

A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson

Votes: 236,412

Ukr

7. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

97 Metascore

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre

Votes: 166,559 | Gross: $2.11M

Ukr

8. Detour (1945)

Passed | 66 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald

Votes: 19,703 | Gross: $0.02M

9. Scarlet Street (1945)

Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man in mid-life crisis befriends a young woman, though her fiancé persuades her to con him out of the fortune they mistakenly assume he possesses.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay

Votes: 19,181

10. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.

Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders

Votes: 33,305 | Gross: $0.01M

11. The Woman in the Window (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

When a conservative middle aged professor engages in a relationship with a femme fatale, he's plunged into a nightmarish world of blackmail and murder.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon

Votes: 17,772

12. On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Approved | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir

78 Metascore

Rough city cop Jim Wilson is disciplined by his captain and is sent upstate, to a snowy mountain town, to help the local sheriff solve a murder case.

Directors: Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper

Votes: 8,066

13. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

97 Metascore

A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason

Votes: 97,340 | Gross: $0.65M

14. Touch of Evil (1958)

PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

99 Metascore

A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.

Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia

Votes: 109,795 | Gross: $2.24M

Ukr

15. Strangers on a Train (1951)

PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

88 Metascore

A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll

Votes: 140,992 | Gross: $7.63M

Ukr

16. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

84 Metascore

A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.

Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn

Votes: 22,881 | Gross: $8.33M

17. T-Men (1947)

Approved | 92 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Two US Treasury agents hunt a successful counterfeiting ring.

Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Wallace Ford, Alfred Ryder, Mary Meade

Votes: 3,906

18. Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger

Votes: 14,703

19. Gilda (1946)

Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.

Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia

Votes: 35,264

20. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Passed | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore

Votes: 29,939

Ukr

21. Laura (1944)

Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.

Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

Votes: 51,409 | Gross: $4.36M

Ukr

22. The Big Combo (1955)

Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A police lieutenant is ordered to stop investigating deadly crime boss Mr. Brown because he hasn't been able to get any hard evidence against him. He goes after Brown's girlfriend, who despises him, for information instead.

Director: Joseph H. Lewis | Stars: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy

Votes: 8,619

23. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Not Rated | 106 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A doomed female hitchhiker pulls Mike Hammer into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue, revolving around a mysterious "great whatsit".

Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez

Votes: 22,077

Ukr

24. D.O.A. (1949)

Approved | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Frank Bigelow, told he's been poisoned and has only a few days to live, tries to find out who killed him and why.

Director: Rudolph Maté | Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler, Beverly Garland

Votes: 13,085

25. They Live by Night (1948)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance

82 Metascore

An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen

Votes: 9,354

26. Crossfire (1947)

Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of demobilized soldiers he met in a bar. But which one? And why?

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame

Votes: 9,704 | Gross: $1.30M

27. Fallen Angel (1945)

Approved | 98 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A slick con man arrives in a small town looking to make some money, but soon gets more than he bargained for.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford

Votes: 6,512

28. Pickup on South Street (1953)

Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.

Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye

Votes: 16,149

29. Gun Crazy (1950)

Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

74 Metascore

Two disturbed young people release their fascination with guns through a crime spree.

Director: Joseph H. Lewis | Stars: John Dall, Peggy Cummins, Berry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky

Votes: 14,834

30. Phantom Lady (1944)

Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A devoted secretary risks her life to try to find the elusive woman who may prove her boss didn't murder his selfish wife.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda

Votes: 5,750

31. Force of Evil (1948)

Passed | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

89 Metascore

An unethical lawyer who wants to help his older brother becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.

Director: Abraham Polonsky | Stars: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Beatrice Pearson, Marie Windsor

Votes: 7,665

32. Nightmare Alley (1947)

Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

75 Metascore

The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.

Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker

Votes: 13,413

33. The Big Heat (1953)

Passed | 89 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby

Votes: 29,159

34. The Naked City (1948)

Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

74 Metascore

A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.

Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor

Votes: 15,497

35. The Killing (1956)

Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

91 Metascore

Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen

Votes: 97,483



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